And dreamt I might inhale thy spirit,
Thro' silence and my loved cigars!
While to the gorgeous tide that rushed
To Pleasure charioted below,
Shook the lone chamber-lone and hushed--
Where cast the wizard lamp its glow
Some time o'er such high theme of thought,
As that to Earth by Wisdom taught;
Or, some time, when in dreamy mood,
I watch the dim thought glide
Thro' the shut spirit's solitude,
In a lazy and mote-like tide.
O nights! O solitudes!—what deep Delight, and pure, were drank from you! Ne'er from my Boyhood's golden sleep, Such dreams of glory grew!
If I could pour what I have felt,
O Knowledge, with its burning prayer, When to thy shrine my heart hath knelt ;-If I could to the world declare,
One tithe of that which hath the power
To fill with speech my lonely hour;
One whisper of the wondrous voices,
In which the unwitness'd soul rejoices ;-
Oh, if,
But fated in their birth,
The first born of our feelings perish;
And later thoughts that cling to earth,
Our earthly natures only cherish. And if at times within the breast,
The Unseen Habitant is stirr'd,
And chafes against its narrow rest
Like some imprisoned bird;
Back to its sullen home, represt,
We curb too well the pining guest ;
Until, all reconciled and tamed,
It loves the bars which fate hath framed ;
Yea! in the very face of day
Content with customed slavery, sings,
And, calm'd within its cage of clay,
Forgets its skies and folds its wings.
"Tis night! and thro' the streets is going
The worthy Hodges, homeward bent,
Not overmuch, I fear me, knowing
His own most rational intent.
He had been joining, you must know,
A public feast at Cuff's* and Co.;
And--mixing politics with mirth---
Spouting at large on English worth;
But speaking when conjoined with drinking,
Confuses, while it shows, one's thinking.
The way was long to his abode,
Nor sought he out the shortest road.
See! how he's rolling
Now, to and fro,
Fitfully trolling
A ballad or so.
Such as drop out of the lip of good fellows,
When those windfalls of wisdom, wine suddenly mellows. ""Tis glorious to sing dithyrambics divine,
"When the spirit is struck with the lightning of wine," So Archilochus cried when good drink was a deus, (Ah! those antients were jolly dogs,) see Athenæus.
By Bond-street blundering, mark him now---
He stops-looks up the street-a row!
A row, by martyr'd Charles, the cherished
Patron of nightly Charlies perished;
The first great Charlie, who'd the noûs
To guard the street--but rob the house;
Who rattled with the louder zeal,
The more his own dark schemes were hatching;
And helped the cunning rogue !—-to steal
The goods he claimed his pay for watching.
A row-a row!-run, Hodges, run,
To patriots, fighting's always fun!
He runs he jumps-he scours--he flies!
"Britons! what odds are these?" he cries,
As dim and distant he can yet view,
'Gainst one or two, a desperate set-to.
Oh, haste! oh, haste! you cannot guess
Whose woes, whose wrongs, you may
redress;
Perchance, much greater were your pucker,
would succour.
forebode whom
you
False fate-you moral Delilah,
Thank heaven, we all know what you are!
And now just see, you spiteful kitten,
The way you served our worthy Briton !
*From right to left, not quite bereft
Of all sense of the perpendicular,
His path he takes: he nears the row—
He sees the watchman's garb-and now
Their words grow plain, and more auricular.
Oh! is he yet in time to save?
His feet the kennel's waters lave!
Another stride-alas! 'tis vain!
Reel nerve and heart-reel sight and brain!
And where the mire the thickest lodges,
Oh! heaven procumbit humi Hodges!
From right to left, his path he cleft," &c.
The Bride of Abydos.
Gone is the bustle, reader, where
The Muse may by-and-bye declare !
Gone is the the bustle-still and quiet,
Time's courier hours perform his fiat;
And Hodges sighs-he stirs-he sneezes-
The act his memory somewhat eases !
Nought like a sneeze to fillip sense,
When sleep steals o'er us, God knows whence;
So, if our history hath not fixt your
Vigilance-N. B. get your mixture.
Well, Hodges wakes-stirs-shakes his ears,
And up he staggers!
He stands and thinks; the dim past rushes
Into his mind ;-I hope he blushes!
And with a trembling hand he brushes
The dirt that to his garb adheres ;
And then away-briskly the patriot swaggers.
Your wine, i' faith's a wond'rous prober
Into the cranium's real powers ;
Some are two days in getting sober—
Some sound as ever in two hours.
Hodges was of the latter species;-
Placebit repetita decies!
And now he's at his own house-door--
He knocks not, for he has a key;
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