The Household Book of Poetry

MALBROUCK.

We have brought them up to women and

men

In the fere of God I trowe they be; And why wilt thou thyself miskenMan, take thy old cloake about thee.

HE.

O Bell, my wife, why dost thou floute?
Now is now, and then was then;
Seeke now all the world throughout,

Thou kenst not clownes from gentlemen;

They are clad in blacke, greene, yellowe, or gray,

So far above their own degree

Once in my life Пle do as they,

For Ile have a new cloake about me.

SHE.

For Trinity feast is over,
And has brought no news from Dover;
And Easter is past, moreover,

And Malbrouck still delays.

Milady in her watch-tower
Spends many a pensive hour,
Not knowing why or how her

Dear lord from England stays.

While sitting quite forlorn in
That tower, she spies returning
A page clad in deep mourning,

With fainting steps and slow.

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"O page, prythee, come faster! What news do you bring of your master?

I fear there is some disaster

Your looks are so full of woe."

"The news I bring, fair lady," With sorrowful accent said he, "Is one you are not ready

So soon, alas! to hear.

"But since to speak I'm hurried,"
Added this page quite flurried,
"Malbrouck is dead and buried!"

-And here he shed a tear.

"He's dead! he's dead as a herring!
For I beheld his berring,
And four officers transferring

His corpse away from the field.

"One officer carried his sabre;
And he carried it not without labor,
Much envying his next neighbor,
Who only bore a shield.
"The third was helmet-bearer-
That helmet which on its wearer
Filled all who saw with terror,

And covered a hero's brains.

"Now, having got so far, I
Find, that-by the Lord Harry!—
The fourth is left nothing to carry ;—
So there the thing remains."
ANONYMOUS (French)

Translation of FATHER PROUT.

With an old study filled full of learned old But in the ensuing ditty you shall hear how

Like a flourishing young gallant, newly come to his land,

Who keeps a brace of painted madams at his command;

And takes up a thousand pound upon his father's land;

With an old hall, hung about with pikes, guns, And gets drunk in a tavern, till he can nei

With a good old fashion, when Christmas was And seven or eight different dressings of other

AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG.

405

With a new-fashioned hall, built where the And this is the course most of our new gal old one stood, lants hold,

Hung round with new pictures, that do the Which makes that good housekeeping is now poor no good;

With a fine marble chimney, wherein burns

neither coal nor wood;

And a new smooth shovelboard, whereon no
victuals ne'er stood;

Like a young courtier of the king's,
And the king's young courtier.

With a new study, stuft fell of pamphlets and plays;

And a new chaplain, that swears faster than he prays;

With a new buttery hatch, that opens once in four or five days,

And a new French cook, to devise fine kick-
shaws, and toys;

Like a young courtier of the king's,
And the king's young courtier.

With a new fashion when Christmas is drawing on

On a new journey to London straight we all must be gone,

And leave none to keep house, but our new porter John,

Who relieves the poor with a thump on the
back with a stone;

Like a young courtier of the king's,
And the king's young courtier.

With a new gentleman usher, whose carriage is complete;

With a new coachman, footmen, and pages to carry up the meat;

With a waiting gentlewoman, whose dressing is very neat

Who, when her lady has dined, lets the ser

vants not eat;

Like a young courtier of the king's,
And the king's young courtier.

With new titles of honor bought with his father's old gold,

For which sundry of his ancestors' old manors are sold:

grown so cold

Among the young courtiers of the king,
Or the king's young courtiers.

ANONYMOUS,

AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A
MAD DOG.

GOOD people all, of every sort,

Give ear unto my song;
And if you find it wond'rous short
It cannot hold you long.

In Islington there was a man,

Of whom the world might say
That still a godly race he ran

Whene'er he went to pray.

A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes;
The naked every day he clad,

When he put on his clothes.

And in that town a dog was found,

As many dogs there be,
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,
And curs of low degree.

This dog and man at first were friends;
But when a pique began,

The dog, to gain his private ends,
Went mad, and bit the man.

Around from all the neighboring streets
The wandering neighbors ran,
And swore the dog had lost his wits,
To bite so good a man.

The wound it seemed both sore and sad
To every Christian eye:
And while they swore the dog was mad
They swore the man would die.

But soon a wouder came to light,
That showed the rogues they lied:
The man recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH

springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things,
I sing This verse to Caryl, muse! is due;
This, e'en Belinda may vouchsafe to view :
Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
If she inspire, and he approve my lays.
Say what strange motive, goddess! could
compel

A well-bred lord t' assault a gentle belle?
Oh, say what stranger cause, yet unexplored,
Could make a gentle belle reject a lord?
In tasks so bold can little men engage,
And in soft bosoms dwell such mighty rage?
Sol through white curtains shot a timorous
ray,

Or virgins visited by angel powers With golden crowns and wreaths of heavenly flowers

Hear and believe! thy own importance know,

Nor bound thy narrow views to things below Some secret truths, from learned pride con cealed,

To maids alone and children are revealed; What though no credit doubting wits may give?

The fair and innocent shall still believe. Know, then, unnumbered spirits round the fly

The light militia of the lower sky;
These, though unseen, are ever on the wing
Hang o'er the box, and hover round the ring.
Think what an equipage thou hast in air,
And view with scorn two pages and a chair.
As now your own, our beings were of old,
And once enclosed in woman's beauteous
mould;

Thence, by a soft transition, we repair
From earthly vehicles to these of air.

And ope'd those eyes that must eclipse the Think not, when woman's transient breath is day.

fled,

Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing That all her vanities at once are dead;

And the pressed watch returned a silver And love of ombre, after death survive;

sound.

Belinda still her downy pillow prestHer guardian sylph prolonged the balmy rest; 'T was he had summoned to her silent bed The morning-dream that hovered o'er her head:

For when the fair in all their pride expire, To their first elements their souls retire; The sprites of fiery termagant in flame Mount up, and take a salamander's name; Soft yielding minds to water glide away, And sip, with nymphs, their elemental tea;

A youth more glittering than a birthnight The graver prude sinks downward to a

(That e'en in slumber caused her cheek to In search of mischief still on earth to roam;

glow,)

Seemed to her ear his winning lips to lay, And thus in whispers said, or seemed to say: "Fairest of mortals, thou distinguished care Of thousand bright inhabitants of air!

If e'er one vision touched thy infant thought Of all the nurse and all the priest have taught,

Of airy elves by moonlight-shadows seen,
The silver token, and the circled green;

The light coquettes in sylphs aloft repair,
And sport and flutter in the fields of air.

"Know further yet; whoever fair and

chaste

Rejects mankind, is by some sylph embraced: For spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease Assume what sexes and what shapes they please.

What guards the purity of melting maids, In courtly balls and midnight masquerades

spark,

THE RAPE OF THE LOCK.

407

Safe from the treacherous friend, the daring Warned by the sylph, O pious maid, beware This to disclose is all thy guardian can; Beware of all, but most beware of man!" He said; when Shock, who thought she slept too long,

The glance by day, the whisper in the darkWhen kind occasion prompts their warm desires,

When music softens, and when dancing fires? 'Tis but their sylph, the wise celestials know, Though honor is the word with men below. "Some nymphs there are, too conscious of their face,

For life predestined to the gnome's embrace; These swell their prospects and exalt their pride,

When offers are disdained, and love denied; Then gay ideas crowd the vacant brain, While peers, and dukes, and all their sweeping train,

And garters, stars, and coronets appear, And in soft sounds, 'Your grace,' salutes their ear.

'Tis these that early taint the female soul, Instruct the eyes of young coquettes to roll; Teach infant cheeks a bidden blush to know, And little hearts to flutter at a beau.

"Oft when the world imagine women stray,

The sylphs through mystic mazes guide their way;

Through all the giddy circle they pursue,
And old impertinence expel by new.
What tender maid but must a victim fall
To one man's treat, but for another's ball?
When Florio speaks, what virgin could with-
stand,

If gentle Damon did not squeeze her hand?
With varying vanities from every part
They shift the moving toy-shop of their heart;
Where wigs with wigs, with sword-knots
sword-knots strive,

Leaped up, and waked his mistress with his tongue.

'T was then, Belinda, if report say true, Thy eyes first opened on a billet-doux; Wounds, charms, and ardors, were no sooner read,

But all the vision vanished from thy head. And now, unveiled, the toilet stands dis

played,

Each silver vase in mystic order laid.
First, robed in white, the nymph intent

adores,

With head uncovered, the cosmetic powers.
A heavenly image in the glass appears—
To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears;
Th' inferior priestess, at her altar's side,
Trembling begins the sacred rites of pride.
Unnumbered treasures ope at once, and here
The various offerings of the world appear:
From each she nicely culls with curious toil,
And decks the goddess with the glittering
spoil.

This casket India's glowing gems unlocks,
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.
The tortoise here, and elephant unite,
Transformed to combs-the speckled, and the
white.

Here files of pins extend their shining rows;
Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux.
Now awful beauty puts on all its arms;
The fair each moment rises in her charms,
Repairs her smiles, awakens every grace,
And calls forth all the wonders of her face;
Sees by degrees a purer blush arise,

Beaux banish beaux, and coaches coaches And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes.

drive.

This erring mortals levity may call-
Oh, blind to truth! the sylphs contrive it all.
"Of these am I, who thy protection claim;
A watchful sprite, and Ariel is my name.
Late, as I ranged the crystal wilds of air,
In the clear mirror of thy ruling star,
I saw, alas! some dread event impend,
Ere to the main this morning's sun descend;
But heaven reveals not what, or how, or
where:

The busy sylphs surround their darling care, These set the head, and these divide the hair; Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown;

And Betty's praised for labors not her own.

CANTO II.

Not with more glories, in the ethereal plain, The sun first rises o'er the purpled main, Than, issuing forth, the rival of his beams Launched on the bosom of the silver Thames

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