[N.B. Byp, for by purchase, and Nop, for no purchase, are the common official abbreviations in all returns of promotions, and ring the changes through long columns of Parliamentary papers.]
QUOTH Byp to Nop, “I made my hop
By paying for promotion —
Quoth Nop to Byp, “I made my skip
By aid of petticoatian.”
Quoth Nop to Byp, “You’ll never trip
Ascending steps of Gold by —
Quoth Byp to Nop, “You’ll never drop
With such a tail to hold by.”
THE LEGEND OF MANOR HALL.
[Published in 1861 (Bentley’s Ballads)].
OLD Farmer Wall, of Manor Hall,
To market drove his wain:
Along the road it went well stowed
With sacks of golden grain.
His station he took, but in vain did he look
For a customer all the mom,
Though the farmers all, save Farmer Wall,
They sold off all their com.
Then home he went, sore discontent,
And many an oath he swore,
And he kicked up rows with his children and spouse,
When they met him at the door.
Next market-day, he drove away
To the town his loaded wain:
The farmers all, save Farmer Wall,
They sold off all their grain.
No bidder he found, and he stood astound
At the close of the market-day,
When the market was done, and the chapmen were gone,
Each man his several way.
He stalked by his load, along the road;
His face with wrath was red:
His arms he tossed, like a goodman crossed
In seeking his daily bread.
His face was red, and fierce was his tread,
And with lusty voice cried he:
“My com I’ll sell to the devil of hell,
If he’ll my chapman be.”
These words he spoke, just under an oak,
Seven hundred winters old;
And he straight was aware of a man sitting there,
On the roots and grassy mould.
The roots rose high, o’er the greensward dry,
And the grass around was green, —
Save just the space of the stranger’s place,
Where it seemed as fire had been.
All scorched was the spot, as gypsy pot
Had swung and bubbled there:
The grass was marred, the roots were charred,
And the ivy stems were bare.
The stranger up sprung: to the farmer he flung
A loud and friendly hail,
And he said, “I see well, thou hast corn to sell,
And I’ll buy it on the nail.”
The twain in a trice agreed on the price;
The stranger his earnest paid,
And with horses and wain, to come for the grain,.
His own appointment made.
The farmer cracked his whip, and tracked
His way right merrily on:
He struck up a song, as he trudged along,
For joy that his job was done.
His children fair he danced in the air;
His heart with joy was big;
He kissed his wife; he seized a knife;
He slew a sucking-pig.
The faggots burned, the porkling turned
And crackled before the fire;
And an odour arose, that was sweet in the nose
Of a passing ghostly friar.
He tirled at the pin, he entered in,
He sate down at the board;
The pig he blessed, when he saw it well dressed,.
And the humming ale outpoured.
The friar laughed, the friar quaffed,
He chirped like a bird in May;
The farmer told, how his com he had sold,
As he journeyed home that day.
The friar he quaffed, but no longer he laughed,
He changed from red to pale:
“Oh, hapless elf! ’tis the fiend himself,
To whom thou hast made thy sale.”
The friar he quaffed, he took a deep draught;
He crossed himself amain;
“Oh, slave of pelf, ’tis the devil himself,
To whom thou hast sold thy grain!
“And, sure as the day, he’ll fetch thee away,
With the com which thou hast sold,
If thou let him pay o’er one tester more
Than thy settled price in gold.”
The farmer gave vent to a loud lament,
The wife to a long outcry;
Their relish for pig and ale was flown;
The friar alone picked every bone,
And drained the flagon dry.
The friar was gone: the morning dawn
Appeared, and the stranger’s wain
Came to the hour, with six-horse power,
To fetch the purchased grain.
The horses were black: on their dewy track,
Light steam from the ground up-curled;
Long wreaths of smoke from their nostrils broke,
And their tails like torches whirled.
More dark and grim, in face and limb,
Seemed the stranger than before,
As his empty wain, with steeds thrice twain,
Drew up to the farmer’s door.
On the stranger’s face was a sly grimace,
As he seized the sacks of grain,
And, one by one, till left were none,
He tossed them on the wain.
And slyly he leered, as his hand upreared
A purse of costly mould,
Where bright and fresh, through a silver mesh,
Shone forth the glistering gold.
The farmer held out his right hand stout,
And drew it back with dread;
For in fancy he heard each warning word
The supping friar had said.
His eye was set on the silver net;
His thoughts were in fearful strife;
When, sudden as fete, the glittering bait
Was snatched by his loving wife.
And, swift as thought, the stranger caught
The fermer his waist around,
And at once the twain, and the loaded wain,
Sank through the rifted ground.
The gable-end wall of Manor Hall
Fell in ruins on the place;
That stone-heap old the tale has told
To each succeeding race.
The wife gave a cry that rent the sky,
At her good man’s downward flight;
But she held the purse fast, and a glance she cast
To see that all was right.
’Twas the fiend’s full pay for her goodman gray,
And the gold was good and true;
Which made her declare that “his dealings were fair,
To give the devil his due.”
She wore the black pall for Farmer Wall,
From her fond embraces riven:
But she won the vows of a younger spouse,
With the gold which the fiend had given.
Now, farmers beware, what oaths you swear,
When you cannot sell your com;
Lest to bid and buy, a stranger be nigh,
With hidden tail and horn.
And with good heed, the moral a-read,
Which is of this tale the pith,
If your com you sell to the fiend of hell,
You may sell yourself therewith.
And if by mishap, you fall in the trap, —
Would you bring the fiend to shame,
Lest the tempting prize should dazzle her eyes,
Lock up your frugal dame.
NEWARK ABBEY, ON THE WEY, NEAR CHERTSEY, SURREY.
[Written in 1842: with a reminiscence of August, 1807; Published in Fraser in 1860.]
&n
bsp; I GAZE where August’s sunbeam falls
Along these gray and lonely walls,
Till in its light absorbed appears
The lapse of five-and-thirty years.
If change there be, I trace it not
In all this consecrated spot:
No new imprint of Ruin’s march
On roofless wall and frameless arch:
The woods, the hills, the fields, the stream,
Are basking in the selfsame beam:
The fall, that turns the unseen mill,
As then it murmured, murmurs still
It seems as if in one were cast
The present and the imaged past;
Spanning, as with a bridge sublime,
That fearful lapse of human time;,
That gulf, unfathomably spread
Between the living and the dead.
For all too well my spirit feels
The only change this scene reveals.
The sunbeams play, the breezes stir,
Unseen, unfelt, unheard by her,
Who, on that long-past August day,
Beheld with me these ruins gray.
Whatever span the fates allow,
Ere I shall be as she is now,
Still, in my bosom’s inmost cell,
Shall that deep-treasured memory dwell;
That, more than language can express,
Pure miracle of loveliness,
Whose voice so sweet, whose eyes so bright,
Were my soul’s music, and its light,
In those blest days when life was new,
And hope was false, but love was true.
LINES ON THE DEATH OF JULIA, LORD BROUGHTON’S ELDEST DAUGHTER, 1849.
ACCEPT, bright Spirit, reft in life’s best bloom,
This votive wreath to thy untimely tomb,
Formed to adorn all scenes, and charm in all,
The fire-side circle and the courtly hall;
Thy friends to gladden, and thy home to bless;
Fair form thou hadst, and grace, and graciousness;
A mind that sought, a tongue that spoke, the truth,
And thought matured beneath the smile of youth.
Dear, dear young friend, ingenuous, cordial heart!
And can it be that thou shouldst first depart?
That age should sorrow o’er thy youthful shrine?
It owns more near, more sacred griefs, than mine,
Yet, ‘midst the many who thy loss deplore,
Few loved thee better, and few mourn thee more.
A WHITEBAIT DINNER AT LOVEGROVE’S AT BLACKWALL, JULY, 1851.
SEDEBAMUS quidem per totumdiem, usque ad solem occidentem,.
Tempestate utique æstiva, quum furebat Canicula Stella,
Apud Mgrum Murum, Thamesæ ad ipsas ripas,
Ædibus Nemoramantis, mensas qui bene instraverat,
Epulantes optimos maris pisces et flumenis,
Percusque, mullosque, atque anguillas, salarasque,
Et albam escam, jucundæ dapis summum decus:
His et insuper, fercula multa carnium et pinguedinem cervi,
Cotumices et in fine, glaciesque eximiis-frugibus-inclytas:
Bibentesque vinum, Champægnii quod tulerunt agri,
Vel Rheni scopuli, vel insularum divina, Madeira.
Quando autem sol occidit, et crepusculum advenit,
Turn denique pedibus-insistentes, quicumque pedibus-insistere poteramus,
Libantesque Maras chœnum Baccho-Erementi et Mercurio,
Domum festinantes, magnam rediimus in urbem,
Curribus vaporiferis, ferreaque via.
FISH FEAST.
ALL day we sat, until the sun went down —
’Twas summer, and the Dog-star scorched the town —
At fam’d Blackwall, O Thames! upon thy shore,
Where Lovegrove’s tables groan beneath their store
We feasted full on every famous dish,
Dress’d many ways, of sea and river fish —
Perch, mullet, eels, and salmon, all were there,
And whitebait, daintiest of our fishy fare;
Then meat of many kinds, and venison last,
Quails, fruits, and ices, crowned the rich repast.
Thy fields, Champagne, supplied us with our wine,.
Madeira’s Island, and the rocks of Rhine.
The sun was set, and twilight veiled the land:
Then all stood up, — all who had strength to stand,
And pouring down, of Maraschino, fit
Libations to the gods of wine and wit,
In steam-wing’d chariots, and on iron roads,
Sought the great city, and our own abodes.
IN REMEMBRANCE OF FORTY-FOUR YEARS AGO.
[Written in 1858.]
THE convolvulus twines round the stems of its bower,
And spreads its young blossoms to morning’s first ray:
But the noon has scarce past, when it folds up its flower.
Which opens no more to the splendour of day.
So twine round the heart, in the light of life’s morning,
Love’s coils of green promise and bright purple bloom:
The noontide goes by, and the colours adorning,
Its unfulfilled dreamings, are wrapt up in gloom.
But press the fresh flower, while its charms are yet glowing,
Its colour and form through long years will remain:
And treasured in memory, thus love is still showing
The outlines of hope, which else blossomed in vain.
CASTLES IN THE AIR.
[Date unknown.]
MY thoughts by night are often filled
With visions false as fair:
For in the past alone I build
My castles in the air.
I dwell not now on what may be:
Night shadows o’er the scene:
But still my fancy wanders free
Through that which might have been.
MIDNIGHT.
[No date.]
OH, clear are thy waters, thou beautiful stream!
And sweet is the sound of thy flowing;
And bright are thy hanks in the silver moon beam,
While the zephyrs of midnight are blowing.
The hawthorn is blooming thy channel along,
And breezes are waving the willow,
And no sound of life but the nightingale’s song
Floats o’er thy murmuring billow.
Oh, sweet scene of solitude! dearer to me
Than the city’s fantastical splendour!
From the haunts of the crowd I have hasten’d to thee,
Nor sigh for joys I surrender.
From the noise of the throng, from the mirth of the dance,
What solace can misery borrow?
Can riot the care-wounded bosom entrance,
Or still the pulsation of sorrow?
TIME.
[Date unknown.]
Passan vostri trionfi e vostre pompe;
Passan le signorie, passano i regm.
Cose ‘l tempo trionfa i nomi e’l mondo. — PETRARCA.
WHENCE is the stream of Time? What source supplies
Its everlasting flow? What gifted hand
Shall raise the veil by dark Oblivion spread,
And trace it to its spring? What searching eye
Shall pierce the mists that veil its onward course,
And read the future destiny of man?
The past is dimly seen: the coming hour
Is dark, inscrutable to human sight:
The present is our own; but, while we speak,
We cease from its possession, and resign
The stage we tread on, to another race,
As vain, and gay, and mortal as ourselves.
And why should man be vain?
He breathes to-day,
To-morrow he is not: the laboured stone
Preserves awhile the name of him that was:
Time strikes the marble column to the ground,
And sinks in dust the sculptured monument.
Yet man is vain, and, with exulting thought,
Rears the proud dome and spacious colonnade,
Plants the wide forest, bids the garden bloom
Where frowned the desert, excavates the earth,
And, gathering up the treasures of her springs,
Rolls the full stream through flow’r-enamelled banks,
Where once the heather struck its roots in sand.
With joy he hails, with transitory joy,
His new creations: his insatiate pride
Exults in splendour which he calls his own.
As if possessions could be called our own,
Which, in a point of ever-varying time,
By force, by fraud, by purchase, or by death,
Will change their lords, and pass to other hands.
Then since to none perpetual use is given,
And heir to heir, as wave to wave, succeeds,
How vain the pride of wealth! how vain the boast
Of fields, plantations, parks, and palaces,
If death invades alike, with ruthless arm,
The peasant’s cottage, and the regal tower,
Unawed by pomp, inflexible by gold!
Death comes to all. His cold and sapless hand
Waves o’er the world, and beckons us away.
Who shall resist the summons? Child of earth!
While yet the blood runs dancing through thy veins,
Impelled by joy and youth’s meridian heat,
‘Twere wise, at times, to change the crowded haunts
Of human splendour, for the woodland realms
Of solitude, and mark, with heedful ear,
The hollow voice of the autumnal wind,
That warns thee of thy own mortality.
Death comes to all. Not earth’s collected wealth,
Golcondian diamonds and Peruvian gold,
Can gain from him the respite of an hour.
He wrests his treasure from the miser’s grasp,
Dims the pale rose on beauty’s fading cheeks,
Tears the proud diadem from kingly brows,
And breaks the warrior’s adamantine shield.
Man yields to death; and man’s sublimest works
Must yield at length to Time. The proud one thinks
Of life’s uncertain tenure, and laments
His transitory greatness. While he boasts
His noble blood, from ancient kings derived,
Complete Works of Thomas Love Peacock Page 144