Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey

by Robert Southey

Well will it be for them to know no worse.

  Yet I had rather hear a daughter’s knell

  Than her wedding-peal, Sir, if I thought her fate

  Promised no better things.

  TRAVELLER.

  Sure, sure, good woman,

  You look upon the world with jaundiced eyes!

  All have their cares; those who are poor want wealth,

  They who have wealth want more; so are we all

  Dissatisfied, yet all live on, and each

  Has his own comforts.

  WOMAN.

  Sir! d’ye see that horse

  Turn’d out to common here by the way-side?

  He’s high in bone, you may tell every rib

  Even at this distance. Mind him! how he turns

  His head, to drive away the flies that feed

  On his gall’d shoulder! There’s just grass enough

  To disappoint his whetted appetite.

  You see his comforts, Sir!

  TRAVELLER.

  A wretched beast!

  Hard labour and worse usage he endures

  From some bad master. But the lot of the poor

  Is not like his.

  WOMAN.

  In truth it is not, Sir!

  For when the horse lies down at night, no cares

  About to-morrow vex him in his dreams:

  He knows no quarter-day, and when he gets

  Some musty hay or patch of hedge-row grass,

  He has no hungry children to claim part

  Of his half meal!

  TRAVELLER.

  ’Tis idleness makes want,

  And idle habits. If the man will go

  And spend his evenings by the alehouse fire,

  Whom can he blame if there be want at home?

  WOMAN.

  Aye! idleness! the rich folks never fail

  To find some reason why the poor deserve

  Their miseries!.. Is it idleness, I pray you,

  That brings the fever or the ague fit?

  That makes the sick one’s sickly appetite

  From dry bread and potatoes turn away?

  Is it idleness that makes small wages fail

  For growing wants?.. Six years agone, these bells

  Rung on my wedding-day, and I was told

  What I might look for,.. but I did not heed

  Good counsel. I had lived in service, Sir;

  Knew never what it was to want a meal;

  Lay down without one thought to keep me sleepless

  Or trouble me in sleep; had for a Sunday

  My linen gown, and when the pedlar came

  Could buy me a new ribbon... And my husband,..

  A towardly young man and well to do,..

  He had his silver buckles and his watch;

  There was not in the village one who look’d

  Sprucer on holidays. We married, Sir,

  And we had children, but while wants increased

  Wages stood still. The silver buckles went,

  So went the watch; and when the holiday coat

  Was worn to work, no new one in its place.

  For me.. you see my rags! but I deserve them,

  For wilfully, like this new-married pair,

  I went to my undoing.

  TRAVELLER.

  But the parish...

  WOMAN.

  Aye, it falls heavy there; and yet their pittance

  Just serves to keep life in. A blessed prospect,

  To slave while there is strength, in age the workhouse,

  A parish shell at last, and the little bell

  Toll’d hastily for a pauper’s funeral!

  TRAVELLER.

  Is this your child?

  WOMAN.

  Aye, Sir; and were he drest

  And clean’d, he’d be as fine a boy to look on

  As the Squire’s young master. These thin rags of his

  Let comfortably in the summer wind;

  But when the winter comes, it pinches me

  To see the little wretch; I’ve three besides;

  And,.. God forgive me! but I often wish

  To see them in their coffins... God reward you!

  God bless you for your charity!

  TRAVELLER.

  You have taught me

  To give sad meaning to the village bells!

  THE ALDERMAN’S FUNERAL

  STRANGER.

  Whom are they ushering from the world, with all

  This pageantry and long parade of death?

  TOWNSMAN.

  A long parade, indeed Sir; and yet here

  You see but half; round yonder bend it reaches

  A furlong farther, carriage behind carriage.

  STRANGER.

  ’Tis but a mournful sight, and yet the pomp

  Tempts me to stand a gazer.

  TOWNSMAN.

  Yonder schoolboy,

  Who plays the truant, says, the proclamation

  Of peace was nothing to the show, and even

  The chairing of the members at election

  Would not have been a finer sight than this;

  Only that red and green are prettier colours

  Than all this mourning. There, Sir, you behold

  One of the red-gown’d worthies of the city,

  The envy and the boast of our exchange,

  Aye, what was worth, last week, a good half-million,

  Screw’d down in yonder hearse.

  STRANGER.

  Then he was born

  Under a lucky planet, who to-day

  Puts mourning on for his inheritance.

  TOWNSMAN.

  When first I heard his death, that very wish

  Leapt to my lips; but now the closing scene

  Of the comedy hath wakened wiser thoughts;

  And I bless God, that when I go to the grave,

  There will not be the weight of wealth like his

  To sink me down.

  STRANGER.

  The camel and the needle, —

  Is that then in your mind?

  TOWNSMAN.

  Even so. The text

  Is Gospel wisdom. I wou’d ride the camel —

  Yea leap him flying, through the needle’s eye,

  As easily as such a pampered soul

  Could pass the narrow gate.

  STRANGER.

  Your pardon, Sir.

  But sure this lack of christian charity

  Looks not like christian truth.

  TOWNSMAN.

  Your pardon too, Sir,

  If, with this text before me, I should feel

  In the preaching mood! But for these barren fig-trees,

  With all their flourish and their leafiness.

  We have been told their destiny and use,

  When the axe is laid unto the root, and they

  Cumber the earth no longer.

  STRANGER.

  Was his wealth

  Stored fraudfully, the spoil of orphans wrong’d,

  And widows who had none to plead their right?

  TOWNSMAN.

  All honest, open, honourable gains,

  Fair legal interest, bonds and mortgages,

  Ships to the East and West.

  STRANGER.

  Why judge you then

  So hardly of the dead?

  TOWNSMAN.

  For what he left

  Undone; — for sins, not one of which is mention’d

  In the Ten Commandments. He, I warrant him,

  Believ’d no other Gods than those of the Creed:

  Bow’d to no idols — but his money-bags:

  Swore no false oaths, except at the custom-house:

  Kept the Sabbath idle: built a monument

  To honour his dead father: did no murder:

  Was too old-fashioned for adultery:

  Never pick’d pockets: never bore false-witness:

  And never, with that all-commanding wealth,

  Coveted his neighbour’s house, nor ox, n
or ass.

  STRANGER.

  You knew him, then, it seems.

  TOWNSMAN.

  As all men know

  The virtues of your hundred-thousanders;

  They never bide their lights beneath a bushel.

  STRANGER.

  Nay, nay, uncharitable Sir! for often

  Doth bounty like a streamlet flow unseen,

  Freshening and giving life along its source.

  TOWNSMAN.

  We track the streamlet by the brighter green

  And livelier growth it gives: — but as for this —

  This was a pool that stagnated and stunk;

  The rains of Heaven engender’d nothing in it

  But slime and foul corruption.

  STRANGER.

  Yet even these

  Are reservoirs whence public charity

  Still keeps her channels full.

  TOWNSMAN.

  Now, Sir, you touch

  Upon the point. This man of half a million

  Had all these public virtues which you praise:

  But the poor man rung never at his door;

  And the old beggar, at the public gate,

  Who, all the summer long, stands, hat in hand,

  He knew how vain it was to lift an eye

  To that hard face. Yet he was always found

  Among your ten and twenty pound subscribers,

  Your benefactors in the news-papers.

  His alms were money put to interest

  In the other world, — donations to keep open

  A running charity-account with heaven: —

  Retaining fees against the last assizes,

  When, for the trusted talents, strict account

  Shall be required from all, and the old Arch-Lawyer

  Plead his own cause as plaintiff.

  STRANGER.

  I must needs

  Believe you, Sir: — these are your witnesses,

  These mourners here, who from their carriages

  Gape at the gaping crowd. A good March wind

  Were to be pray’d for now, to lend their eyes

  Some decent rheum. The very hireling mute

  Rears not a face blanker of all emotion

  Than the old servant of the family!

  How can this man have liv’d, that thus his death

  Costs not the soiling one white handkerchief!

  TOWNSMAN.

  Who should lament for him, Sir, in whose heart

  Love had no place, nor natural charity?

  The parlour spaniel, when she heard his step,

  Rose slowly from the hearth, and stole aside

  With creeping pace; she never rais’d her eyes

  To woo kind words from him, nor laid her head

  Uprais’d upon his knee, with fondling whine.

  How could it be but thus! Arithmetick

  Was the sole science he was ever taught.

  The multiplication-table was his Creed,

  His Pater-noster, and his Decalogue.

  When yet he was a boy, and should have breath’d

  The open air and sun-shine of the fields,

  To give his blood its natural spring and play,

  He in a close and dusky counting-house,

  Smoke-dried and sear’d and shrivel’d up his heart.

  So, from the way in which he was train’d up,

  His feet departed not; he toil’d and moil’d,

  Poor muckworm! through his three-score years and ten,

  And when the earth shall now be shovell’d on him,

  If that which serv’d him for a soul were still

  Within its husk, ’twould still be dirt to dirt.

  STRANGER.

  Yet your next news-papers will blazon him

  For industry and honourable wealth

  A bright example.

  TOWNSMAN.

  Even half a million

  Gets him no other praise. But come this way

  Some twelve-months hence, and you will find his virtues

  Trimly set forth in lapidary lines,

  Faith, with her torch beside, and little Cupids

  Dropping upon his urn their marble tears.

  NONDESCRIPTS

  CONTENTS

  WRITTEN THE WINTER AFTER THE INSTALLATION AT OXFORD. 1793.

  SNUFF.

  COOL REFLECTIONS DURING A MIDSUMMER WALK FROM WARMINSTER TO SHAFTESBURY. 1799.

  THE PIG.

  THE DANCING BEAR.

  THE FILBERT.

  THE CATARACT OF LODORE.

  ROBERT THE RHYMER’S TRUE AND PARTICULAR ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF.

  WRITTEN THE WINTER AFTER THE INSTALLATION AT OXFORD. 1793.

  TOLL on, toll on, old Bell! I’ll neither pass

  The cold and weary hour in heartless rites,

  Nor doze away the time. The fire burns bright;

  And, bless the maker of this Windsor-Chair!

  (Of polish’d cherry, elbow’d, saddle-seated,)

  This is the throne of comfort. I will sit

  And study here devoutly; — not my Euclid, —

  For Heaven forbid that I should discompose

  That Spider’s excellent geometry!

  I’ll study thee, Puss! Not to make a picture;

  I hate your canvass eats, and dogs, and fools,

  Themes that disgrace the pencil. Thou shalt give

  A moral subject, Puss. Come, look at me; —

  Lift up thine emerald eyes! Ay, purr away!

  For I am praising thee, I tell thee, Puss,

  And Cats as well as Kings like flattery.

  For three whole days I heard an old Fur-gown

  Bepraised, that made a Duke a Chancellor;

  Bepraised in prose it was, bepraised in verse;

  Lauded in pious Latin to the skies;

  Kudos’d egregiously in heathen Greek;

  In sapphics sweetly incensed; glorified

  In proud alcaics; in hexameters

  Applauded to the very Galleries,

  That did applaud again, whose thunder-claps,

  Higher and longer, with redoubling peals,

  Rung when they heard the illustrious furbelow’d

  Heroically in Popean rhyme

  Tee-ti-tum’d, in Miltonie blank bemouth’d;

  Prose, verse, Greek, Latin, English, rhyme and blank,

  Apotheosi-chaneellor’d in all,

  Till Eulogy, with all her wealth of words,

  Grew bankrupt, all-too-prodigal of praise,

  And panting Panegyrie toil’d in vain,

  O’er-task’d in keeping pace with such desert.

  Though I can poetize right willingly,

  Puss, on thy well-streak’d coat, to that Fur-gown

  I was not guilty of a single line:

  ’Twas an old furbelow, that would hang loose,

  And wrap round any one, as it were made

  To fit him only, so it were but tied

  With a blue ribbon.

  What a power there is

  In beauty! Within these forbidden walls

  Thou hast thy range at will, and when perchance

  The Fellows see thee, Puss, they overlook

  Inhibitory laws, or haply think

  The statute was not made for Cats like thee;

  For thou art beautiful as ever Cat

  That wantoned in the joy of kittenhood.

  Ay, stretch thy claws, thou democratic beast, —

  I like thine independence. Treat thee well,

  Thou art as playful as young Innocence;

  But if we act the governor, and break

  The social compact, Nature gave those claws,

  And taught thee how to use them. Man, methinks,

  Master and slave alike, might learn from thee

  A salutary lesson: but the one

  Abuses wickedly his power unjust;

  The other crouches, spaniel-like, and licks

  The hand that strikes him. Wiser animal,

  I look
at thee, familiarized, yet free;

  And, thinking that a child with gentle hand

  Leads by a string the large-limb’d Elephant,

  With mingled indignation and contempt

  Behold his drivers goad the biped beast

  SNUFF.

  A DELICATE pinch! oh, how it tingles up

  The titillated nose, and fills the eyes

  And breast, till in one comfortable sneeze

  The full-collected pleasure bursts at last!

  Most rare Columbus! thou shalt be for this

  The only Christopher in my Calendar.

  Why, but for thee the uses of the Nose

  Were half unknown, and its capacity

  Of joy. The summer gale that from the heath,

  At midnoon glowing with the golden gorse,

  Bears its balsamic odor, but provokes,

  Not satisfies the sense; and all the flowers,

  That with their unsubstantial fragrance tempt

  And disappoint, bloom for so short a space,

  That half the year the Nostrils would keep Lent,

  But that the kind tobacconist admits

  No winter in his work; when Nature sleeps,

  His wheels roll on, and still administer

  A plenitude of joy, a tangible smell.

  What are Peru and those Golcondan mines

  To thee, Virginia? Miserable realms,

  The produce of inhuman toil, they send

  Gold for the greedy, jewels for the vain.

  But thine are common comforts! — To omit

  Pipe-panegyric and tobacco-praise,

  Think what the general joy the snuff-box gives,

  Europe, and far above Pizarro’s name

  Write Raleigh in thy records of renown!

  Him let the school-boy bless if he behold

  His master’s box produced; for when he sees

  The thumb and finger of Authority

  Stuff d up the nostrils; when hat, head, and wig

  Shake all; when on the waistcoat black, brown dust,

  From the oft-reiterated pinch profuse

  Profusely scattered, lodges in its folds,

  And part on the magistral table lights,

  Part on the open book, soon blown away, —

  Full surely soon shall then the brow severe