by Paul Keegan
In the land o’ the leal.
Our bonnie bairn’s there, John,
She was baith gude and fair, John,
And oh! we grudged her sair
To the land o’ the leal.
But sorrow’s sel’ wears past, John,
And joy’s a-comin’ fast, John,
The joy that’s aye to last,
In the land o’ the leal.
Sae dear’s that joy was bought, John,
Sae free the battle fought, John,
That sinfu’ man e’er brought
To the land o’ the leal.
Oh! dry your glist’ning e’e, John,
My saul langs to be free, John,
And angels beckon me
To the land o’ the leal.
Oh! haud ye leal and true, John,
Your day it’s wearin’ through, John,
And I’ll welcome you
To the land o’ the leal.
Now fare-ye-weel, my ain John,
This warld’s cares are vain, John,
We’ll meet, and we’ll be fain,
In the land o’ the leal.
1826ANONYMOUS [A Metrical Adage]
The Robin and the Wren
Are God’s cock and hen,
The Martin and the Swallow,
Are God’s mate and marrow.
ANONYMOUS Tweed and Till
Says Tweed to Till,
What gars ye rin sae still?
Says Till to Tweed,
Though ye rin wi’ speed
5
And I rin slaw,
For ae man that ye droun
I droun twa.
ANONYMOUS A Rhyme from Lincolnshire
Sad is the burying in the sunshine,
But bless’d is the corpse that goeth home in rain.
WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED Good-night to the Season 1827
Thus runs the world away.
HAMLET
Good-night to the Season! ’tis over!
Gay dwellings no longer are gay;
The courtier, the gambler, the lover,
Are scatter’d like swallows away:
There’s nobody left to invite one,
Except my good uncle and spouse;
My mistress is bathing at Brighton,
My patron is sailing at Cowes:
For want of a better employment,
Till Ponto and Don can get out,
I’ll cultivate rural enjoyment,
And angle immensely for trout.
Good-night to the Season! – the lobbies,
Their changes, and rumours of change,
Which startled the rustic Sir Bobbies,
And made all the Bishops look strange:
The breaches, and battles, and blunders,
Perform’d by the Commons and Peers;
The Marquis’s eloquent thunders,
The Baronet’s eloquent ears:
Denouncings of Papists and treasons,
Of foreign dominion and oats;
Misrepresentations of reasons,
And misunderstandings of notes.
Good-night to the Season! – the buildings
Enough to make Inigo sick;
The paintings, and plasterings, and gildings
Of stucco, and marble, and brick;
The orders deliciously blended,
From love of effect, into one;
The club-houses only intended,
The palaces only begun;
The hell where the fiend, in his glory,
Sits staring at putty and stones,
And scrambles from story to story,
To rattle at midnight his bones.
Good-night to the Season! – the dances,
The fillings of hot little rooms,
The glancings of rapturous glances,
The fancyings of fancy costumes;
The pleasures which Fashion makes duties,
The praisings of fiddles and flutes,
The luxury of looking at beauties,
The tedium of talking to mutes;
The female diplomatists, planners
Of matches for Laura and Jane,
The ice of her Ladyship’s manners,
The ice of his Lordship’s champagne.
Good-night to the Season! – the rages
Led off by the chiefs of the throng,
The Lady Matilda’s new pages,
The Lady Eliza’s new song;
Miss Fennel’s macaw, which at Boodle’s
Is held to have something to say;
Mrs. Splenetic’s musical poodles,
Which bark ‘Batti Batti’ all day;
The pony Sir Araby sported,
As hot and as black as a coal,
And the Lion his mother imported,
In bearskins and grease, from the Pole.
Good-night to the Season! – the Toso,
So very majestic and tall;
Miss Ayton, whose singing was so-so,
And Pasta, divinest of all;
The labour in vain of the Ballet,
So sadly deficient in stars;
The foreigners thronging the Alley,
Exhaling the breath of cigars;
The ‘loge’ where some heiress, how killing,
Environ’d with Exquisites sits,
The lovely one out of her drilling,
The silly ones out of their wits.
Good-night to the Season! – the splendour
That beam’d in the Spanish Bazaar;
Where I purchased – my heart was so tender –
A card-case, – a pasteboard guitar, –
A bottle of perfume, – a girdle, –
A lithograph’d Riego full-grown,
Whom Bigotry drew on a hurdle
That artists might draw him on stone, –
A small panorama of Seville, –
A trap for demolishing flies, –
A caricature of the Devil, –
And a look from Miss Sheridan’s eyes.
Good-night to the Season! – the flowers
Of the grand horticultural fête,
When boudoirs were quitted for bowers,
And the fashion was not to be late;
When all who had money and leisure
Grew rural o’er ices and wines,
All pleasantly toiling for pleasure,
All hungrily pining for pines,
And making of beautiful speeches,
And marring of beautiful shows,
And feeding on delicate peaches,
And treading on delicate toes.
Good-night to the Season! – another
Will come with its trifles and toys,
And hurry away, like its brother,
In sunshine, and odour, and noise.
Will it come with a rose or a briar?
Will it come with a blessing or curse?
Will its bonnets be lower or higher?
Will its morals be better or worse?
Will it find me grown thinner or fatter,
Or fonder of wrong or of right,
Or married, – or buried? – no matter,
Good-night to the Season, Good-night!
1828THOMAS HOOD Death in the Kitchen
‘Are we not here now?’ – continued the corporal (striking the end of his stick perpendicularly on the floor, so as to give an idea of health and stability) – ‘and are we not’ (dropping his hat upon the ground) ‘gone! – in a moment?’
TRISTRAM SHANDY
Trim, thou are right! – ’Tis sure that I,
And all who hear thee, are to die.
The stoutest lad and wench
Must lose their places at the will
Of Death, and go at last to fill
The sexton’s gloomy trench!
The dreary grave! – Oh, when I think
How close ye stand upon its brink,
My inward spirit groans!
My eyes are fill’d with dismal dreams
Of coffins, a
nd this kitchen seems
A charnel full of bones!
Yes, jovial butler, thou must fail,
As sinks the froth on thine own ale;
Thy days will soon be done!
Alas! the common hours that strike
Are knells; for life keeps wasting, like
A cask upon the run.
Ay, hapless scullion! ’tis thy case:
Life travels at a scouring pace,
Far swifter than thy hand.
The fast decaying frame of man
Is but a kettle, or a pan,
Time wears away – with sand!
Thou needst not, mistress cook! be told,
The meat to-morrow will be cold
That now is fresh and hot:
E’en thus our flesh will, by the by,
Be cold as stone: – Cook, thou must die!
There’s death within the pot!
Susannah, too, my lady’s maid!
Thy pretty person once must aid
To swell the buried swarm!
The ‘glass of fashion’ thou wilt hold
No more, but grovel in the mould
That’s not the ‘mould of form’!
Yes, Jonathan, that drives the coach,
He too will feel the fiend’s approach –
The grave will pluck him down:
He must in dust and ashes lie,
And wear the churchyard livery,
Grass-green, turn’d up with brown.
How frail is our uncertain breath!
The laundress seems full hale, but Death
Shall her ‘last linen’ bring.
The groom will die, like all his kind;
And e’en the stable-boy will find
His life no stable thing.
Nay, see the household dog – e’en that
The earth shall take! – The very cat
Will share the common fall;
Although she hold (the proverb saith)
A ninefold life, one single death
Suffices for them all!
Cook, butler, Susan, Jonathan,
The girl that scours the pot and pan,
And those that tend the steeds –
All, all shall have another sort
Of service after this – in short,
The one the parson reads!
The dreary grave! – Oh, when I think
How close ye stand upon its brink,
My inward spirit groans!
My ears are fill’d with dismal dreams
Of coffins, and this kitchen seems
A charnel full of bones!
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE Duty Surviving Self-Love
Unchanged within, to see all changed without,
Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt.
Yet why at others’ wanings should’st thou fret?
Then only might’st thou feel a just regret,
Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light
In selfish forethought of neglect and slight.
O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed,
While, and on whom, thou may’st – shine on! nor heed
Whether the object by reflected light
Return thy radiance or absorb it quite:
And though thou notest from thy safe recess
Old Friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air,
Love them for what they are; nor love them less,
Because to thee they are not what they were.
1829FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS Casabianca
Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son to the admiral of the Orient, remained at his post (in the battle of the Nile), after the ship had taken fire, and all the guns had been abandoned; and perished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached the powder.
The boy stood on the burning deck,
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle’s wreck,
Shone round him o’er the dead.
Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud, though child-like form.
The flames roll’d on – he would not go,
Without his father’s word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.
He call’d aloud – ‘Say, father, say
If yet my task is done?’
He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.
‘Speak, Father!’ once again he cried,
‘If I may yet be gone!’
– And but the booming shots replied,
And fast the flames roll’d on.
Upon his brow he felt their breath
And in his waving hair;
And look’d from that lone post of death,
In still, yet brave despair.
And shouted but once more aloud,
‘My father! must I stay?’
While o’er him fast, through sail and shroud,
The wreathing fires made way.
They wrapt the ship in splendor wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And stream’d above the gallant child,
Like banners in the sky.
There came a burst of thunder sound –
The boy – oh! where was he?
– Ask of the winds that far around
With fragments strew’d the sea!
With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part –
But the noblest thing that perish’d there,
Was that young faithful heart.
DOROTHY WORDSWORTH Floating Island
Harmonious powers with nature work
On sky, earth, river, lake and sea
Sunshine and cloud, whirlwind and breeze,
All in one duteous task agree.
Once did I see a slip of earth
By throbbing waves long undermined,
Loosed from its hold – how, no one knew,
But all might see it float, obedient to the wind,
