The Project Gutenberg eBook ofLondon Lyrics

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofLondon LyricsThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: London LyricsAuthor: Frederick Locker-LampsonEditor: A. D. GodleyIllustrator: George CruikshankRelease date: October 5, 2009 [eBook #30185]Most recently updated: November 2, 2009Language: EnglishCredits: Transcribed from the 1904 Methuen & Co. edition by David Price*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDON LYRICS ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: London LyricsAuthor: Frederick Locker-LampsonEditor: A. D. GodleyIllustrator: George CruikshankRelease date: October 5, 2009 [eBook #30185]Most recently updated: November 2, 2009Language: EnglishCredits: Transcribed from the 1904 Methuen & Co. edition by David Price

Title: London Lyrics

Author: Frederick Locker-LampsonEditor: A. D. GodleyIllustrator: George Cruikshank

Author: Frederick Locker-Lampson

Editor: A. D. Godley

Illustrator: George Cruikshank

Release date: October 5, 2009 [eBook #30185]Most recently updated: November 2, 2009

Language: English

Credits: Transcribed from the 1904 Methuen & Co. edition by David Price

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDON LYRICS ***

Transcribed from the 1904 Methuen & Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

Building castles in the air

By FREDERICK LOCKER

WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTESByA. D. GODLEY

WITH A FRONTISPIECEByGEORGE CRUIKSHANK

londonMETHUEN & CO.36essex street,w. c.mdcccciv

CONTENTS

page

Introduction

vii

The Castle in the Air

The Cradle

O Tempora Mutantur!

Piccadilly

The Old Clerk

The Garter

The Pilgrims of Pall Mall

The Russet Pitcher

The Enchanted Rose

Circumstance

A Wish

My Life is a—

Vanity Fair

Bramble-Rise

Old Letters

Susannah

My Firstborn

The Widow’s Mite

St George’s, Hanover Square

A Sketch in Seven Dials

Miss Edith

A Glimpse of Gretna Green, in the Distance

The Four Seasons

Enigma

To the Printer’s Devil

Notes

The father of Frederick Locker Lampson (or Frederick Locker, according to the name by which he is generally known) was Edward Hawke Locker, at one time Commissioner of Greenwich Hospital. He is described in the “Dictionary of National Biography” as “a man of varied talents and accomplishments, Fellow of the Royal Society, an excellent artist in water-colour, a charming conversationalist, an esteemed friend of Southey and Scott.” Frederick, the author of “London Lyrics,” “was born,” Mr Augustine Birrell, his son-in-law, writes inScribner’s Magazine(January 1896), “in Greenwich Hospital in 1821. After divers adventures in various not over well selected schools, and a brief experience of the City and of Somerset House, he became a clerk in the Admiralty, serving under Lord Haddington, Sir James Graham, and Sir Charles Wood. He was twice married—first, to Lady Charlotte Bruce, a daughter of LordElgin (of the Marbles); and secondly, to the only daughter of Sir Curtis Lampson, Bart., of Rowfant in Sussex.”

The present volume is Locker’s earliest literary venture; produced, however, at the comparatively mature age of thirty-six. “In 1857,” he says in “My Confidences,” “I published a thin volume—certain sparrow-flights of song, called ‘London Lyrics.’” Subsequently, about 1860, Thackeray, who was then editor of theCornhill Magazine, invited Locker to contribute; and poems published there and elsewhere were collected and reprinted from time to time, the original title being always retained. Ten editions, besides some selections privately printed, appeared before the poet’s death. In almost all something new was added, in all something old was taken away; so that only eight of the twenty-five pieces composing the early “thin volume” survive in the issue of 1893, and some of these are much altered. It is hoped that readers of Locker’s later and more highly finished work will consider a republication of his “Primitiæ” justified by the interest which attaches to all beginnings.

So many people even now confuse minorpoetry with bad poetry that it is almost invidious to call a poet minor. Yet there is no doubt that minor poetry can be good in its way, just as major poetry can be good initsway. “If he [Locker] was a minor poet he was at least [why ‘at least’?] a master of the instrument he touched, which cannot,” writes Mr Coulson Kernahan in theNineteenth Centuryfor October 1895, “be said of all who would be accountedmajor.” Locker was not of those, in his own opinion, who would be accounted major. “My aim,” he says, “was humble. I used the ordinary metres and rhymes, the simplest language and ideas, I hope, flavoured with an individuality. I strove . . . not to be flat, and above all, not to be tedious.” It is not necessary to prove by argument and illustration that Locker is a minor poet, nor that he belongs to that honourable company of writers of what we now call “light verse”—the masters of which are, after all, among the immortals—Horace and Herrick. His place in that company is not so easy to define. Probably he stands half way between the serious singers—who succeed by virtue of grace and artistic finish, yet lack the touch of passion, the indefinable something that makes greatness—and the bardswhose primary object, like Calverley’s, is to make the reader laugh. “He elected,” says Mr Coulson Kernahan, “to don the cap and bells when he might have worn the singing robes of the poet”: a description of one who chose to be a jester when he might have been serious, and hardly applicable to Locker, who is never a professed “funny man.” Mr Kernahan is far more just when he claims for “London Lyrics” a kind of sober gentleness which moves neither to laugh nor to weep: “his sad scenes may touch us to tender melancholy, but never to tears; his gay ones to smile, but seldom to laughter.” Locker’s Muse is not the Muse of high spirits. He does not start with the intention of jesting. He is the gentle and serious spectator of things which are not the most serious in life—with a sense of the humorous which is not repressible, and which enters into all his reflections, but which he never allows wholly to master him.

It is really impossible to classify poets on any satisfactory principle. Every good poet is a class by himself. But if the attempt must be made, one may say that the author of “London Lyrics” belongs to that school of which the other chief representatives, inEnglish or American literature, have been Praed, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Mr Austin Dobson. It has always been the fashion to class him with the first named of the trio as a writer of “occasional verse” or “vers de société.” These titles, like other parts of the nomenclature of the poetic art, are not satisfying. Why “smoothly written verse, where a boudoir decorum is or ought always to be preserved: where sentiment never surges into passion, and where humour never overflows into boisterous merriment” should be conventionally called “society verse,” or “occasional verse,” is not very clear. To write “society verse” is to be the laureate of the cultured, leisured, pleasure-loving upper classes; but some poets satisfy the above requirements—Locker himself included—yet certainly do not write exclusively of or for “Society.” Then again, what is “occasional”? Many serious poems are inspired by the transient occasion. But we are not, presumably, to class “Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints” among occasional pieces, nor is Wordsworth’s sonnet on London at dawn to be called occasional; yet the source of it, the fact that the poet happened to be upon Westminster Bridge in theearly morning, was transient, not (apparently) inherent in the nature of things. However, these names must be accepted as we find them. Here is Locker’s own law: “Occasional verse,” he says, “should be short, graceful, refined, and fanciful, not seldom distinguished by chastened sentiment, and often playful. The tone should not be pitched high: it should be terse and idiomatic, and rather in the conversational key; the rhythm should be crisp and sparkling, and the rhyme frequent and never forced, while the entire poem should be marked by tasteful moderation, high finish, and completeness: for, however trivial the subject-matter may be, indeed, rather in proportion to its triviality, subordination to the rules of composition, and perfection of execution, are of the utmost importance.” Among the enviable versifiers who can satisfy these requirements Praed and Locker both hold a high place. Praed, indeed, is the chief among writers of “vers de société,” for not only does his manner conform to the laws laid down by high authorities, but his theme is generally “Society” with a capital S. “Praed,” says Locker in “My Confidences,” “is the very best of his school: indeed, he has a uniqueposition; for in his narrower vein of whimsical wit, vernacular banter, and antithetical rhetoric, which may correctly be calledvers de sociétéin its most perfected form, and its exactest sense, he has never been equalled.” These phrases hit off Praed very well—if one does not exactly see what “Society” has to do with antithetical rhetoric.

These two poets, so often classed together, are not really very much alike. Both are certainly “in lighter vein”; but they differ apparently in temperament, and certainly in method. No one would deny to Praed the gift of humour. But the period in which he wrote was one which admired primarily wit; and while it would be too much to say that his heart is not in his theme—that he stands detached from it—still, his sympathies are indubitably subordinated to the effort, the successful effort, to bring off a neat point, to make a pun in the right place, to be striking, antithetical, epigrammatic. His verses have the finish, in their way, of Pope’s couplet and Ovid’s pentameter. His best known and most praised work appeals, primarily, to the taste and the ear: always, perhaps, to the head rather than to the heart. There is somethingof “hard brilliance” in Praed: he writes for effect, he is epideictic. Of course, this is one object of writers of “society verses”:

“Sole secret to jingle and scan,”

as an unduly severe critic says somewhere. One need hardly say that this is not Praed’s sole secret: but technique is certainly his strong point.

“Where are my friends? I am alone:No playmate shares my beaker:Some lie beneath the churchyard stoneAnd some—before the Speaker:And some compose a tragedy,And some compose a rondo:And some draw sword for Liberty,And some draw pleas for John Doe.

Tom Mill was used to blacken eyesWithout the fear of sessions:Charles Medlar loathed false quantitiesAs much as false professions:Now Mill keeps order in the land,A magistrate pedantic:And Medlar’s feet repose unscannedBeneath the wide Atlantic.”

This is the art which does not conceal itself. One may not be able to do the trick; but it is possible to see how the trick is done.

“No one,” says Locker, when speaking of occasional or society verse, “has fully succeeded who did not possess a certain gift of irony.” That is profoundly true. A would-be writer of light verse who has not an ironical habit of mind had better change his purpose and write an epic. Locker has his full share of the necessary gift. Half gay, half melancholy, always ironical—dissembling most of pain and some of pleasure—he is in certain ways the appropriate spokesman of a society like our own, which is really most natural when most dissembling, or dismissing with a smile, its deeper emotions. There is nothing about Locker which is not natural. As he is, so (apparently) does he speak: far more candidly and with more of self-revelation than Praed, more candidly than Mr Austin Dobson, who is apt to veil his personality behind a mask of elegant antiquarianism. But Locker is more artless and naïve (which qualities are in him not the least inconsistent with irony) than any modern writer, except, perhaps, R. L. Stevenson now and then; and with the latternaïvetéitself is sometimes an artifice. Mr Brander Matthews rightly lays stress on this aspect of Locker’s poetry; “individuality and directness of expression”—that is the true note of “London Lyrics.” He is far more genuine and spontaneous than Praed. It is difficult and perhaps invidious to compare the two as “humorists.” It may be that Locker’s vein of humour is larger and truer than the earlier poet’s. Praed belongs, as has been said, to a period of other men and other manners. Probably he is the wittier of the two; yet this might be contradicted. Locker’s humour has the reflective vein, with a suggestion of pathos, of the great writers who flourished in the early and middle Victorian era. We are perhaps a little out of tune now with the sentiment of the middle of the nineteenth century and perhaps, too, with Praed’s “antithetical rhetoric”; but Locker’s humour can never be quite out of fashion. Readers will always smile (not laugh) at “The Housemaid” or “The Pilgrims of Pall Mall” or the lines “To my Grandmother”—

“With her bridal-wreath, bouquet,Lace farthingale, and gayFalbala,—If Romney’s touch be true,What a lucky dog were you,Grandpapa!

. . . . .

What funny fancy slipsFrom atween these cherry lips?Whisper me,Fair Sorceress in paint,What canon says I mayn’tMarry thee?”

But perhaps, for a nutshell’s content of whimsical Lockerian humour, the gem which will occur to most is the delightful reminiscence of infancy:

“I recollect a nurse call’d Ann,Who carried me about the grass,And one fine day a fine young manCame up, and kiss’d the pretty Lass:She did not make the least objection!Thinks I. ‘Aha!When I can talk I’ll tell Mamma.’—And that’s my earliest recollection.”

(Locker’s “mottoes,” of which this is one, often contain his most characteristic lines.) Praed could no more have written that, or the lines “To my Grandmother,” than Locker could have written “The Vicar.” Both poets have other strings. Praed’s more serious vein could win a contemporary reputation: but he would not have been remembered for this alone, after eighty years. In “At Her Window,” whichMr Coulson Kernahan rightly calls “one of the most beautiful love-songs of the century,” Locker is no longer ironical, but rises to the heights of real passion:

“Beating Heart! we come againWhere my Love reposes:This is Mabel’s window-pane:These are Mabel’s roses.

. . . . .

Mabel will be deck’d anon,Zoned in bride’s apparel;Happy zone! Oh hark to yonPassion-shaken carol!Sing thy song, thou trancèd thrush,Pipe thy best, thy clearest;—Hush, her lattice moves, O hush—Dearest Mabel!—dearest” . . .

“I once tried,” says Locker in “My Confidences,” “to write like Praed.” The effort was not wholly successful: Locker is weakest where his manner is most Praedian; and the poet, either realising this, or moulded by the temper of his time, appears to have altered most of the obviously imitative passages. Thus in “Tempora Mutantur” the last stanza runs, in 1857:

“What brought this wanderer here, and whyWas Pamela away?It might be she had found her graveOr he had found her gay”;

but the antithetical pun is excised in the 1893 edition, where the lines are:

“The pilgrim sees an empty chairWhere Pamela once sat:It may be she had found her grave,It might be worse than that.”

So in “Bramble-Rise”

“My bank of early violetsIs now a bank of savings”

(“you mark the paronomasia, play ’pon words”?) does not continue to please the taste of the pun-despisingfin-de-sièclepublic or of Locker himself: the corresponding stanza in the poem as published in 1893 is purified of such tricks. These alterations are characteristic of Locker’s literary method. He was keenly critical of himself—“never,” says Mr Birrell, “could mistake good verses for bad”—and was therefore always changing and polishing his work, adding here, pruning there. Thusonly eight poems from the 1857 volume form part of the “London Lyrics” of 1893, and only five of these—“Bramble-Rise,” “Piccadilly,” “The Pilgrims of Pall Mall,” “Circumstance,” “The Widow’s Mite”—have maintained their footing throughout in all intervening editions: the three others are, as it were, “rusticated” from the very severely edited selection of 1881. The variety of forms under which his verses appear at different periods will probably make the poet’s works a happy hunting-ground for the future commentator, who will no doubt assign this “lay” (as he will probably call it) to Locker, that to Lampson, that again to the Lockeridae or the Lampsonschule. The method is familiar. No one, probably, ever was so careful of the “limae labor.” “He took,” we are told, “great pains with his verses,” always aiming at a more perfect finish, with no loss of that naturalness which, as has been said, characterises all his work. According to the saying quoted by Matthew Arnold of Joubert, he “s’inquiétait de perfection.” Perfection, to him, implied an appearance of spontaneity: whatlookedlaboured or artificial must be elaborated till itlookedspontaneous—as it was in thoughtif not altogether in development. His critical sense seems to have grown keener with his interest in the making of verses: “he was a great student of verse,” Mr Birrell says, and a student especially of that kind of verse of which he was himself one of the masters. In 1867 he published the well-known collection “Lyra Elegantiarum,” assisted by Mr Kernahan: the preface, written by Locker, contains some excellent rules for “light verse,” from which the selections are made. This anthology ranges over the whole field of English poetry, and, like everything else of Locker’s, it shows the man. “Its charm,” writes the editor’s collaborator, “is entirely of the editor’s individuality”—at least, from his favourites in literature, one may make a very fair guess at some part of his character. So, too, “Patchwork”—a kind of scrap-book, a collection of miscellaneous anecdotes, mostly humorous, but not as a rule broadly or farcically funny—illustrates his delicate and subtle perception of the laughable.

Locker married Lady Charlotte Bruce in 1850, and soon after left the service of Government. Thenceforward he appears to have led a very placid life, happy in his family, seeingmuch of his large circle of friends, devoted to poetry and book-collecting. “Lyra Elegantiarum” was published in 1867, “Patchwork” in 1879. In 1886 Locker published a catalogue of what he called the “Rowfant Library”—his collection of rare and valuable books (mostly the poetry of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) and autographs—of which Mr Andrew Lang has sung:

“The Rowfant books, how fair they shew,The Quarto quaint, the Aldine tall,Print, autograph, portfolio!Back from the outer air they callThe athletes from the Tennis ball,This Rhymer from his rod and hooks,Would I could sing them, one and all,The Rowfant books!”

Locker’s first wife died in 1872. In 1874 he married Miss Lampson, adding her family name to his own. The rest of his life was spent for the most part at Rowfant: he died there, 30th May 1895. His autobiography, “My Confidences,” was published posthumously in 1896.

“I would build a cloudy house,For my thoughts to live in,When for earth too fancy loose,And too low for heaven!Hush! I talk my dream alone:I build it bright to see;I build it on the moon-lit cloud,To which I look with thee!”MrsE. B. Browning.

“I would build a cloudy house,For my thoughts to live in,When for earth too fancy loose,And too low for heaven!

Hush! I talk my dream alone:I build it bright to see;I build it on the moon-lit cloud,To which I look with thee!”

MrsE. B. Browning.

You shake your curls, and ask me whyI don’t build castles in the sky;You smile, and you are thinking too,He’s nothing else on earth to do.It needs, my dear, romantic wareTo raise such fabrics in the air—Ethereal bricks, and rainbow beams,The gossamer of Fancy’s dreams:And much the architect may lackWho labours in the zodiacTo rear what I, from chime to chime,Attempted once upon a time.

My Castle was a glad retreat,Adorn’d with bloom and scented briars,—A Cupid’s model country-seat,With all that such a seat requires.A rustic thatch, a purple mountain,A sweet, mysterious, haunted fountain,A terraced lawn, a summer lake,By sun or moonbeam ever burnish’d;And then my cot, by some mistake,Unlike most cots was neatly furnish’d.

A trelliss’d porch, a mirror’d hall,A Hebe, laughing from the wall,Frail vases from remote Cathay,—While, under arms and armour wreath’dIn trophied guise, the marble breath’d—A peering fawn, a startled fay.

And cabinets with gems inlaid,The legacy of parted years,Full curtains of festoon’d brocade,And Venice lent her chandeliers.Quaint carvings dark, and, pillow’d light,Meet couches for the Sybarite;Embroider’d carpets, soft as down,The last new novel fresh from town.On silken cushion, rich with braid,A shaggy pet from Skye was laid,And, drowsy eyed, would dosing swingA parrot in his golden ring.

All these I saw one happy day,And more than now I care to name;Here, lately shut, that workbox lay,There stood your own embroidery frame.And over this piano bentA Form, from some pure region sent.

Her dusky tresses lustrous shone,In massy clusters, like your own;And, as her fingers pressed the keys,How strangely they resembled these.

Yes, you, you only, Lady Fair,Adorn’d my Castle in the Air;And Life, without the least foundation,Became a charming occupation.We viewed, with much serene disdain,The smoke and scandal of Cockaigne,Its dupes and dancers, knaves and nuns,Possess’d by blues, or bored by duns.With souls released from earthly tether,We gazed upon the moon together.Our sympathy, from night to noon,Rose crescent with that crescent moon,We lived and loved in cloudless climes,And died (in rhymes) a thousand times.

Yes, you, you only, Lady Fair,Adorn’d my Castle in the Air,Now, tell me, could you dwell contentIn such a baseless tenement?Or could so delicate a flowerExist in such a breezy bower?Because, if youwouldsettle in it,’Twere built, for love, in half a minute.

What’s love? you ask;—why, love at bestIs only a delightful jest;—As sad for one, as bad for three,SoIsuggest you jest with me.

You shake your head, and wonder whyA denizen of dear May-FairShould ever condescend to tryAnd build her Castle in the Air.

I’ve music, books, and all, you say,To make the gravest lady gay;I’m told my essays show research,My sketches have endow’d a church.I’ve partners, who have witty parts;I’ve lovers, who have broken hearts;Quite undisturbed by nerves or blues,My doctor gives me—all the news.Poor Polly would not care to fly;And Wasp, you know, was born in Skye.

To realise your tête-à-têteMight jeopardise a giddy pate;Andquel ennui! if, pride apart,I lost my head, or you your heart.I’m more than sorry, I’m afraidMy Castle is already made.

And is this all we gain by fanciesFor noon-day dreams, and waking trances,—Such dreams as brought poor souls mishap,When Baby-Time was fond of pap:And still will cheat with feigning joys,While women smile, and men are boys?

The blooming rose conceals an asp,And bliss coquetting flies the grasp:And, waking up, snap goes the slightPoor cord that held my foolish kite,—Your slave, you may not care to know it,Your humble slave will be your Poet.

Farewell!—can aught for her be will’dWhose every wish is all fulfill’d?Farewell!—could wishing weave a spell,There’s promise in those words “Fare well!”

I wish your wish may not be marr’d;—Now wish yourself a better Bard!

Aye, here is your cradle! Why surely, my Jenny,Such slender dimensions go somewhat to showYou were an exceedingly small pic-a-ninnySome nineteen or twenty short summers ago.

Your baby-days flow’d in a much-troubled channel;I see you as then in your impotent strife,—A tight little bundle of wailing and flannel,Perplex’d with that newly-found fardel called life.

To hint at an infantine frailty’s a scandal;All bye-gones are bye-gones—and somebody knowsIt was bliss such a baby to dance and to dandle,Your cheeks were so velvet—so rosy your toes.

Aye, here is your cradle! and Hope, a bright spirit,With Love now is watching beside it, I know;They guard o’er the nest you yourself did inheritSome nineteen or twenty short summers ago.

It is Hope gilds the future, Love welcomes it smiling;Thus wags this old world, therefore stay not to ask,—“My future bids fair, is my future beguiling?”If mask’d, still it pleases, then raise not its mask.

Is life a poor coil some would gladly be doffing?He is riding post-haste who their wrongs will adjust;For at most ’tis a footstep from cradle to coffin,—From a spoonful of pap to a mouthful of dust.

Then smile as your future is smiling, my Jenny!I see you, except for that infantine woe,Scarce changed since you were but a small pic-a-ninny,—Your cheek is still velvet—pray what is your toe?

Aye, here is your cradle! much, much to my liking,Though nineteen or twenty long winters have sped;But, hark! as I’m talking there’s six o’clock striking,It is timeJenny’s Babyshould be in its bed!

“O cruel Time! O tyrant Time!Whose winter all the streams of rhyme,The flowing waves of Love sublime,In bitter passage freezes.I only see the scrambling goat,The lotos on the water float,While an old shepherd with an oatPipes to the autumn breezes.”Mr M. Collins.

Mr M. Collins.

Yes! here, once more, a traveller,I find the Angel Inn,Where landlord, maids, and serving-men,Receive me with a grin:They surely can’t rememberme,My hair is grey and scanter;I’m chang’d, so chang’d since I was here—“O tempora mutantur!”

The Angel’s not much alter’d sinceThat sunny month of June,Which brought me here with PamelaTo spend our honey-moon!I recollect it down to e’enThe shape of this decanter.We’ve since been both much put about—“O tempora mutantur!”

Aye, there’s the clock, and looking-glassReflecting me again;She vow’d her Love was very fair—I see I’m very plain.And there’s that daub of Prince Leboo,’Twas Pamela’s fond banterTo fancy it resembled me—“O tempora mutantur!”

The curtains have been dyed; but there,Unbroken, is the same,The very same cracked pane of glassOn which I scratch’d her name.Yes! there’s her tiny flourish still,It used to so enchant herTo link two happy names in one—“O tempora mutantur!”

* * * * *

What brought this wand’rer here, and whyWas Pamela away?It may be she had found her grave,Or he had found her gay.The fairest fade; the best of menMay meet with a supplanter;—How natural, how trite the cry,“O tempora mutantur!”

“Often, when I have felt a weariness or distaste at home, have I rushed out into her crowded Strand, and fed my humour till tears have wetted my cheek for unutterable sympathies with the multitudinous moving picture; * * nursed amid her noise, her crowds, her beloved smoke, what have I been doing all my life, if I have not lent out my heart with usury to such scenes!”C. Lamb.

C. Lamb.

Gay shops, stately palaces, bustle and breeze,The whirring of wheels, and the murmur of trees,By night, or by day, whether noisy or stilly,Whatever my mood is—I love Piccadilly.

Wet nights, when the gas on the pavement is streaming,And young Love is watching, and old Love is dreaming,And Beauty is whirl’d off to conquest, where shrillyCremona makes nimble thy toes, Piccadilly!

Bright days, when I leisurely pace to and fro,And meet all the people I do or don’t know.Here is jolly old Brown, and his fair daughter Lillie;—No wonder some pilgrims affect Piccadilly!

See yonder pair, fonder ne’er rode at a canter,—She smiles on her Poet, contented to saunter;Some envy her spouse, and some covet her filly,He envies them both—he’s an ass, Piccadilly!

Now were I that gay bride, with a slave at my feet,I would choose me a house in my favourite street.Yes or No—I would carry my point, willy, nilly;If “no,” pick a quarrel, if “yes,” Piccadilly.

Thus the high frolic by—thus the lowly are seen,As perched on the roof of yon bulky machine,The Kensington dilly—and Tom Smith or BillySmoke doubtful cigars in ill-used Piccadilly.

And there’s the balcony, where, ages ago,Old Q sat and gazed on the damsels below.There are plausible wolves even now, seeking sillyRed Riding Hoods small in thy woods, Piccadilly!

And there is a Statesman, the Man of the Day,A laughing philosopher, gallant and gay;No darling of Fortune more manfully trod,Full of years, full of fame, and the world at his nod,Can the thought reach his heart, and then leave it more chilly,—“Old P or Old Q I must quit Piccadilly?”

Life is chequer’d, a patchwork of smiles and of frowns;We valued its ups, let us muse on its downs.There’s a side that is bright, it will then turn the other,One turn, if a good one, deserves such another.Thesedowns are delightful,theseups are not hilly,—Let us turn one more turn ere we quit Piccadilly!

We knew an old Clerk, it was “once on time,”An era to set sober datists despairing;Then let them despair!—Darby sat in a chairNear a cross that takes name from the village of Charing.

Though silent and lean, Darby was not morose,What hair he had left was more silver than sable,His feet had begun to turn up at the toes,From constantly being curled under a table.

His pay and expenditure, quite in accord,Were both on the strictest economy founded;His rulers, in conclave, were known as the Board,His rulers were sticks of mahogany rounded.

In his heart he looked down on this dignified knot,—For why, the forefather of one of these senators,A rascal concern’d in the Gunpowder Plot,Had been barber-surgeon to Darby’s progenitors.

Poor fool! to resent the caprices of Luck.Still, a long thirty years (it was rather degrading)He’d been writing despatches,—which means he had stuckSome heads and some tails to much rhodomontading.

This sounds rather weary and dreary; but, no!Though strictly inglorious, his days were quiescent,And his red-tape was tied in a true-lover’s bowEach night when returning to Rosemary Crescent.

There Joan meets him smiling, the young ones are there,His coming is bliss to the half-dozen wee things;Of his advent the dog and the cat are aware,And Phyllis, neat handed, is laying the tea-things.

This greeting the silent old Clerk understands.Now his friends he can love, had he foes, he could mock them;So met, so surrounded, his bosom expands,—Some tongues have more need of such scenes to unlock them.

And Darby, at least, is resign’d to his lot,And Joan (rather proud of the sphere he’s adorning)Has well-nigh forgotten that Gunpowder Plot,Andhewon’t recall it till ten the next morning.

A time must arrive when, in pitiful case,He will drop from his Branch like a fruit more than mellow:Is he still to be found in his usual place?Or is he already forgotten, poor fellow?

If still at his duty, he soon will arrive,—He passes this turning, because it is shorter,—If not within sight as the clock’s striking five,We shall see him before it is chiming the quarter.

The healthy-wealthy-wise, affirm,That early birds secure the worm,And doubtless so they do;Who scorns his couch should earn, by rights,A world of pleasant sounds and sightsThat vanish with the dew.

Bright Phosphor, from his watch released,Now fading from the purple East—The morning waxing stronger;The comely cock that vainly strivesTo crow from sleep his drowsy wives,Who would be dosing longer.

Uxorious Chanticleer! and hark!Upraise thine eyes, and find the lark,That matutine musician,Who heavenward soars on rapture’s wings,Though sought, unseen, who mounts, and singsIn musical derision.

A daughter hast’ning to prepareHer father’s humble morning fare—The sturdy reaper’s meal.In russet gown and apron blue,The daughter sings; like “Lucy,” too,She plies her spinning-wheel.

Anon the early reaper hiesTo waving fields that clasp the skies,Broad sheets of sunlit water.All these were heard or seen by oneWho stole a march upon that sun,And then—upon that Daughter!

This dainty maid, the hamlet’s pride,A lambkin trotting at her side,Then hied her through the park;A fond and gentle foster-dam—May be she slumbered with her lamb,Thus rising with the lark!

The lambkin frisk’d, the damsel fainWould wile him back,—she called in vain.The truant gamboll’d farther:One follow’d for the maiden’s sake,A pilgrim in an Angel’s wake—A happy pilgrim, rather.

The maid gave chase, the lambkin ran,As only woolly vagrant can,Who never felt a crook;But stay’d at length, as ’twere disposedTo drink, where tawny sands disclosedThe margent of a brook.

His mistress, who had follow’d fast,Cried, “Little rogue, you’re caught at last;I’m fleeter, Sir, than you.”Then straight the wanderer convey’dWhere tangled shrubs, in branching shade,Protected her from view—

Of all save one. She glanced around,All fearful lest the slightest soundMight mortal footfall be.Then shrinkingly she stepped asideOne moment, and her garter tiedThe truant to a tree.

Perhaps the world may wish to knowThe hue of this delightful bow,And how it might be placed:No, not from him, he only knows—It might be purple, blue, or rose,—’Twas tied—with maiden taste.

Suffice it that the nymph was fair,With dove-like eyes, and golden hair,And feet of lily dye:And, though these feet were pure from stain,She turned her to the brook again,And laved them dreamingly.

Awhile she sat in maiden mood,And watch’d the shadows in the flood,Which varied with the stream:And as each pretty foot she dips,The ripples ope their crystal lipsIn welcome, as ’twould seem.

But reveries are fleeting things,Which come and go on Fancy’s wings,Now longer, and now shorter:The Fair One well her day-dream nurst,But, when the light-blown bubble burst,She wearied of the water;

Betook her to the spot where yetSafe tether’d lay her snowy pet,To roving tastes a martyr:But something met the damsel’s gaze,Which made her cry in sheer amaze,“Good gracious! where’s my garter?”

Yes! where indeed? the echoes there,Inquisitive, responded “where?”And mourn’d the missing fetter:A something else a little spaceMust render duty in its place,Till banish’d for a better.

The blushing Fair her lamb led home,Perhaps resolved no more to roamAt peep of day together;If chance so takes them, it is plainShe will not venture forth againWithout an extra tether.

A fair white stone will mark this morn—He wears a prize, one lightly worn,Love’s gage (though not intended);Of course he’ll guard it near his heart,Till suns and even stars depart,And chivalry has ended.

And knighthood he’ll not envy you,The crosses, stars, and cordons bleus,Which pride for folly barters;He’ll bearhiscross ’mid mundane jars,His ribbon prize, and thank his starsHe does not crave your garters!

My little Friend, so small and neat,Whom years ago I used to meetIn Pall Mall daily;How cheerily you tripp’d awayTo work, it might have been to play,You tripp’d so gaily.

And Time trips too.—This moral means,You then were midway in the teensThat I was crowning:We never spoke, but when I smil’dAt morn or eve, I know, dear child,You were not frowning.

Each morning when we met, I think,Some sentiment did us two link—Nor joy, nor sorrow:And then at eve, experience-taught,Our hearts fell back upon the thought,—We meet to-morrow!

And you were poor; and how? and why?How kind to come! it was for myEspecial grace meant!Had you a parlour next the stars,A bird, some treasur’d plants in jars,About your casement?

You must have dweltau cinquième,Like little darling What’s-her-name,—Eugène Sue’s glory:Perchance, unwittingly, I’ve heardYour thrilling-toned Canary-birdFrom that fifth storey.

I’ve seen some changes since we met;A patient little seamstress yet,With small means striving,Have you a Lilliputian spouse?And do you dwell in some doll’s house?—Is baby thriving?

Can bloom like thine—my heart grows chill—Have sought that bourne unwelcome stillTo bosom smarting?The most forlorn—what worms we are!—Would wish to finish this cigarBefore departing.

I sometimes to Pall Mall repair,And see the damsels passing there;But though I try toObtain one glance, they look discreet,As though they’d someone else to meet,—As have notItoo?

Yet still I often muse uponOur many meetings—come and gone!July—December!Now let us make a tryste, and when,Dear little soul, we meet again,In some serener sphere, why then—Thy Friend remember!

“The Pitcher may go often to the Well, but it gets broken at last.”

Away, ye simple ones, away!Bring no vain fancies hither;The brightest dreams of youth decay,The fairest roses wither.

Aye, since this fountain first was plann’d,And Dryad learnt to drink,Have lovers held, knit hand in hand,Sweet parley at its brink.

From youth to age this waterfallMost tunefully flows on,But where, aye! tell me where, are allThose constant lovers gone?

The falcon on the turtle preys,And fondest vows are lither,The brightest dream of youth decays,The fairest roses wither.

“Thy Russet Pitcher set adown,Fair maid, and list to oneWho much this sorry world hath known,—A muser thereupon.

Though youth is ardent, gay, and bold,Youth flatters and beguiles,Though Giles is young,—and I am old,—Ne’er trust thy heart to Giles.

Thy Pitcher may some luckless dayBe broken coming hither,Thy doting slave may prove a knave,—The fairest roses wither.”

She laugh’d outright, she scorn’d him quite,She fill’d her Russet Pitcher;—For that dear sight an anchoriteMight deem himself the richer.

Ill-fated maiden! go thy ways,Thy lover’s vows are lither,The brightest dream of youth decays,The fairest roses wither.

* * * * *

These days are soon the days of yore;Six summers pass, and thenThat musing man would see once moreThe fountain in the glen.

Again to stray where once he stray’d,Those woods with verdure richer;Half hoping to espy the maidCome tripping with her pitcher.

No light step comes, but, evil-starr’d,He finds a mournful token,—There lies a Russet Pitcher marr’d,The damsel’s pitcher broken!

Profoundly moved, that muser cried:The spoiler hath been hither;O! would the maiden first had died,—The fairest rose must wither!

The tender flow’ret blooms apace,But chilling winds blow o’er;It fades unheeded, and its placeShall never know it more.

He turn’d from that accursèd ground,His world-worn bosom throbbing;A bow-shot thence a child he found,—The little man was sobbing.

He gently stroked that curly head,—“My child, what brings thee hither?Weep not, my simple child,” he said,“Or let us weep together.

Thy world, I ween, my child, is green,As garden undefil’d,Thy thoughts should run on mirth and fun,—Where dost thou dwell, my child?”

’Twas then the tiny urchin spoke,—“My daddy’s Giles the ditcher;I water fetch, and, oh! I’ve brokeMy mammy’s Russet Pitcher!”

“O where dost thou trip it,” the patriarch said,“A Rose in thy bosom so daintily laid?A pilgrim, whose shadow extends to the tomb,Would gaze on its beauty, would breathe its perfume!”

“O raise not thy hand,” cried the maid, “nor supposeI ever can part with this beautiful Rose;The bloom is a gift of the fays, who declare itWill shield me from sorrow as long as I wear it.

And sigh not, old man, such a doleful ‘heigh-ho,’Dost think I possess not the will to say, ‘No’?And shake not thy head, I could pitiless beShould supplicants come even younger than thee.”

The damsel pass’d on with a confident smile,The old man extended his walk for a while,His musings were trite, and their burthen, forsooth,The wisdom of age, and the folly of youth.

Noon comes, and noon goes, paler twilight is there;Rosy day dons the garb of a Penitent Fair;The patriarch strolls in the path of the maid,Where cornfields are ripe, and awaiting the blade.

And Echo was mute to the patriarch’s tread,—“How tranquil is Nature!” that patriarch said;He onward advances, where boughs overshadeA lonelier spot, and the barley is laid.

He gazes around, not a creature is there,No sound upon earth, and no voice in the air;But fading there lies a poor bloom that he knows,Neglected, unheeded—a beautiful Rose.

It ripen’d by the river banks,Where, musk and moonlight aiding,Dons Whiskerandos play sad pranks,Dark Donnas serenading.

By Moorish maiden it was pluck’d,Who broke some hearts, they say, then,By Saxon sweetheart it was suck’d,—Who threw the peel away then.

How little thought the London Fair,Or dark-eyed Girl of Seville,ThatIshould reel upon that peel,And find my proper level!

To the south of the church, and beneath yonder yew,A pair of child-lovers I’ve seen,More than once were they there, and the years of the two,When added, might number thirteen.

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