A Pathetic Ballad
Ben Battle was a soldier bold,
And used to war's alarms;
But a cannon-ball took off his legs,
'Twas in the prime of summer-time
An evening calm and cool,
And four-and-twenty happy boys
Came bounding out of school:
One Life of so much Consequence!
Yet I -- for it -- would pay --
My Soul's entire income --
In ceaseless -- salary --
THE SUN had clos’d the winter day,
The curless quat their roarin play,
And hunger’d maukin taen her way,
To kail-yards green,
Most truly honoured, and as truly dear,
If worth in me or ought I do appear,
Who can of right better demand the same
Than may your worthy self from whom it came?
A languid atmosphere, a lazy breeze,
With labored respiration, moves the wheat
From distant reaches, till the golden seas
Break in crisp whispers at my feet.
Go not too near a House of Rose --
The depredation of a Breeze --
Or inundation of a Dew
Alarms its walls away --
I suppose the time will come
Aid it in the coming
When the Bird will crowd the Tree
And the Bee be booming.
WITH Death doomed to grapple,
Beneath this cold slab, he
Who lied in the Chapel
Now lies in the Abbey.
Love and thy vain employs, away
From this too oft deluded breast!
No longer will I court thy stay,
To be my bosom's teazing guest.
Pain has but one Acquaintance
And that is Death --
Each one unto the other
Society enough.
XIX
The soul's Rialto hath its merchandise;
I barter curl for curl upon that mart,
And from my poet's forehead to my heart
With the same heart, I said, I'll answer thee
As those, when thou shalt call me by my name—
Lo, the vain promise! is the same, the same,
Perplexed and ruffled by life's strategy?
The fine delight that fathers thought; the strong
Spur, live and lancing like the blowpipe flame,
Breathes once and, quenchèd faster than it came,
Leaves yet the mind a mother of immortal song.
Thrice, and above, blest, my soul's half, art thou,
In thy both last and better vow;
Could'st leave the city, for exchange, to see
The country's sweet simplicity;
Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?
Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,
And being frank she lends to those are free:
This modest stone, what few vain marbles can,
May truly say, Here lies an honest man:
A poet, blest beyond the poet's fate,
Whom Heaven kept sacred from the proud and great:
Bright star of beauty, on whose eyelids sit
A thousand nymph-like and enamour'd Graces,
The Goddesses of Memory and Wit,
Which there in order take their several places;
Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth,
That having such a scope to show her pride,
The argument, all bare, is of more worth
Than when it hath my added praise beside!
She sped as Petals of a Rose
Offended by the Wind --
A frail Aristocrat of Time
Indemnity to find --