Earlier Poems (1830-1836) | Page 4

when his random arrows fly,
The victim falls, but
knows not why.
Gaze not upon his shield of jet,
The shaft upon the
string is set;
Look not beneath his azure veil,
Though every limb
were cased in mail.
Well, both might make a martyr break
The chain that bound him to
the stake;
And both, with but a single ray,
Can melt our very hearts
away;
And both, when balanced, hardly seem
To stir the scales, or
rock the beam;
But that is dearest, all the while,
That wears for us
the sweetest smile.

MY AUNT
MY aunt! my dear unmarried aunt!
Long years have o'er her flown;

Yet still she strains the aching clasp
That binds her virgin zone;
I
know it hurts her,--though she looks
As cheerful as she can;
Her
waist is ampler than her life,
For life is but a span.
My aunt! my poor deluded aunt!
Her hair is almost gray;
Why will
she train that winter curl
In such a spring-like way?
How can she
lay her glasses down,
And say she reads as well,
When through a
double convex lens
She just makes out to spell?
Her father--grandpapa I forgive
This erring lip its smiles--
Vowed
she should make the finest girl
Within a hundred miles;
He sent her
to a stylish school;
'T was in her thirteenth June;
And with her, as
the rules required,
"Two towels and a spoon."
They braced my aunt against a board,
To make her straight and tall;

They laced her up, they starved her down,
To make her light and
small;
They pinched her feet, they singed her hair,
They screwed it
up with pins;--
Oh never mortal suffered more
In penance for her
sins.
So, when my precious aunt was done,
My grandsire brought her back;

(By daylight, lest some rabid youth
Might follow on the track;)

"Ah!" said my grandsire, as he shook
Some powder in his pan,

"What could this lovely creature do
Against a desperate man!"
Alas! nor chariot, nor barouche,
Nor bandit cavalcade,
Tore from
the trembling father's arms
His all-accomplished maid.
For her how
happy had it been
And Heaven had spared to me

To see one sad,
ungathered rose
On my ancestral tree.
REFLECTIONS OF A PROUD PEDESTRIAN

I SAW the curl of his waving lash,
And the glance of his knowing
eye,
And I knew that he thought he was cutting a dash,
As his steed
went thundering by.
And he may ride in the rattling gig,
Or flourish the Stanhope gay,

And dream that he looks exceeding big
To the people that walk in the
way;
But he shall think, when the night is still,
On the stable-boy's
gathering numbers,
And the ghost of many a veteran bill
Shall
hover around his slumbers;
The ghastly dun shall worry his sleep,
And constables cluster around
him,
And he shall creep from the wood-hole deep
Where their
spectre eyes have found him!
Ay! gather your reins, and crack your thong,
And bid your steed go
faster;
He does not know, as he scrambles along,
That he has a fool
for his master;
And hurry away on your lonely ride,
Nor deign from the mire to save
me;
I will paddle it stoutly at your side
With the tandem that nature
gave me!
DAILY TRIALS
BY A SENSITIVE MAN
OH, there are times
When all this fret and tumult that we hear
Do
seem more stale than to the sexton's ear
His own dull chimes.
Ding dong! ding dong!
The world is in a simmer like a sea
Over a
pent volcano,--woe is me
All the day long!
From crib to shroud!
Nurse o'er our cradles screameth lullaby,
And
friends in boots tramp round us as we die,
Snuffling aloud.

At morning's call
The small-voiced pug-dog welcomes in the sun,

And flea-bit mongrels, wakening one by one,
Give answer all.
When evening dim
Draws round us, then the lonely caterwaul,
Tart
solo, sour duet, and general squall,--
These are our hymn.
Women, with tongues
Like polar needles, ever on the jar;
Men,
plugless word-spouts, whose deep fountains are
Within their lungs.
Children, with drums
Strapped round them by the fond paternal ass;

Peripatetics with a blade of grass
Between their thumbs.
Vagrants, whose arts
Have caged some devil in their mad machine,

Which grinding, squeaks, with husky groans between,
Come out by
starts.
Cockneys that kill
Thin horses of a Sunday,--men, with clams,

Hoarse as young bisons roaring for their dams
From hill to hill.
Soldiers, with guns,
Making a nuisance of the blessed air,

Child-crying bellmen, children in despair,
Screeching for buns.
Storms, thunders, waves!
Howl, crash, and bellow till ye get your fill;

Ye sometimes rest; men never can be still
But in their graves.
EVENING
BY A TAILOR
DAY hath put on his jacket, and around
His burning bosom buttoned
it with stars.
Here will I lay me on the velvet grass,
That is like
padding to earth's meagre ribs,
And hold communion with the things
about me.
Ah me! how lovely is the golden braid
That binds the
skirt of night's descending robe!
The thin leaves, quivering on their
silken threads,
Do make a music like to rustling satin,
As the light
breezes smooth their downy nap.

Ha! what is this that rises to my touch,
So like a cushion? Can it be a
cabbage?
It is, it is that deeply injured flower,
Which boys do flout
us with;--but yet I love thee,
Thou giant rose, wrapped