When spendthrift wights are seated at his board,
No harsh reproof he gives, nor galling word;
But lures them round his peaceful fire to come,
And paints in living lines a happy home.
Meanwhile his honoured lady joins the throng,
With merry humour ever on her tongue;
Talks o'er the country news, and swears 'tis true,
Boasts of her ancestorial greatness too;
An aunt (six times removed) had bags of coin-
Her great grandsire led reg'ments o'er the Boyne.
These were her foibles-follies she had none;
Her faults so few that ready grace they won.
Thus, far from courts, the Captain lives retired,
By all esteemed,-by many, too, admired;
On kindred few the thoughts he deigns to spend,
Mankind his neighbour, relative, and friend.
As every village hath a virgin staid,
'Yclept in vulgar parlance an Old Maid,
Ours would be lonely, if we could not boast
A stale Duenna, once a reigning toast.
Thrice blest the hamlet that the creature doats
Above its sphere 'mid moss and mountain goats,—
Nor are her powers supreme of doing ill;
She dwells alone upon a neighbouring hill.
Sweetly good-humoured is she where unknown, Weigh'd every word, and curb'd is every tone;
She speaks in accents faltering and faint-
Turns up her eyes, and tries to look a Saint-
Points to the household objects of her care,
And makes the stranger think a Heaven is there.
Oft has she pray'd-with fervent feeling pray'd,
That Heaven would grant a husband to her aid;
But Heaven, to check perversity and pride,
In mercy to the gift, that gift denied.
Then ill betide the luckless rural twain
She catches trysting on the Summer plain;
Some embryo scandal, hatched both far and near,
Is sure full-fledged to reach each gossip's ear.
"Hear her but lecture on Divinity,"
Each listener must an instant convert be:
She preaches boldly, and misquotes so well,
She dooms mankind in whole platoons to h-.
Sweet melancholy mildness is her forte;
She hardly deigns to utter a retort:
And even when anger sometimes will beguile,
Her loudest word scarce reaches half a mile.
Altho' the lady scorns to make a lie,
Be cautious what you utter when she's by;
For if by chance you tell a tale you've heard,
She may mistake, or misapply a word;
And as she's clever at retailing news,
Might make your story-what you wouldn't choose.
With Scripture on her lips, the pois'nous dart Of foul-mouthed slander rankles at her heart.
Thorns must infest the pillow where she sleeps,
Who thus in venom all her prattling steeps;
Meek charity her door flies swiftly by,
And pure benevolence ne'er dimm'd her eye,
Altho' the visitor incessant hears
Some mission poor-box rattling in his ears;
But which she aims at is beyond our ken-
To aid the blacks, or mingle with the men.
What wonder that the sceptic's cynic smile
Religion's simple votaries should beguile.
When surreptitious thus her name is used,
And her sublimest traits so much abused?
Hypocrisy is more Religion's foe
Than all the fiends that usher from below.
Far from the village din and hum of men,
Between two hills there lies a silent glen,
Peaceful, unless when echo wakes the ring
Of rifle levelled at some helpless thing,
Or when the mountain hawk-owls scream the fate
Of weaker prey submitted to their hate.
Oft have I strayed the shelving rocks among, In that wild glen, with merry peals that rung,Oft bathed my parch'd lips in the bubbling tide Of streamlet issuing from its rugged side. Here, too, I've striven to tire the mountain goat, That thinn'd the wild briers with its shaggy coat,
Still bleating, as it leaped the crags with skill, "You want the power, tho' you possess the will.”
Blest times of boyhood, innocence, and peace!
Why must your glad'ning sunny day-dreams cease?
Shall I no more the wily rabbit trace,
Or snare old puss within her sitting-place?
Nor e'er again disturb the early rest
Of unfledg'd eaglets in their eyrie nest?
How often have I hour by hour survey'd
The weasels gambol in the rocky shade,
Or watched the frog-spawn in that hollow dell
Issue to life as if by magic spell?
I've clomb the steep that bounds Todmorden's side,
And crossed the streams that thro' its bosom glide;
O'er Gondo's deep and yawning antres sprung,
And traversed Naudersberg with rocks o'erhung;
Yet still my senses dwelt with fond delight
On that bleak spot revealed by memory's light;
And painter, poet-all have failed to draw
A sketch of more sublimity and awe.
To one projecting shelf that shades a cave,
More dark and gloomy than a dismal grave,
The aged dwellers in the neighbouring vale
Attach a wild and legendary tale.
A merry knot of squires had sprung a fox,
And run him closely to these beetling rocks;
Here many a fearless heart that ne'er would shrink
Drew back in terror from the dreadful brink,
Preferring even the stony mountain road
To courting death upon the break-neck mode.
One wilder spirit than the rest, who strove
To shun the fences through a thickset grove,
O'ertook a jockey on a jet-black horse,
Who, strange to say, had chosen the shaded course. "We're closing on a glen," the dark one said, "Take you the lead, or else will you be led ?" "Lead on, lead on!" was answered with a yell, "I'll follow, if the d-1 lead, to h-!"
They crossed the fallow grounds, the huntsman
As both the misty glen together neared;
Deep in the flanks both plunged the piercing steel,
The dark horse seeming scarce its touch to feel.
No stop was there ;-the dark horse swiftly flew
O'er the impeding fence, and sunk from view,
And while the hills sent forth the beagles' tongue,
Uncheck'd, undaunted, o'er the other sprung.
Alas, alas! he'll never leap again;
He's tumbled headlong down that sloping glen,
Rider and horse dashed mangling o'er its side,
The shriek and groan re-echoing far and wide.
But high above the stifled scream of pain,
The falling stones that shower like pattering rain,
And every noise attendant on the fall
Of horse and rider, rises one loud call,—
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