Reynolds has painted him,-a face
Filled with a fine, old-fashioned grace,
Fresh-coloured, frank, with ne'er a trace
Of trouble shaded;
The eyes are blue, the hair is drest
In plainest way,-one hand is prest
Deep in a flapped canary vest,
With buds brocaded.
He wears a brown old Brunswick coat,
With silver buttons,-round his throat,
A soft cravat;-in all you note
A strangeness, which, to us who shine
In shapely hats,-whose coats combine
All harmonies of hue and line,—
Inspires compassion.
He lived so long ago, you see!
Men were untravelled then, but we,
Like Ariel, post o'er land and sea
With careless parting;
He found it quite enough for him
To smoke his pipe in "garden trim,"
And watch, about the fish tank's brim,
The swallows darting.
He liked the well-wheel's creaking tongue,— He liked the thrush that stopped and sung,He liked the drone of flies among
His netted peaches;
He liked to watch the sunlight fall
Athwart his ivied orchard wall;
Or pause to catch the cuckoo's call
Beyond the beeches.
His were the times of Paint and Patch,
And yet no Ranelagh could match
The sober doves that round his thatch
Spread tails and sidled;
He liked their ruffling, puffed content,-
For him their drowsy wheelings meant
More than a Mall of Beaus that bent,
Or Belles that bridled.
Not that, in truth, when life began,
He shunned the flutter of the fan;
He too had maybe "pinked his man
In Beauty's quarrel;
But now his "fervent youth" had flown
Where lost things go; and he was grown
As staid and slow-paced as his own
Old hunter, Sorrel.
Yet still he loved the chase, and held
That no composer's score excelled
The merry horn, when Sweetlip swelled
Its jovial riot;
But most his measured words of praise
Caressed the angler's easy ways,-
His idly meditative days,—
His rustic diet.
Not that his "meditating" rose
Beyond a sunny summer doze;
He never troubled his repose
With fruitless prying;
But held, as law for high and low,
What God withholds no man can know,
And smiled away inquiry so,
We read-alas, how much we read!
The jumbled strifes of creed and creed
With endless controversies feed
Our groaning tables;
His books-and they sufficed him-were
Cotton's "Montaigne," "The Grave" of Blair,
A "Walton "-much the worse for wear-
And Æsop's Fables."
"The Bible." Not that he
Had searched its pages as deep as we;
No sophistries could make him see
.Its slender credit;
It may be that he could not count
The sires and sons to Jesse's fount,-
He liked the "Sermon on the Mount,"-
And more, he read it.
Once he had loved, but failed to wed,
A red-cheeked lass who long was dead;
His ways were far too slow, he said,
To quite forget her;
And still when time had turned him gray,
The earliest hawthorn buds in May
Would find his lingering feet astray,
Where first he met her.
In Caelo Quies" heads the stone
On Leisure's grave,- -now little known,
A tangle of wild-rose has grown
So thick across it;
The "Benefactions" still declare
He left the clerk an elbow-chair,
And "12 Pence Yearly to Prepare
Christmas Posset."
Lie softly, Leisure! Doubtless you
With too serene a conscience drew
Your easy breath, and slumbered through
The gravest issue;
But we, to whom our age allows
Scarce space to wipe our weary brows,
Look down upon your narrow house,
Old friend, and miss you!
(From Vignettes in Rhyme, 1873)
The dead hand clasped a letter."
-SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE.
Here in this leafy place
Quiet he lies,
Cold, with his sightless face
Turned to the skies;
'Tis but another dead;
All you can say is said.
Carry his body hence,—
Kings must have slaves;
Kings climb to eminence
Over men's graves:
So this man's eye is dim;—
Throw the earth over him.
What was the white you touched,
There, at his side?
Paper his hand had clutched
Tight ere he died;
Message or wish, maybe;
Smooth the folds out and see.
Yea, I am passed away, I think, from this;
Nor helps me herb, nor any leechcraft here,
But lift me hither the sweet cross to kiss,
And witness ye, I go without a fear.
Yea, I am sped, and never more shall see,
As once I dreamed, the show of shield and crest, Gone southward to the fighting by the sea;— There is no bird in any last year's nest!
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