[i]

POETRY.

THE ALDERMAN'S FUNERAL;

An English Eclogue.-ORIGINAL-ROBERT SOUTHEY.

Stranger. Whom 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 schoolboy

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,
Aye, 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,

VOL. I. PART II.

T. When first I heard his death, that very wish
Leapt to my lips; but now the closing scene
Of the comedy hath wakened 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.

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 is laid unto the root, and they
Cumber the earth no longer.

Undone for sins, not one of which is mentioned
In the Ten Commandments. He, I warrant him,
Believed no other Gods than those of the Creed:
Bow'd to no idols, but his money-bags:

Swore no false oaths, except at the custom-house:
Kept the Sabbath idle: built a monument
To honour his dead father: did no murder:
Was too old-fashion'd for 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.

The virtues of

T. As all men know
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 this-
This was a pool that stagnated and stunk,
The rains of heaven engendered nothing in it
But slime and foul corruption.

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 news-papers.
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 croud. A good March wind
Were to be pray'd 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 liv'd, 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 rais'd her eyes
To woo kind words from him, nor laid her head
Uprais'd upon his knee, with fondling whine,
How could it be but thus! Arithmetick
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 breath'd
The open air and sun-shine 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 toil'd and moil'd,

Poor muck-worm! through his three-score years and ten,
And when the earth shall now be shovell'd on him,

If that which serv'd him for a soul were still

Within its husk, 'twould still be dirt to dirt.

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.

1

KING RAMIRO.-Original-SOUTHEY.

The story of the following Ballad is found in the Nobiliario of the Conde D Pedro; and also in the Livro Velho das Linhagens, a work of the 13th century.

Green grew the alder trees, and close
To the water-side by St Joam da Foz;
From the castle of Gaya the warden sees
The water and the alder trees.

And only these the warden sees,
No danger near doth Gaya fear,
No danger nigh doth the warden spy.
He sees not where the gallies lie
Under the alders silently.

For the gallies with green are covered o'er,
They have crept by night along the shore,
And they lie at anchor, now it is morn,
Awaiting the sound of Ramiro's horn.

In traveller's weeds Ramiro sate

By the fountain at the castle-gate;

But under the weeds was his breast-plate,

And the sword he had tried in so many fights,

And the horn whose sound would ring around
And be known so well by his knights.

From the gate Aldonza's damsel came

To fill her pitcher at the spring,

And she saw, but she knew not, her master the king.
In the Moorish tongue Ramiro spake,

And begg'd a draught for mercy's sake,

That he his burning thirst might slake;
For worn by a long malady,

Not strength enow, he said, had he
To lift it from the spring.

She gave her pitcher to the king,
And from his mouth he dropt a ring
Which he had with Aldonza broken;
So in the water from the spring
Queen Aldonza found the token.
With that she bade her damsel bring
Secretly the stranger in.