Free-traders, Chartists, Puseyites! Your warfare, with its wrongs and rights, In me no rage arouses; I read the news, and cry, if hurt At Whigs and Tories throwing dirt, "A plague on both your houses!" Tailors! avaunt your bills and spells!-When fashion plays on folly's bells, No haddock can be deafer; Comfort and neatness all my care, I stick to broadcloth, and forswear Both Macintosh and Zephyr.- "Tis but our sensual pleasures' zest That time can dull;-our purest, best Defy decay or capture. A landscape-book-a work of art My friends, my home-still fill my heart With undiminish'd rapture. Fled some few years, old Time may try Again to wake my rhyme, when I, Obeying the vagary, May thus subscribe the muse's frisk: "My pensive public-yours!-A BRISK YOUNG SEPTUAGENARY!" ANSWER TO "AN OLD MAN'S PEAN." [Written (invitá Minerva) at the instigation of J. H.] THOU greybeard gay! whose muse-(perchance In second childhood's ignorance,) Inspired "An Old Man's Pean," Hear how a brother senior sings Sexagenarian sufferings, In strains antipodean! Young, I could take a morning's sport; Play matches in the Tennis Court, So strong was I and plastic; Dine out, and yet with spirit light And body unfatigued, at night Could sport the toe fantastic. Behold me now!-my limbs are stiff: An open door, an east-wind's whiff, Brings sharp rheumatic touches; A chamber-horse my only nag, I mope at home, or slowly drag Once I devour'd whatever came, And never knew, except by name, The heartburn, bile, dyspepsy: Now I must fast-eat what I hate, Or all my ailments aggravate, From ache to epilepsy. How starving Tantalus of old Was punish'd by the Gods, is told In many a classic stanza; And all must recollect the wand That whisk'd the viands from the hand Of hungry Sancho Panza: Their fate without their fault is mine. Champagne and claret, drinks divine As nectar or ambrosia, I may not quaff, but-(horrid bore!) My sherry from a cruet pour And think of past symposia. At home my wife will supervise Each meal I take. I wish her eyes Were sometimes touch'd with blindness! But no-they move not from my plate: God bless her! how I love, yet hate Her ever watchful kindness. "My dear! you know you 're bilious--pray Avoid the turtle soup to-day, And do not touch the salmon ; Just take a chicken wing, or leg, You will not taste the gammon." |