Half fearful that, with self at strife

I take myself to task;

Lest of the fullness of my life

I leave an empty flask :

For I had hope, by something rare,
To prove myself a poet;

But, while I plan and plan, my hair gray before I know it.

Is

So fares it since the years began,
Till they be gather'd up;
The truth, that flies the flowing can,
Will haunt the vacant cup:
And others' follies teach us not,

Nor much their wisdom teaches ; And most, of sterling worth, is what Our own experience preaches.

Ah! let the rusty theme alone!
We know not what we know.
But for my pleasant hour, 'tis gone,
'Tis gone, and let it go.

'Tis gone a thousand such have slipt

Away from my embraces,

And fall'n into the dusty crypt

Of darken'd forms and faces.

Go, therefore, thou! thy betters went

Long since, and came no more;
With peals of genial clamour sent
From many a tavern-door,

With twisted quirks and happy hits,
From misty men of letters;

The tavern-hours of mighty wits—
Thine elders and thy betters.

Hours, when the Poet's words and looks
Had yet their native glow :
Not yet the fear of little books
Had made him talk for show;
But, all his vast heart sherris-warm'd,
He flash'd his random speeches ;
Ere days, that deal in ana, swarm'd
His literary leeches.

So mix for ever with the past,

Like all good things on earth!

For should I prize thee, could'st thou last, At half thy real worth?

I hold it good, good things should pass : With time I will not quarrel :

It is but yonder empty glass

That makes me maudlin-moral.

Head-waiter of the chop-house here,
To which I most resort,

I too must part: I hold thee dear
For this good pint of port.

For this, thou shalt from all things suck
Marrow of mirth and laughter;
And, wheresoe'er thou move, good luck
Shall fling her old shoe after.

But thou wilt never move from hence,
The sphere thy fate allots:

Thy latter days increased with pence
Go down among the pots:
Thou battenest by the greasy gleam
In haunts of hungry sinners,
Old boxes, larded with the steam
Of thirty thousand dinners.

We fret, we fume, would shift our skins,
Would quarrel with our lot;
Thy care is, under polish'd tins,

To serve the hot-and-hot ;

To come and go, and come again,
Returning like the pewit,

And watch'd by silent gentlemen,
That trifle with the cruet.

346

WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE.

Live long, ere from thy topmost head

The thick-set hazel dies;

Long, ere the hateful crow shall tread
The corners of thine eyes:

Live long, nor feel in head or chest
Our changeful equinoxes,

Till mellow Death, like some late guest,

Shall call thee from the boxes.

But when he calls, and thou shalt cease
To pace the gritted floor,

And, laying down an unctuous lease
Of life, shalt earn no more;

No carved cross-bones, the types of Death,
Shall show thee past to Heaven :

But carved cross-pipes, and, underneath,
A pint-pot, neatly graven.

ΤΟ

"Cursed be he that moves my bones."

Shakespeare's Epitaph.

You might have won the Poet's name,
If such be worth the winning now,
And gained a laurel for your brow
Of sounder leaf than I can claim,

But

you have made the wiser choice, A life that moves to gracious ends Through troops of unrecording friends,

A deedful life, a silent voice:

And you have miss'd the irreverent doom Of those that wear the Poet's crown: Hereafter, neither knave nor clown Shall hold their orgies at your tomb.