Now death is sick, and riven men Labour and toil for life; Steed rolls on steed, and shield on shield, The God of War is drunk with blood, Oh what have Kings to answer for When thousand deaths for vengeance cry, Like blazing comets in the sky Like these did Gwin and Gordred meet, Gwin fell: the Sons of Norway fled, The rest did fill the vale of death,— The river Dorman rolled their blood Who mourned his sons, and overwhelmed AN IMITATION OF SPENSER.1 OLDEN Apollo, that through heaven wide Scatter'st the rays of light, and truth his beams, In lucent words my darkling verses dight, And wash my earthy mind in thy clear streams, That wisdom may descend in fairy dreams, All while the jocund Hours in thy train Scatter their fancies at thy poet's feet; And, when thou yield'st to Night thy wide. domain, Let rays of truth enlight his sleeping brain. For brutish Pan in vain might thee assay With tinkling sounds to dash thy nervous verse, Sound without sense; yet in his rude affray (For Ignorance is Folly's leasing nurse, And love of Folly needs none other's curse) Midas the praise hath gained of lengthened ears, For which himself might deem him ne'er the worse To sit in council with his modern peers, And thou, Mercurius, that with winged bow It need scarcely be pointed out to the reader that these verses have no imitative value: even the metre is missed. And through heaven's halls thy airy flight dost throw, Entering with holy feet to where on high Down, like a falling star, from autumn sky, And o'er the surface of the silent deep dost fly : If thou arrivest at the sandy shore Where nought but envious hissing adders Thy golden rod, thrown on the dusty floor, Vile savage minds that lurk in lonely cell. O Mercury, assist my labouring sense That round the circle of the world would fly, As the wing'd eagle scorns the towery fence Of Alpine hills round his high aëry, And searches through the corners of the sky, Sports in the clouds to hear the thunder's sound, And see the winged lightnings as they fly; Then, bosomed in an amber cloud, around Plumes his wide wings, and seeks Sol's palace high. And thou, O Warrior maid invincible, Armed with the terrors of Almighty Jove, Lov'st thou to walk the peaceful solemn grove, Or bear'st thy ægis o'er the burning field Where like the sea the waves of battle move? Or have thy soft piteous eyes beheld The weary wanderer through the desert rove? Or does the afflicted man thy heavenly bosom move? 66 BLIND-MAN'S BUFF. HEN silver snow decks Susan's clothes, With hearth so red, and walls so fair. The well-washed stools, a circling row, Jenny her silken kerchief folds, And blear-eyed Will the black lot holds. The Blind-man's arms, extended wide, Sam slips between :- "Oh woe betide 66 Now, Kitty, now! what chance hast thou? Where cheating is, there's mischief there." Now Kitty, pert, repeats the rhymes, Then cries out" Hem!"-Hodge1 heard, and ran But down he came.-Alas, how frail 1 The name of "Hodge" is here introduced for the first time, and somewhat to the reader's embarrassment. As he "ran with hood-winked chance," he must clearly have been the "Blind Man," and therefore the same person as "Roger." |