For talents mourn untimely lost,
When best employed, and wanted most;
Mourn genius high, and lore profound,
And wit that loved to play, not wound;
And all the reasoning powers divine,
To penetrate, resolve, combine;
And feelings keen, and fancy's glow-
They sleep with him who sleeps below. . .
JAMES and HORACE SMITH.
1775-1839]
1779-1849]
From "THE REJECTED ADDRESSES."
CUI BONO?
Parody on Byron.
Sated with home, of wife, of children tired,
The restless soul is driven abroad to roam;
Sated abroad, all seen, yet nought admired,
The restless soul is driven to ramble home;
Sated with both, beneath new Drury's dome
The fiend Ennui awhile consents to pine,
Scorning to view fantastic Columbine,
Viewing with scorn and hate the nonsense of the Nine.
Has life so little store of real woes,
That here ye wend to taste fictitious grief?
Or is it that from truth such anguish flows,
Ye court the lying drama for relief?
Thinking is but an idle waste of thought,
And nought is everything, and everything is nought.
On fair Augusta's towers and trees
Flitted the silent midnight breeze,
Curling the foliage as it past,
Which from the moon-tipped plumage cast
A spangled light, like dancing spray,
Then reassumed its still array ;
When as night's lamp unclouded hung,
And down its full effulgence flung,
It shed such soft and balmy power,
That cot and castle, hall and bower,
And spire and dome, and turret-height,
Appeared to slumber in the light.
From Henry's chapel, Rufus' hall,
To Savoy, Temple, and St. Paul,
From Knightsbridge, Pancras, Camden Town,
To Redriff, Shadwell, Horselydown,
No voice was heard, no eye unclosed,
But all in deepest sleep reposed.
They might have thought, who gazed around
Amid a silence so profound,
It made the senses thrill-
That 'twas no place inhabited,
But some vast city of the dead,
All was so hushed and still.
As Chaos, which, by heavenly doom,
Had slept in everlasting gloom,
Startled with terror and surprise,
When light first flashed upon her eyes;
So London's sons in nightcap woke,
In bed-gown woke her dames,
For shouts were heard 'mid fire and smoke,
And twice ten hundred voices spoke,
"The playhouse is in flames."
And lo! where Catherine Street extends,
A fiery tail its lustre lends
To every window pane;
Blushes each spout in Martlet Court,
And Barbican, moth-eaten fort,
And Covent Garden kennels sport
A bright ensanguined drain;
Meux's new brew-house shows the light,
Rowland Hill's chapel, and the height
Where patent shot they sell;
The Tennis Court, so fair and tall,
Partakes the ray, with Surgeons' Hall,
The ticket-porters' house of call,
Old Bedlam, close by London Wall, .
And Richardson's Hotel.
Nor these alone, but far and wide
Across red Thames's gleaming tide,
To distant fields the blaze was borne,
And daisy white and hoary thorn
In borrowed lustre seemed to sham
The rose or red sweet Wil-li-am.
To those who on the hills around,
Beheld the flames from Drury's mound,
As from a lofty altar rise,
It seemed that nations did conspire
To offer to the god of fire
Some vast stupendous sacrifice!
The summoned firemen woke at call,
And hied them to their stations all.
Starting from short and broken snooze,
Each sought his pond'rous hobnailed shoes, ..
Then jacket thick of red or blue,
Whose massive shoulder gave to view
The badge of each respective crew,
In tin or copper traced.
The engines thundered through the street,
Fire-hook, pipe, bucket, all complete,
And torches glared, aud clattering feet
Along the pavement paced.
The Hand-in-Hand the race begun,
Then came the Phoenix and the Sun,
The Exchange, where old insurers run,
The Eagle, where the new;
With these came Rumford, Bumford, Cole,
Robins from Hockley in the Hole,
Lawson and Dawson, cheek by jowl,
Crump from St. Giles's Pound;
Whitford and Mitford joined the train,
Huggins and Muggins from Chick Lane,
And Clutterbuck, who got a sprain
Before the plug was found.
Hobson and Jobson did not sleep,
But ah! no trophy could they reap,
For both were in the donjon keep
Of Bridewell's gloomy mound!...
Sadder scene was ne'er disclosed!
Without, within, in hideous show,
Devouring flames resistless glow,
And blazing rafters downward go,
And never halloo "Heads below."
The firemen, terrified, are slow
To bid the pumping torrent flow,
For fear the roof should fall.
And lo! the blazing rocking roof
Down, down in thunder falls!
An awful pause succeeds the stroke,
And o'er the ruins, volumed smoke,
Rolling around its pitchy shroud,
Concealed them from the astonished crowd.
HON. WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER. 1770-1834]
THE FLIGHT OF TIME.
To Lady Ann Hamilton.
Too late I stayed, forgive the crime,
Unheeded flew the hours;
How noiseless falls the foot of Time,
That only treads on Flowers!
What eye with clear account remarks
The ebbing of his glass,
When all its sands are diamond sparks
That dazzle as they pass?
Oh who to sober measurement
Time's happy swiftness brings,
When birds of Paradise have lent
Their plumage for his wings.
1777-1844] THOMAS CAMPBELL.
A NAVAL ODE.
Ye Mariners of England!
That guard our native seas;
Whose flag has braved a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!
Your glorious standard launch again,
To match another foe!
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