And in every festal house
Presence hath ubiquitous.
Curtains, those snug room-enfolders,
Hang upon his million shoulders,
And he has a million eyes
Of fire, and eats a million pies,
And is very merry and wise;
Very wise and very merry,
And loves a kiss beneath the berry.
Then full many a shape hath he,
All in sad ubiquity:
Now is he a green array,
And now an "eve," and now a day;"
Now he's town gone out of town,
And now a feast in civic gown,
And now the pantomime and clown
With a crack upon the crown,
And all sorts of tumbles down;
And then he's music in the night,
And the money gotten by't:
He's a man that can't write verses,
Bringing some to ope your purses;
He's a turkey, he's a goose,
He's oranges unfit for use;
He's a kiss that loves to grow
Underneath the mistletoe;
And he's forfeits, cards, and wassails,
And a king and queen with vassals,
All the " quizzes" of the time
Drawn and quartered with a rhyme;
And then, for their revival's sake,
Lo! he's an enormous cake,
With a sugar on the top
Seen before in many a shop,
Where the boys could gaze for
They think the cake so very clever.
Then, some morning, in the lurch
Leaving romps, he goes to church,
Looking very grave and thankful,
After which he's just as prankful,
Now a saint, and now a sinner,
But, above all, he's a dinner;
He's a dinner, where you see
Everybody's family;
Beef, and pudding, and mince-pies,
And little boys with laughing eyes,
Whom their seniors ask arch questions,
Feigning fears of indigestions
(As if they, forsooth, the old ones,
Hadn't, privately, tenfold ones):
He's a dinner and a fire,
Heaped beyond young hearts' desire-
Heaped with log, and baked with coals,
Till it roasts your very souls,
And your cheek the fire outstares,
And you all push back your chairs,
And the mirth becomes too great,
And you all sit up too late,
Nodding all with too much head,
And so go off to too much bed.
O plethora of beef and bliss!
Monkish feaster, sly of kiss!
Southern soul in body Dutch!
Glorious time of great Too-Much!
Too much heat, and too much noise,
Too much babblement of boys;
Too much eating, too much drinking,
Too much ev'rything but thinking;
Solely bent to laugh and stuff,
And trample upon base Enough;
Oh, right is thy instinctive praise
Of the wealth of Nature's ways.
Right thy most unthrifty glee,
And pious thy mince-piety!
For behold! great Nature's self
Builds her no abstemious shelf,
But provides (her love is such
For all) her own great, good Too-Much-
Too much grass, and too much tree,
Too much air, and land, and sea,
Too much seed of fruit and flower,
And fish, an unimagined dower!
(In whose single roe shall be
Life enough to stock the sea-
Endless ichthyophagy!)
Ev'ry instant through the day
Worlds of life are thrown away;
Worlds of life, and worlds of pleasure,
Not for lavishment of treasure,
But because she's so immensely
Rich, and loves us so intensely,
She would have us, once for all,
Wake at her benignant call,
And all grow wise, and all lay down
Strife, and jealousy, and frown,
And, like the sons of one great mother,
Share, and be blest, with one another.
(The Monthly Repository, October 1837.)
O LAND of Druid and of Bard,
Worthy of bearded Time's regard,
Quick-blooded, light-voiced, lyric Wales,
Proud with mountains, rich with vales,
And of such valour that in thee
Was born a third of chivalry.
(And is to come again, they say, Blowing its trumpets into day,
With sudden earthquake from the ground, And in the midst, great Arthur crowned), I used to think of thee and thine
As one of an old faded line
Living in his hills apart,
Whose pride I knew, but not his heart:
But now that I have seen thy face,
Thy fields, and ever youthful race,
And women's lips of rosiest word
(So rich they open), and have heard
The harp still leaping in thy halls,
Quenchless as the waterfalls,
I know thee full of pulse as strong
As the sea's more ancient song,
And of a sympathy as wide;
And all this truth, and more beside,
I should have known, had I but seen,
O Flint, thy little shore; and been
Where Truth and Dream walk, hand-in-hand,
Bodryddan's living Fairy-land.
A HYMN TO BISHOP VALENTINE.
(The Monthly Repository, February 1838.)
THE day, the only day returns,
The true redde letter day returns,
When summer time in winter burns;
When a February dawn
Is opened by two sleeves in lawn
Fairer than Aurora's fingers,
And a burst of all bird singers,
And a shower of billet-doux,
Tinging cheeks with rosy hues,
And over all a face divine,
Face good-natured, face most fine,
Face most anti-saturnine,
Even thine, yea, even thine,
Saint of sweethearts, Valentine!
See, he's dawning! See, he comes
With the jewels on his thumbs
Glancing as a ruby ray
(For he's sun and all to-day)!
See his lily sleeves! and now
See the mitre on his brow!
See his truly pastoral crook,
And beneath his arm his book
(Some sweet tome De Arte Amandi):
And his hair, 'twixt saint and dandy,
Lovelocks touching either cheek,
And black, though with a silver streak,
As though for age both young and old,
And his look, 'twixt meek and bold,
Bowing round on either side,
Sweetly lipped and earnest eyed,
And lifting still, to bless the land,
His very gentlemanly hand.
Hail! oh hail! and thrice again
Hail, thou clerk of sweetest pen!
Connubialest of clergymen !
Exquisite bishop!-not at all
Like Bishop Bonner; no, nor Hall,
That gibing priest; nor Atterbury,
Although he was ingenious, very,
And wrote the verses on the "Fan;"
But then he swore-unreverend man!
But very like good Bishop Berkeley,
Equally benign and clerkly;
Very like Rundle, Shipley, Hoadley,
And all the genial of the godly;
Like De Sales, and like De Paul;
But most, I really think, of all,
Like Bishop Mant, whose sweet theology
Includeth verse and ornithology,
And like a proper rubric star,
Hath given us a new "Calendar,"
So full of flowers and birdly talking,
'Tis like an Eden bower to walk in.
Such another See is thine,
O thou Bishop Valentine;
Such another, but as big
To that, as Eden to a fig;
For all the world's thy diocese,
All the towns and all the trees,
And all the barns and villages:
The whole rising generation
Is thy loving congregation:
Enviable's indeed thy station;
Tithes cause thee no reprobation,
Dean and chapter's no vexation,
Heresy no spoliation.
Begged is thy participation;
No one wishes thee translation,
Except for some sweet explanation.
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