Contrasting this worn frame and weary breast,
Fresh as a morn of April bloom'd the guest:
April has tears, and mists the morn array;
The mists foretell the sun—the tears the May.
Lo, as from care to care the soother glides,
How the home brightens where the heart presides!
Now hovering, bird-like, o'er the flowers—at times
Pausing to chant Calantha's favourite rhymes,
Or smooth the uneasy pillow with light hand;
Or watch the eye, forestalling the demand,
Complete in every heavenly art—above
All, save the genius of inventive love.
The window open'd on that breadth of green,
To half the pomp of elder days the scene.
Gaze to thy left—there the Plantagenet
Look'd on the lists for Norman knighthood set;[E] Bright issued forth, where yonder archway glooms, Banner and trump, and steed, and waves of plumes, As with light heart rides wanton Anne to brave Tudor's grim love, the purple and the grave. Gaze to the right, where now—neat, white, and low, The modest Palace looks like Brunswick Row;[F] There, echoed once the merriest orgies known, Since the frank Norman won grave Harold's throne; There, bloom'd the mulberry groves, beneath whose shade His easy loves the royal Rowley made; Where Villiers flaunted, and where Sedley sung, And wit's loose diamonds dropp'd from Wilmot's tongue! All at rest now—all dust!—wave flows on wave; But the sea dries not!—what to us the grave? It brings no real homily, we sigh, Pause for awhile and murmur, "All must die!" Then rush to pleasure, action, sin once more, Swell the loud tide, and fret unto the shore.
And o'er the altered scene Calantha's eye
Roves listless—yet Time's Great the passers by!
Along the road still fleet the men whose names
Live in the talk the moment's glory claims.
There, for the hot Pancratia of Debate
Pass the keen wrestlers for that palm—the State.
Now, "on his humble but his faithful steed,"
Sir Robert rides—he never rides at speed—
Careful his seat, and circumspect his gaze;
And still the cautious trot the cautious mind betrays.
Wise is thy heed!—how stout soe'er his back,
Thy weight has oft proved fatal to thy hack![G] Next, with loose rein and careless canter view Our man of men, the Prince of Waterloo; O'er the firm brow the hat as firmly press'd, The firm shape rigid in the button'd vest; Within—the iron which the fire has proved, And the close Sparta of a mind unmoved!
Not his the wealth to some large natures lent,
Divinely lavish, even where misspent,
That liberal sunshine of exuberant soul,
Thought, sense, affection, warming up the whole;
The heat and affluence of a genial power,
Rank in the weed as vivid in the flower;
Hush'd at command his veriest passions halt,
Drill'd is each virtue, disciplined each fault;
Warm if his blood—he reasons while he glows,
Admits the pleasure—ne'er the folly knows;
If Vulcan for our Mars a snare had set,
He had won the Venus, but escaped the net;
His eye ne'er wrong, if circumscribed the sight,
Widen the prospect and it ne'er is right,
Seen through the telescope of habit still,
States seem a camp, and all the world—a drill!
Yet oh, how few his faults, how pure his mind,
Beside his fellow-conquerors of mankind;
How knightly seems the iron image, shown
By Marlborough's tomb, or lost Napoleon's throne!
Cold if his lips, no smile of fraud they wear,
Stern if his heart, still "Man" is graven there;
No guile—no crime his step to greatness made,
No freedom trampled, and no trust betray'd;
The eternal "I" was not his law—he rose
Without one art that honour might oppose,
And leaves a human, if a hero's, name,
To curb ambition while it lights to fame.
But who, scarce less by every gazer eyed,
Walks yonder, swinging with a stalwart stride?
With that vast bulk of chest and limb assign'd
So oft to men who subjugate their kind;
So sturdy Cromwell push'd broad-shoulder'd on;
So burly Luther breasted Babylon;
So brawny Cleon bawl'd his Agora down;
And large-limb'd Mahmoud clutch'd a Prophet's crown!
Ay, mark him well! the schemer's subtle eye,
The stage-mime's plastic lip your search defy—
He, like Lysander, never deems it sin
To eke the lion's with the fox's skin;
Vain every mesh this Proteus to enthrall,
He breaks no statute, and he creeps through all;—
First to the mass that valiant truth to tell,
"Rebellion's art is never to rebel—
Elude all danger but defy all laws,"—
He stands himself the Safe Sublime he draws!
In him behold all contrasts which belong
To minds abased, but passions roused, by wrong;
The blood all fervour, and the brain all guile,
The patriot's bluntness, and the bondsman's wile.
One after one the lords of time advance—
Here Stanley meets—how Stanley scorns, the glance!
The brilliant chief, irregularly great,
Frank, haughty, rash—the Rupert of Debate;
Nor gout, nor toil, his freshness can destroy,
And Time still leaves all Eton in the boy;—
First in the class, and keenest in the ring,
He saps like Gladstone, and he fights like Spring;
Ev'n at the feast, his pluck pervades the board,
And dauntless game-cocks symbolize their lord.
Lo where atilt at friend—if barr'd from foe—
He scours the ground, and volunteers the blow,
And, tired with conquest over Dan and Snob,
Plants a sly bruiser on the nose of Bob;
Decorous Bob, too friendly to reprove,
Suggests fresh fighting in the next remove,
And prompts his chum, in hopes the vein to cool,
To the prim benches of the Upper School: