Bliss at last! VII. The street is passed; The aisle I've dragged me through it: Oh the rare Old crowning chair! I fear I flopped into it. Balmy, balmy, Comes the psalmy; Bland the organ blows me ; Crown down coming on a periwig that fits me, Oh how bona My corona! VIII. Sitting so how dulcis! My oculus grim, And my sceptrum slim, And proud, as I hold it, my pulse is ! Shout us, chorus ; Organs, roar us; Realms, let a secret start ye : Dragon-killing George on the coin is myself, And the dragon is Bonaparte. And yet alas ! IX. Must e'en I pass Through hisses again on foot, Sirs! Oh pang profound! And I now walk crowned, And with sceptre in hand to boot, Sirs! I go, I go, With a fire in my toe, I'm bowing, blasting, baking! Hall, O Hall, ope your doors, and let your guest in; Every inch I'm à—king. X. But now we dine! Oh word divine, Beyond what e'en has crown'd it! Envy may call Great monarchs small, But feast, and you dumb-found it. Brandy, brandy, To steady me handy For playing my knife and fork, O! Green fat, and devilry, shall warrant me ere bed-time, In drawing my twentieth cork O. XI. Hah, my Champy! Plumy, trampy! Astley's best can't beat him! See his frown! His glove thrown down! Should a foe appear, he'd eat him! Glory, glory, Glut and glory,— I mean poury, Glut and poury, Poury, mory, Splash and floory, Crown us, drown us, vivo! Cram dram, never end, plethora be d-ned, man; Vivat Rex dead-alive O! QUIET EVENINGS.1 TO THOMAS] B[ARNES], ESQ. ["Examiner," Feb. 14th, 1813. "Feast of the Poets," 1814, and 2nd ed., 1815. "Works," 1832, 1844, 1857, 1860; "Book of Sonnets," 1867.] D EAR BARNES, whose native taste, solid and clear, The throng of life has strengthened You know the rural feeling, and the charm Or noise of numerous bliss from distant sphere. This charm our evening hours duly restore,— Nought heard through all our little, lull'd abode, Save the crisp fire, or leaf of book turned o'er, Or watch-dog, or the ring of frosty road. 1 The reader will perceive, from the nature of the following lines, as well as from the date of them, that they were very far from being written in the editor's present residence [Horsemonger Lane Jail], which cannot exactly be described, as a "little lull'd abode," and whose watch-dogs, though it has enough of them, are not of a description to excite pleasant or pastoral associations. Wants there no other sound, then ?-yes, one more, The voice of friendly visiting, long owed. HAMPSTEAD, Jan. 20th, 1813. I. TO HAMPSTEAD.1 ["Examiner," Aug. 29th, 1813. "Feast of the Poets," 2nd ed., 1815. "Works," 1860. " 'Canterbury Poets," 1889.] WEET upland, to whose walks, with fond repair, Out of thy western slope I took my rise Day after day, and on these feverish eyes Met the moist fingers of the bathing air ;— If health, unearned of thee, I may not share, Keep it, I pray thee, where my memory lies, In thy green lanes, brown dells, and breezy skies, Till I return, and find thee doubly fair. Wait then my coming, on that lightsome land, Health, and the joy that out of nature springs, And Freedom's air-blown locks ;-but stay with me, Friendship, frank entering with the cordial hand, And Honour, and the Muse with growing wings, And Love Domestic, smiling equably. SURREY JAIL, Aug. 27th, 1813. 1 I have numbered the sonnets according to the text of the "Examiner." Why III. and V. were omitted, and two of them were numbered VII., I know not.-ED. |