Works

(Grandpapa Loquitur.)


You don't know Froissart now, young folks.
This age, I think, prefers recitals
Of high-spiced crime, with "slang" for jokes,
And startling titles;
...

(Clerk of Love, 1170.)

His Plaint To Venus Of The Coming Years.

"Plus ne suis ce que j'ay est'
Et ne le s'aurois jamais estre;
Mon beau printemps et mon est'...

As I went a-walking on Lavender Hill,
O, I met a Darling in frock and frill;
And she looked at me shyly, with eyes of blue,
"Are you going a-walking? Then take me too!"
...

Wistaria blossoms trail and fall
Above the length of barrier wall;
And softly, now and then,
The shy, staid-breasted doves will flit
From roof to gateway-top, and sit
And watch the ways of men.
...

To William John Courthope, March 12, 1903


When Pope came back from Trojan wars once more,
He found a Bard, to meet him on the shore,
And hail his advent with a strain as clear...

"Rather be dead than praised," he said,
That hero, like a hero dead,
In this slack-sinewed age endued
With more than antique fortitude!

"Rather be dead than praised!" Shall we,...

Many days have come and gone,
Many suns have set and shone,
HERRICK, since thou sang'st of Wake,
Morris-dance and Barley-break;--
Many men have ceased from care,
Many maidens have been fair,...

In the year Seventeen Hundred and Seventy and Three,
When the GEORGES were ruling o'er Britain the free,
There was played a new play, on a new-fashioned plan,...

(We lay our story in the East.
Because 'tis Eastern? Not the least.
We place it there because we fear
To bring its parable too near,
And seem to touch with impious hand
Our dear, confiding native land.)...

Too oft we hide our Frailties' Blame
Beneath some simple-sounding Name!
So Folks, who in gilt Coaches ride,
Will call Display but Proper Pride;
So Spendthrifts, who their Acres lose,...

When do the reasoning Powers decline?
The Ancients said at Forty-Nine.
At Forty-Nine behoves it then
To quit the Inkhorn and the Pen,
Since ARISTOTLE so decreed.
Premising thus, we now proceed.
...

Monsieur the Cur' down the street
Comes with his kind old face,--
With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair,
And his green umbrella-case.

You may see him pass by the little "Grande Place,"...

(Expanded from an Epigram of Piron.)


Stella, 'tis not your dainty head,
Your artless look, I own;
'Tis not your dear coquettish tread,
Or this, or that, alone;
...

"What's not destroyed by Time's devouring Hand?
Where's Troy, and where's the May-Pole in the Strand?"
Bramston's "Art of Politicks."


It stands in the stable-yard, under the eaves,...

If those who wield the Rod forget,
'Tis truly--Quis custodiet?


A certain Bard (as Bards will do)
Dressed up his Poems for Review.
His Type was plain, his Title clear;...

"--portentaque Thessala rides?"
--Hor.
"--Thessalian portents do you flout?"
* *


CARDENIO'S fortunes ne'er miscarried
Until the day CARDENIO married....

(From The "Garland Of Rachel.")


How shall I sing you, Child, for whom
So many lyres are strung;
Or how the only tone assume
That fits a Maid so young?
...

Missal of the Gothic age,
Missal with the blazoned page,
Whence, O Missal, hither come,
From what dim scriptorium?

Whose the name that wrought thee thus,
Ambrose or Theophilus,...

nellie
If I were you, when ladies at the play, Sir,
Beckon and nod, a melodrama through,
I would not turn abstractedly away, Sir,
If I were you!

frank
If I were you, when persons I affected,...