IV.
To RAMILIES next came the vaunting VILLEROY,
In his own esteem equal to Hector of Troy;
But he found, like the rest, that his man he mistook —
And fled at the sight of the boots of MARLBROOK.
Brush — brush away
V.
Then here’s to the boots, made of stout English leather,
Well soled, and well heel’d, and right well put together!
He deserves not the name of a Briton, who’d brook
A word ‘gainst the fame of the boots of MARLBROOK!
Brush — brush away
VI.
Of Gallia the dread, and of Europe the wonder,
These boots, like their master, will never knock under;
We’ll bequeath ’em our sons, and our sons’ sons shall look
With pride and delight on the boots of MARLBROOK.
Brush — brush away!
A YEAR AND A DAY.
I.
A YEAR and a Day is the period named
When, according to Custom, the FLITCH may be claimed; —
Provided the parties can swear and can prove,
They have lived the whole time in true conjugal love.
II.
’Tis a very old Custom of ours at Dunmow, —
Pitzwalter established it ages ago:
Its antiquity, sure, can be doubted by no man,
Since ’tis mentioned by Chaucer, and trusty Piers Plowman.
III.
That it is a good Custom, as well as an old, —
Our custom of Dunmow — you needn’t be told —
A prize matrimonial — claim it we may —
Nell and I have been married a Year and a Day.
IV.
With all the conditions we’ve duly complied —
And our love and fidelity well have been tried:
Kneeling down at the Church-door, we dare to confess
That not e’en in thought, did we ever transgress.
V.
No woman, save Nell, has attractions for me;
And as I feel, I needn’t assure you, feels she:
No man in the world, be he ever so big,
Can say Nelly cares for his nonsense a fig.
VI.
I’m a pattern to husbands, as she is to wives —
We teach all transgressors to alter their lives.
We show how much better it is to be true,
Than each other neglect, as some married folks do.
VII.
In short, we’re as happy as couple can be, —
No long curtain lectures sweet Nell reads to me;
By no silly squabbles we’re ever put out,
Nor do I ever scold, nor does she ever pout.
VIII.
As to wishing that we were unmarried again, —
A notion so stupid ne’er enter’d our brain: —
Ear rather, — we give you our honour, — we would
Be married twice over again, if we could!
IX.
Three times did I marry the FLITCH to obtain —
Three times unsuccessful — the fourth time I gain:
Blest with Nelly, sweet Nelly, they can’t say me nay, —
We’ve not had a wrong word for a Year and a Day!
THE BALLAD OF THE BEARD.
I.
IN masculine beauty, or else I am wrong,
Perfection consists in a beard that is long;
By man it is cherished, by woman revered, —
Hence every good fellow is known by his beard.
II.
Barbarossa, and Blackbeard, and Bluebeard, we know,
Let the hair on their chins most abundantly grow:
So did Francis the First, and our Harry the bluff,
And the great Bajazet had beard more than enough.
III.
Now the faces of those bearded worthies compare
With the faces of others divested of hair;
And you’ll very soon see — if you’ve got any eyes —
On which side the superiority lies.
IV.
Then take to the BEARD, and have done with the razor!
Don’t disfigure yourself any longer, I pray, sir!
Wear a Beard. You will find it becoming and pleasant,
And your wife will admire you much more than at present.
V.
Of cuts we’ve the Spanish, Italian, and Dutch,
The old and the new, and the common o’ermuch;
You may have your beard trimm’d any way that you please,
Curled, twisted, or stuck out like chevaux-de-frise.
VI.
You may wear, if you choose, a beard, pick-a-devant,
A beard like a hammer, or jagg’d like a saw, —
A beard called “cathedral,” and shaped like a tile,
Which the widow in Hudibras served to beguile.
VII.
A beard like a dagger — nay, don’t be afraid, —
A beard like a bodkin, a beard like a spade;
A beard like a sugar-loaf, beard like a fork,
A beard like a Hebrew, a beard like a Turk.
VIII.
Any one of these beards may be yours if you list —
According to fancy you trim it or twist.
As to colour, that matters, I ween, not a pin —
But a bushy black beard is the surest to win.
IX.
So take to the BEARD, and abandon the razor!
Have done with all soaping and shaving, I say, sir!
By a scrub of a barber be never more sheared, sir;
But adorn cheek and chin with a handsome long beard, sir!
OLD GRINDROD’S GHOST.
I.
OLD GRINDROD was hanged on a gibbet high,
On the spot where the dark deed was done;
’Twas a desolate place, on the edge of a moor, —
A place for the timid to shun.
II.
Chains round his middle, and chains round his neck,
And chains round his ankles were hung:
And there in all weathers, in sunshine and rain,
Old Grindrod, the murderer, swung.
III.
Old Grindrod had long been the banquet of crows,
Who flocked on his carcase to batten;
And the unctuous morsels that fell from their feast
Served the rank weeds beneath him to fatten!
IV.
All that’s now left of him is a skeleton grim,
The stoutest to strike with dismay;
So ghastly the sight, that no urchin, at night,
Who can help it, will pass by that way.
V.
All such as had dared, had sadly been scared,
And soon ’twas the general talk,
That the wretch in his chains, each night took the pains,
To come down from the gibbet — and walk!
VI.
The story was told to a Traveller bold,
At an inn, near the moor, by the Host;
He appeals to each guest, and its truth they attest,
But the Traveller laughs at the Ghost.
VII.
“Now, to show you,” quoth he, “how afraid I must be,
A rump and a dozen I’ll lay;
That before it strikes One, I will go forth alone,
Old Grindrod a visit to pay.
VIII.
“To the gibbet I’ll go, and this I will do,
As sure as I stand in my shoes;
Some address I’ll devise, and if Grinny replies,
My wager, of course, I shall lose.”
IX.
“Accepted the bet; but the night it is wet,”
Quoth the Host. “Never mind!” says the Guest;
“From darkness and rain, the adventure will gain,
To my mind an additional zest.”
X.
Set out from the inn, all alone;
’Twas a night black as ink, and our friend ‘gan to think,
That uncommonly cold it had grown.
XI.
Bat of nothing afraid, and by nothing delayed;
Plunging onward through bog and through wood;
Wind and rain in his face, he ne’er slackened his pace,
Till under the gibbet he stood.
XII.
Though dark as could be, yet he thought he could see
The skeleton hanging on high;
The gibbet it creaked; and the rusty chains squeaked;
And a screech-owl flew solemnly by.
XIII.
The heavy rain pattered, the hollow bones clattered,
The Traveller’s teeth chattered — with cold — not with fright;
The wind it blew lustily, piercingly, gustily;
Certainly not an agreeable night!
XIV.
“Ho! Grindrod, old fellow!” thus loudly did bellow,
The Traveller mellow,—” How are ye, my blade?” —
“I’m cold and I’m dreary; I’m wet and I’m weary;
But soon I’ll be near ye!” the Skeleton said.
XV.
The grisly bones rattled, and with the chains battled,
The gibbet appallingly shook;
On the ground something stirr’d, but no more the man heard,
To his heels, on the instant, he took.
XVI.
Over moorland he dashed, and through quagmire he plashed
His pace never daring to slack;
Till the hostel he neared, for greatly he feared
Old Grindrod would leap on his back.
XVII.
His wager he lost, and a trifle it cost;
But that which annoyed him the most,
Was to find out too late, that certain as fate,
The Landlord had acted the Ghost.
THE BARBER OF RIPON AND THE GHOSTLY BASIN.
A TALE OF THE CHARNEL HOUSE.
I.
SINCE Ghost-Stories you want, there is one I can tell
Of a wonderful thing that Bat Pigeon befel:
A Barber, at Ripon, in Yorkshire was he,
And as keen in his craft as his best blade could be.
II.
Now Bat had a fancy, — a strange one, you’ll own, —
Instead of a brass bowl to have one of bone:
To the Charnel-house ‘neath the old Minster he’d been,
And there, ‘mongst the relics, a treasure had seen.
III.
‘Mid the pile of dry bones that encumber’d the ground,
One pumpkin-like skull with a mazard he found;
If home that enormous old sconce he could take,
What a capital basin for shaving ’twould make!
IV.
Well! he got it, at last, from the Sexton, his friend,
Little dreaming how queerly the business would end:
Next, he saw’d off the cranium close to the eyes;
And behold then! a basin capacious in size.
V.
As the big bowl is balanced ‘twixt finger and thumb,
Bat’s customers all with amazement are dumb;
At the strange yellow object they blink and they stare,
But what it can be not a soul is aware!
VI.
Bat Pigeon, as usual to rest went that night:
But he soon started up in a terrible fright:
Lo! giving the curtains and bedclothes a pull,
A Ghost he beheld — wanting half of its skull!
VII.
“Unmannerly barber!” the Spectre exclaimed;
“To desecrate bonehouses art not ashamed?
Thy crown into shivers, base varlet, I’ll crack,
Unless, on the instant, my own I get back!”
VIII.
“There it lies on the table!” Bat quakingly said;
“Sure a skull cannot matter when once one is dead.” —
“Such a skull as thine may not, thou addlepate fool!
But a shaver of clowns for a Knight is no rule!”
IX.
With this, the wroth Spectre its brainpan clapp’d on,
And holding it fast, in a twinkling was gone;
But ere through the keyhole the Phantom could rush,
Bat perceived it had taken the soap and the brush.
X.
When the Sexton next mom went the Charnel-house round,
The great Yellow Skull in its old place he found:
And ‘twixt its lank jaws, while they grinningly ope,
As in mockery stuck, are the Brush and the Soap!
Translations.
ELEGY ON THE CARDINAL CARLO BORROMEO.
WITH black funereal robe, and tresses shorn,
O’erwhelmed with grief, sad Elegy appears;
And, by her side, sits Ecloga forlorn,
Blotting each line she traces with her tears.
’Twas night! — long pondering on my secret woes,
The third hour broke upon my vigil lone;
Far from my breast had sorrow chased repose,
And fears presageful threatened ills unknown.
Slumber, at length, my heavy eyelids sealed;
The self-same terrors scared me as I slept:
Portentous dreams events to come revealed,
And o’er my couch fantastic visions swept.
Upon the shoreless sea methought I sailed,
No helmsman steered the melancholy bark;
Around its sides the pitying Nereids wailed
Cleaving with snow-white arms the waters dark.
Cydippe, dolphin-borne, Ephyra fair,
And Xanthia leave their halcyon-haunted caves,
With Doris and Cymodece to share
The maddening strife of storm-awaken’d waves.
Drawn unresisting, where the whirling gyre
Yexes the deep, the ship her prow inclines;
While, like a pharos’ gleam, the lightning’s fire
Over the raging vortex redly shines.
Mix’d with the thunder’s roar that shakes the skies,
Notus and Africus and Boreas sound;
Black wreathing clouds, like shadowy legions, rise,
Shrouding the sea in midnight gloom profound.
Disabled, straining, by the tempest lashed,
Reft of her storm-tried helmsman’s guiding hand,
The vessel sinks! — amid the surges dashed,
Vainly I struggle — vainly cry for land!
Alas! stern truths with dreams illusive meet!
Latium the shipwreck of her hopes deplores!
The pious leader of the Insubrian fleet
I mourn — a wandering Scot from Northern shores!
Weep youths! weep aged men! weep! rend your hair!
Let your wild plaints be on the breezes tost!
Weep virgins! matrons! till your loud despair
Outbraves her children’s wail for Ilion lost!
In that wreck’d bark the Ship of Christ behold!
In its lost chief the Cardinal divine,
Of princely Lombard race; whose worth untold
Eclipsed the lofty honours of his line.
His suffering countrymen to rule, sustain,
By the All-wise was BORROMEO given;
And he, who stoop’d not dignity to gain,
Derived his high investiture from heaven.
Bright as the sun o’er all pre-eminent,
Or Cynthia glittering from her star-girt throne,
The saintly CHARLES, on truths sublime intent,
Amid the purple hierarchy shone.
The Christian fleet, devoid of helm and sail,
He mann’d and led where roughest billows roll;
And, though no more his virtues wide prevail,
Their sacred influence
spreads from pole to pole.
His was the providence that all foresees,
His, the trust placed, unchangeably, above;
His, strict observance of his sires’ decrees,
Rapt adoration, and fear-chasten’d love.
The faith in practice, not profession, shown,
Which borrows all its glory from on high
Was his: — nor did his holiness, alone,
Consist in outward forms of sanctity.
A willing ear unto the nobly-born,
Nobler himself, he ne’er refused to yield;
Nor, Jesus’ meek disciple, did he scorn
The humble prayer that to his heart appealed.
No dearer recollection than his name
Bequeathed us, can unite him with the earth:
Nor can my praise add lustre to his fame —
Proud heritage of unexampled worth!
When, o’er his desolated city fell
The livid plague’s inexorable breath,
Oft, in the lazzaretto’s tainted cell,
Fervent, he prayed beside the couch of death.
The Works of William Harrison Ainsworth Page 849
