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Why do these steeds stand ready dight?
Why watch these warriors arm'd by night?
They watch to hear the blood-hound baying;
They watch to hear the war-horn braying;
To see St. George's red-cross streaming;
To see the midnight beacon gleaming;
They watch against southern force and guile,

Lest Scroop, or Howard, or Percy's powers
Threaten Branksome's lordly towers,

From Warkworth, or Naworth, or merry Carlisle.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

WE

73. THE ALDERMAN'S FUNERAL.

Stranger.

HOM are they ushering from the world, with all This pageantry and long parade of death? Townsman. A long parade, indeed, sir, and yet here You see but half; round yonder bend it reaches A furlong farther, carriage behind carriage.

S. 'Tis but a mournful sight, and yet the pomp Tempts me to stand a gazer.

T. Yonder school-boy, Who plays the truant, says the proclamation Of peace was nothing to the show, and even The chairing of the members at election Would not have been a finer sight than this; Only that red and green are prettier colours Than all this mourning.-There, sir, you behold One of the red-gown'd worthies of the city, The envy and the boast of our exchange:

I

Ay, what was worth, last week, a good half million, Screw'd down in yonder hearse.

S. Then he was born

Under a lucky planet, who to-day
Puts mourning on for his inheritance.

very speech

T. When first I heard his death, that
Leapt to my lips; but now the closing scene
Of the comedy hath waken'd wiser thoughts:
And I bless God, that, when I go to the grave,
There will not be the weight of wealth like his
To sink me down.

S. The camel and the needle,

Is that, then, in your mind?

T. Even so. The text Is gospel wisdom. I would ride the camel,Yea, leap him flying, through the needle's eye, As easily as such a pamper'd soul

Could pass the narrow gate.

S. Your pardon, sir;

But sure this lack of Christian charity
Looks not like Christian truth.

T. Your pardon, too, sir,

If, with this text before me, I should feel

In the preaching mood! But for these barren fig-trees, With all their flourish and their leafiness,

We have been told their destiny and use,

When the axe falls upon their root, and they
Cumber the earth no longer.

S. Was his wealth Stored fraudfully; the spoil of orphans wrong'd, And widows who had none to plead their right? T. All honest, open, honourable gains;

Fair legal interests, bonds and mortgages,

Ships to the east and west.

So hardly of the dead?

S. Why judge you then

T. For what he left
Undone; -for sins not one of which is mention'd
In the ten commandments. He, I warrant him,
Believ'd no other gods than those of the Creed;
Bow'd to no idols—but his money bags;
Swore no false oaths-except at a custom house;
Kept the Sabbath idle; built a monument
To honour his dead father; did no murder;
Was too old-fashion'd to commit adultery;
Never pick'd pockets; never bore false witness;
And never, with that all-commanding wealth,
Coveted his neighbour's house, nor ox, nor ass.
S. You knew him, then, it seems?

T. As all men know
The virtues of your hundred-thousanders!
They never hide their lights beneath a bushel.
S. Nay, nay, uncharitable sir; for often
Doth bounty, like a streamlet, flow unseen,
Freshening and giving life along its course.

T. We track the streamlet by the brighter green And livelier growth it gives: but as for thisThis was a pool that stagnated and stunk; The rains of heaven engendered nothing in it But slime and foul corruption.

S. Yet even these

Are reservoirs, whence public charity
Still keeps her channels full.

T. Now, sir, you touch

Upon the point. This man of half a million

Had all these public virtues which you praise:
But the poor man rung never at his door;
And the old beggar, at the public gate,

Who, all the summer long, stands, hat in hand,
He knew how vain it was to lift an eye
To that hard face. Yet he was always found
Among your ten and twenty-pound subscribers,
Your benefactors in the newspapers.

His alms were money put to interest
In the other world,donations, to keep open
A running charity-account with heaven:-
Retaining fees against the last assizes,

When, for the trusted talents, strict account

Shall be required from all, and the old Arch-Lawyer Plead his own cause as plaintiff.

S. I must needs

Believe
you, sir:
—these are your witnesses,
These mourners here, who from their carriages
Gape at the gaping crowd. A good March wind
Were to be prayed for now, to lend their eyes
Some decent rheum. The very hireling mute
Bears not a face blanker of all emotion
Than the old servant of the family!

How can this man have lived, that thus his death
Costs not the soiling one white handkerchief?

T. Who should lament for him, sir, in whose heart Love had no place, nor natural charity?

The parlour spaniel, when she heard his step,
Rose slowly from the hearth, and stole aside
With creeping pace; she never raised her eyes
To woo kind words from him, nor laid her head
Upraised upon his knee, with fondling whine.

How could it be but thus?

Arithmetic

Was the sole science he was ever taught.
The multiplication-table was his Creed,
His Pater-noster, and his Decalogue.

When yet he was a boy, and should have breathed
The open air and sunshine of the fields,

To give his blood its natural spring and play,
He, in a close and dusky counting-house,
Smoke-dried and sear'd and shrivell'd up his heart.
So, from the way in which he was train'd up
His feet departed not; he toiled and moil'd,

Poor muck-worm! through his threescore years and

ten.

And when the earth shall now be shovell'd on him,
If that which served him for a soul were still
Within its husk, 'twould still be-dirt to dirt.
S. Yet your next newspapers will blazon him
For industry and honourable wealth,

A bright example.

T. Even half a million

Gets him no other praise. But come this way Some twelve months hence, and you will find his virtues

Trimly set forth in lapidary lines;

Faith, with her torch beside, and little Cupids
Dropping upon his urn their marble tears.

SOUTHEY

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