The Home Book of Verse, vol 4 | Page 5

in passion's fire As other poets can - My life (she's by) won't let me die - I'm not a single man.
Shut out from love, denied a dove, Forbidden bow and dart; Without a groan to call my own, With neither hand nor heart; To Hymen vowed, and not allowed To flirt e'en with your fan, Here end, as just a friend, I must - I'm not a single man.
Thomas Hood [1799-1845]
TO ---
We met but in one giddy dance, Good-night joined hands with greeting; And twenty thousand things may chance Before our second meeting; For oh! I have been often told That all the world grows older, And hearts and hopes to-day so cold, To-morrow must be colder.
If I have never touched the string Beneath your chamber, dear one, And never said one civil thing When you were by to hear one, - If I have made no rhymes about Those looks which conquer Stoics, And heard those angel tones, without One fit of fair heroics, -
Yet do not, though the world's cold school Some bitter truths has taught me, Oh, do not deem me quite the fool Which wiser friends have thought me! There is one charm I still could feel, If no one laughed at feeling; One dream my lute could still reveal, - If it were worth revealing.
But Folly little cares what name Of friend or foe she handles, When merriment directs the game, And midnight dims the candles; I know that Folly's breath is weak And would not stir a feather; But yet I would not have her speak Your name and mine together.
Oh no! this life is dark and bright, Half rapture and half sorrow; My heart is very full to-night, My cup shall be to-morrow! But they shall never know from me, On any one condition, Whose health made bright my Burgundy, Whose beauty was my vision!
Winthrop Mackworth Praed [1802-1839]
THE VICAR
Some years ago, ere Time and Taste Had turned our parish topsy-turvy, When Darnel Park was Darnel Waste, And roads as little known as scurvy, The man who lost his way between St. Mary's Hill and Sandy Thicket, Was always shown across the Green, And guided to the Parson's wicket.
Back flew the bolt of lissom lath; Fair Margaret, in her tidy kirtle, Led the lorn traveller up the path Through clean-clipt rows of box and myrtle; And Don and Sancho, Tramp and Tray, Upon the parlor steps collected, Wagged all their tails, and seemed to say, "Our master knows you; you're expected!"
Up rose the Reverend Doctor Brown, Up rose the Doctor's "winsome marrow"; The lady laid her knitting down, Her husband clasped his ponderous Barrow; Whate'er the stranger's caste or creed, Pundit or papist, saint or sinner, He found a stable for his steed, And welcome for himself, and dinner.
If, when he reached his journey's end, And warmed himself in court or college, He had not gained an honest friend, And twenty curious scraps of knowledge; - If he departed as he came, With no new light on love or liquor, - Good sooth, the traveller was to blame, And not the Vicarage, nor the Vicar.
His talk was like a stream which runs With rapid change from rocks to roses; It slipped from politics to puns; It passed from Mahomet to Moses; Beginning with the laws which keep The planets in their radiant courses, And ending with some precept deep For dressing eels or shoeing horses.
He was a shrewd and sound divine, Of loud Dissent the mortal terror; And when, by dint of page and line, He 'stablished Truth, or startled Error, The Baptist found him far too deep, The Deist sighed with saving sorrow, And the lean Levite went to sleep And dreamed of tasting pork to-morrow.
His sermon never said or showed That Earth is foul, that Heaven is gracious, Without refreshment on the road From Jerome, or from Athanasius; And sure a righteous zeal inspired The hand and head that penned and planned them, For all who understood, admired, And some who did not understand them.
He wrote, too, in a quiet way, Small treatises, and smaller verses, And sage remarks on chalk and clay, And hints to noble lords and nurses; True histories of last year's ghost; Lines to a ringlet or a turban; And trifles to the Morning Post, And nothings for Sylvanus Urban.
He did not think all mischief fair, Although he had a knack of joking; He did not make himself a bear, Although he had a taste for smoking; And when religious sects ran mad, He held, in spite of all his learning, That if a man's belief is bad, It will not be improved by burning.
And he was kind, and loved to sit In the low hut or garnished cottage, And praise the farmer's homely wit, And share