Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me: "Ellen Adair she loved me well, Against her father's and mother's will: 66 Shy she was, and I thought her cold; Thought her proud, and fled over the sea Fill'd I was with folly and spite, When Ellen Adair was dying for me. "Cruel, cruel the words I said! Cruelly came they back to-day: 'You're too slight and fickle,' I said, To trouble the heart of Edward Gray.' "There I put my face in the grass Whisper'd Listen to my despair: I repent me of all I did: Speak a little, Ellen Adair!' "Then I took a pencil, and wrote On the mossy stone, as I lay, 'Here lies the body of Ellen Adair; And here the heart of Edward Gray!' "Love may come, and love may go, Till Ellen Adair come back to me. "Bitterly wept I over the stone: Bitterly weeping I turn'd away: There lies the body of Ellen Adair ! And there the heart of Edward Gray!" WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE. MADE AT THE COCK. O PLUMP head-waiter at The Cock, To which I most resort, How goes the time? 'Tis five o'clock. Go fetch a pint of port: But let it not be such as that You set before chance-comers, No vain libation to the Muse, And whisper lovely words, and use Ere they be half-forgotten; Nor add and alter, many times, I pledge her, and she comes and dips And lays it thrice upon my lips, These favor'd lips of mine; I pledge her silent at the board; And touch upon the master-chord Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans, And phantom hopes assemble; And that child's heart within the man's Thro' many an hour of summer suns Against its fountain upward runs I kiss the lips I once have kiss'd; My college friendships glimmer. I grow in worth, and wit, and sense, Or that eternal want of pence, Which vexes public men, Who hold their hands to all, and cry For that which all deny them Who sweep the crossings, wet or dry, And all the world go by them. Ah yet, tho' all the world forsake, Let Whig and Tory stir their blood; Let there be thistles, there are grapes; Ten thousand broken lights and shapes, Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme, We lack not rhymes and reasons, As on this whirligig of Time We circle with the seasons. This earth is rich in man and maid; This whole wide earth of light and shade And, set in Heaven's third story, I look at all things as they are, Head-waiter, honor'd by the guest The pint you brought me was the best But tho' the port surpasses praise, My nerves have dealt with stiffer. Is there some magic in the place? Or do my peptics differ? For since I came to live and learn, Had ever half the power to turn Tho' soak'd and saturate, out and out, For I am of a numerous house, Or sometimes two would meet in one, Whether the vintage, yet unkept, Or, elbow-deep in sawdust, slept, Or stow'd (when classic Canning died) Had cast upon its crusty side The gloom of ten Decembers. The Muse, the jolly Muse, it is! She changes with that mood or this, She lit the spark within my throat, To make my blood run quicker, Used all her fiery will, and smote Her life into the liquor. And hence this halo lives about The waiter's hands, that reach To each his perfect pint of stout, His proper chop to each. He looks not like the common breed I think he came like Ganymede, The Cock was of a larger egg And cramm'd a plumper crop; A private life was all his joy, That knuckled at the taw: He stoop'd and clutch'd him, fair and good, Flew over roof and casement: His brothers of the weather stood Stock-still for sheer amazement. But he, by farmstead, thorpe and spire, A sign to many a staring shire, Came crowing over Thames. Right down by smoky Paul's they bore, And one became head-waiter. But whither would my fancy go "T is but a steward of the can, ? One shade more plump than common; As just and mere a serving-man As any, born of woman. I ranged too high: what draws me down Into the common day? Is it the weight of that half-crown, Which I shall have to pay? |