The Castle Builder - Fragments of a Dialogue
CASTLE BUILDER In short, convince you that however wise
You may have grown from convent libraries,
I have, by many yards at least, been carding
A longer skein of wit in convent garden.
BERNADINE A very Eden that same place must be!
Pray what demesne? Whose Lordship’s legacy?
What, have you convents in that Gothic Isle?
Pray pardon me, I cannot help but smile.
CASTLE BUILDER Sir, Convent Garden is a monstrous beast
From morning, four o’clock, to twelve at noon, It swallows cabbages without a spoon,
And then, from twelve till two, this Eden made is
A promenade for cooks and ancient ladies;
And then for supper, ‘stead of soup and poaches,
It swallows chairmen, damns, and Hackney coaches.
In short, Sir, ’tis a very place for monks,
For it containeth twenty thousand punks,
Which any man may number for his sport,
By following fat elbows up a court.
In such like nonsense would I pass an hour With random Friar, or Rake upon his tour,
Or one of few of that imperial host’
Who came unmaimed from the Russian frost.
Tonight I’ll have my friar - let me think
About my room, - I’ll have it in the pink;
It should be rich and sombre, and the moon,
Just in its mid-life in the midst of June,
Should look thro’ four large windows and display
Clear, but for gold-fish vases in the way,
Their glassy diamonding on Turkish floor; The tapers keep aside, an hour and more,
To see what else the moon alone can show;
While the night-breeze doth softly let us know
My terrace is well bower’d with oranges.
Upon the floor the dullest spirit sees
A guitar-ribband and a lady’s glove
Beside a crumple-leaved tale of love;
A tambour-frame, with Venus sleeping there,
All finish’d but some ringlets of her hair;
A viol, bowstrings torn, crosswise upon A glorious folio of Anacreon;
A skull upon a mat of roses lying,
Ink’d purple with a song concerning dying;
An hourglass on the turn, amid the trails
Of passion-flower; - just in time there sails
A cloud across the moon, - the lights bring in!
And see what more my phantasy can win.
It is a gorgeous room, but somewhat sad;
The draperies are so, as tho’ they had
Been made for Cleopatra’s winding-sheet; And opposite the steadfast eye doth meet
A spacious looking-glass, upon whose face,
In letters raven-sombre, you may trace
Old ‘Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.’
Greek busts and statuary have ever been
Held, by the finest spirits, fitter far
Than vase grotesque and Siamesian jar;
Therefore ’tis sure a want of Attic taste
That I should rather love a Gothic waste
Of eyesight on cinque-coloured” potter’s clay, Than on the marble fairness of old Greece.
My table-coverlets of Jason’s fleece
And black Numidian” sheep-wool should be wrought,
Gold, black, and heavy, from the Lama brought.
My ebon sofas should delicious be
With down from Leda’s cygnet progeny.
My pictures all Salvator’s, save a few
Of Titian’s portraiture, and one, though new,
Of Haydon’s in its fresh magnificence.
My wine - O good! ’tis here at my desire, And I must sit to supper with my friar.
Teignmouth
‘Some doggerel’ sent in a letter to B. R. Haydon
I
Here all the summer could I stay.
For there’s Bishop’s teign
And King’s teign
And Coomb at the clear teign head -
Where close by the stream
You may have your cream
All spread upon barley bread.
II
There’s Arch Brook
And there’s Larch Brook
Both turning many a mill;
And cooling the drouth
Of the salmon’s mouth,
And fattening his silver gill.
III
There is Wild wood,
A mild hood
To the sheep on the lea o’ the down,
Where the golden furze.
With its green, thin spurs,
Doth catch at the maiden’s gown.
IV
There is Newton marsh
With its spear grass harsh -
A pleasant summer level
Where the maidens sweet
Of the Market Street,
Do meet in the dusk to revel.
V
There’s the Barton rich
With dyke and ditch
And hedge for the thrush to live in
And the hollow tree
For the buzzing bee
And a bank for the wasp to hive in.
VI
And O, and O
The daisies blow
And the primroses are waken’d,
And violets white
Sit in silver plight,
And the green bud’s as long as the spike end.
VII
Then who would go
Into dark Soho,
And chatter with dack’d hair’d critics,
When he can stay
For the new-mown hay,
And startle the dappled Prickets?