LOCKSLEY HALL. COMRADES, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn; Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn. 'Tis the place, and all around it, as of old the curlews call, Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall. Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time. Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands; Every moment lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships, And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips. O my cousin, shallow hearted! O my Amy, mine no more ! O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore ! Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung, Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue! Is it well to wish thee happy? having known me-to decline On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine! Yet it shall be: thou shall lower to his level day by day, What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathise with clay. As the husband is the wife is thou art mated with a clown, And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down. He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse. ALFRED TENNYSON. THE LAY OF THE LOVELorn. COMRADES, you may pass the rosy. With permission of the chair, I shall leave you for a little, for I'd like to take the air. Whether 'twas the sauce at dinner, or that glass of ginger .beer, Or these strong cheroots, I know not, but I feel a little queer, Let me go. Nay, Chuckster, blow me, 'pon my soul, this is too bad! When you want me, ask the waiter; he knows where I'm to be had. Whew! This is a great relief now! Let me but undo my stock; Resting here beneath the porch, my nerves will steady like a rock. In my ears I hear the singing of a lot of favourite tunesBless my heart, how very odd! Why, surely there's a brace of moons! See! the stars! how bright they twinkle, winking with a frosty glare; Like my faithless cousin Amy when she drove me to despair. Oh, my cousin, spider hearted! Oh, my Amy! No, confound it! I must wear the mournful willow-all around my heart I've bound it. Falser than the Bank of Fancy, frailer than a shilling glove, Puppet to a father's anger, minion to a nabob's love! Is it well to wish thee happy? Having known me, could you ever Stoop to marry half a heart, and little more than half a liver? Happy! Damme! Thou shalt lower to his level day by day, Changing from the best of china to the commonest of clay. As the husband is, the wife is he is stomach-plagued and old; And his curry soups will make thy cheek the colour of his gold. When his feeble love is sated, he will hold thee surely then Something lower than his hookah-something less than his cayenne. What is this? His eyes are pinky. Was't the claret ? Oh, no, no Bless your soul! it was the salmon,-salmon always makes him so. Take him to thy dainty chamber-soothe him with thy lightest fancies; He will understand thee, won't he?-pay thee with a lover's glances? Louder than the loudest trumpet, harsh as harshest ophicleide, Nasal respirations answer the endearments of his bride. Sweet response, delightful music! Gaze upon thy noble charge, Till the spirit fill thy bosom that inspired the meek Laffarge. Better thou wert dead before me-better, better, that I stood, Looking on thy murdered body, like the injured Daniel Good! Better thou and I were lying cold and timber-stiff and dead, With a pan of burning charcoal underneath our nuptial bed. Cursed be the Bank of England's notes, that tempt the soul to sin! Cursed be the want of acres,-doubly cursed the want of tin! Cursed be the marriage contract, that enslaved thy soul to greed! Cursed be the sallow lawyer, that prepared and drew the deed! Cursed be his foul apprentice, who the loathsome fees did earn! Cursed be the clerk and parson-cursed be the whole concern! Oh, 'tis well that I should bluster, much I'm like to make of that; Better comfort have I found in singing "All around my hat." But that song so wildly plaintive, palls upon my British ears. 'Twill not do to pine for ever,-I am getting up in years. Can't I turn the honest penny, scribbling for the weekly press, And in writing Sunday libels drown my private wretchedness? Oh, to feel the wild pulsation that in manhood's dawn I knew When my days were all before me, and my years were twenty-two! When I smoked my independent pipe along the Quadrant wide With the many larks of London flaring up on every side; When I went the pace so wildly, caring little what might come; Coffee-milling care and sorrow, with a nose-adapted thumb; Felt the exquisite enjoyment, tossing nightly off, oh, heavens ! Brandy at the Cider Cellars, kidneys smoking hot at Evans'! Or in the Adelphi sitting, half in rapture, half in tears, Saw the glorious melodrama conjure up the shades of years. Saw Jack Sheppard, noble stripling, act his wond'rous feats again, Snapping Newgate's bars of iron, like an infant's daisy chain. Might was right, and all the terrors which had held the world in awe, Were despised, and prigging prospered, spite of Laurie, spite of law. In such scenes as these I triumphed, ere my passions edge was rusted, And my cousin's cold refusal left me very much disgusted! Since my heart is sere and withered, and I do not care a curse, Whether worse shall be the better, or the better be the worse. Hark! my merry comrades call me, bawling for another jorum ; They would mock me in derision should I thus appear before 'em. Womankind no more shall vex me, such at least as go arrayed In the most expensive satins, and the newest silk brocade. I'll to Afric, lion-haunted, where the giant forest yields Rarer robes and finer tissue than are sold at Spitalfields. Or to burst all chains of habit, flinging habit's self aside, I shall walk the tangled jungle in mankind's prineval pride; Feeding on the luscious berries and the rich cassava root, Lots of dates and lots of guavas, clusters of forbilden fruit. Never comes the trader thither, never o'er the purple main Sounds the oath of British commerce, or the accents of Cockaigne. There, methinks, would be enjoy meat, where no envious rule prevents; Sink the steamboats! cuss the railways! rot, O rot the Three per Cents! There the passions, cramped no longer, shall have space to breathe, my cousin! I will wed some savage woman-nay, I'll wed at least a dozen. There I'll rear my young mulattoes, as no Bond Street brats are reare 1: They shall dive for alligators, catch the wild goats by the beard Whistle to the cockatoos and mock the hairy-faced baboon, Worship mighty Mumbo Jumbo in the Mountains of the Moon. I myself, in far Timbuctoo, leopard's blood will daily quaff, Ride a tiger hunting, mounted on a thorough-bred giraffe. Fiercely shall I shout the war-whoop, as sɔme sullen stream be crosses, Startling from their noonday slumbers iron-bound rhinɔ ceroses. Fool! again the dream, the fancy! But I know my words are mad, For I hold the grey barbarian lower than the Christian cad. I the swell-the city dandy! I to seek such horrid places I to haunt with squalid negroes, blubber lips, and monkey-faces ! I to wed with Coromintees! I, who managed-very nearTo secure the heart and fortune of the widow Shillibeer! Stuff and nonsense! let me never fling a single chance away, Maids ere now, I know, have loved me, and another maiden may. Morning Post (The Times won't trust me) help me, as I know you can ; I will pen an advertisement-that's a never-failing plan. WANTED, by a bard, in wedlock, some young interesting woman: Looks are not so much an object if the shiners be forthcoming! "Hymen's chains the advertiser vo vs shall be but silken fetters; Please address to A. T., Chelsea. the letters." That's the sort of thing to do it. the balmy, N. B.-You must pay Now I'll go and taste Rest thee with thy yellow nabob, spider-hearted cousin Amy! From The Book of Ballads, edited by Bon Gaultier. William Blackwood and Sons, London and Edinburgh. CABMAN, stop thy jaded knacker; cabman, draw thy slackened rein; Take this sixpence-do not grumble, swear not at Sir Richard Mayne ! Love took up the glass before me, filled it foaming to the brim, Love changed every comic ballad to a sweet euphonious hymn ! Many a morning in the railway did we run to Richmond, Kew, And her hunger cleared my pockets oft of shillings not a few! Many an evening down at Greenwich did we eat the pleasant "bait," Till I found my earnings going at a rather rapid rate.— Oh! Miss Belmont, fickle-hearted! Oh, Miss Belmont, known too late, Oh, that horrid, horrid Richmond, oh, the cursed, cursed "bait " Falser far than Lola Montes, falser e'en than Alice Gray, Scorner of a faithful press-man, sharer of a tumbler's pay !— Is it well to wish thee happy? having once loved me to wed With a fool who gains his living by his heels, and not his head! As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown, And, pursuing his profession, he will strive to drag thee down. He will hold thee in the winter, when his fooleries begin, Something better than his wig, a little dearer than his gin. What is this? his legs are bending! thinkest thou he is weary, faint? Go to him, it is thy duty; kiss him, how he tastes of paint! Am I mad, that I should cherish memories of the bygone time? Think of loving one whose husband fools it in a pantomine! Never, though my mortal summers should be lengthened to the sum Granted to the aged Parr, or more illustrious Widdicomb Comfort -talk to me of comfort. What is comfort here below? Lies it in iced drinks in summer, aquascutum coats in snow? Think not thou wilt know its meaning, wait of all his vows the proof, Till the manager is sulky, and the rain pours through the roof See, his life he acts in dreams, while thou art staring in his face, Listen to his hollow laughter, mark his effort at grimace! Thou shalt hear "Hot Codlins" muttered in his visionhaunted sleep, Thou shalt hear his feigned ecstatics, thou shalt hear his curses deep. Let them fall on gay Vauxhall, that scene to me of deepest woe. But the waiters are departing, and perhaps I'd better go !— EDMUND H. YATES, "You are From Mirth and Metre, 1855. OUR MISCELLANY (which ought to have come out, but did'nt), edited by Edmund H Yates and R. B. Brough, published by G. Routledge & Co., in 1857, contains a number of parodies, amongst others of Lord Macaulay, E. A. Poe, Longfellow, and Dickens. Of Tennyson there are two imitations of Maud ; one, nine verses in length, of In Memoriam, and one entitled A Character, which is a rather close parody of a poem having the same title, published in Tennyson's 1830 volume. It will be remembered that at the time Our Miscellany appeared, M. Jullien's Promenade Concerts were in the full tide of their prosperity, and that the little fopperies and vanities of the clever Chef d'orchestre, and his importation of French military bands were then the talk of the town. A CHARACTER. (Jullien.) WITH half a glance upon the house, He led a solo-ne'er perhaps He led a polka-round his skull He waved the rhythm of the charm, And stamped, and shook his dress-coat skirts, And then he went and changed his shirt! And so he drove a thriving trade, As she comes to the garden gate, It is early morning, my Maud, In the daffodil dawn to wait. I must cut my stick, and vacate. IN MEMORIAM. RICHMOND 1856 I HOLD it truth, when I recall Last London's season's joyous spell, 'Tis better to have danced not well, Than never to have danced at all. I am a bachelor, I know; But tell me not, I can forget, I chanced to tread upon her toe. One little smothered scream-we stopped— Were met by one beam from her eyes, Heart-life how few can understand, Great rivers from small fountains flow; The season's past; alone at Basle Tis better to have danced not well, The two imitations of Maud are scarcely sufficiently interesting to quote at length. ·:0: The Shilling Book of Beauty, by Cuthbert Bede, (J. Blackwood, 1853), has also a parody of Maud, in ten verses, it is entitled : MAUD IN THE GARDEN. By Alfred Tennison, Esq. SHE is coming, my own, my sweet ; She is coming, my life, my fate; I hear the beat of her fairy feet, As she trips to the garden gate; In 1856 a little sixpenny pamphlet was published by J. Booth, of Regent Street, entitled "AntiMaud, by a Poet of the People." Tennyson had been accused of fanning the warlike spi.it then rampant in the land, and his Maud contained many of the stock arguments in favour of war and glory. The "Poet of the People," in Anti-Maud, adopted the other, and less popular view. The author asserts that Anti-Maud is not merely a jeu d'esprit, but something of a more earnest character, and he disclaims any intention of depreciating the Laureate's poetry. I can quote a few only of the best of the fifty odd stanzas: |