Domestic Didactics
By an Old Servant
I.
THE BROKEN DISH.
What’s life but full of care and doubt
With all its fine humanities,
With parasols we walk about,
Long pigtails, and such vanities.
We plant pomegranate trees and things,
And go in gardens sporting,
With toys and fans of peacocks’ wings,
To painted ladies courting.
We gather flowers of every hue,
And fish in boats for fishes,
Build summer-houses painted blue,—
But life’s as frail as dishes!
Walking about their groves of trees,
Blue bridges and blue rivers,
How little thought them two Chinese,
They’d both be smashed to shivers!
II.
ODE TO PEACE.
WRITTEN ON THE NIGHT OF MY MISTRESS’S GRAND ROUT.
Oh Peace, oh come with me and dwell—
But stop, for there’s the bell.
Oh Peace! for thee I go and sit in churches
On Wednesday, when there’s very few
In loft or pew—
Another ring, the tarts are come from Birch’s.
Oh Peace! for thee I have avoided marriage—
Hush! there’s a carriage.
Oh Peace! thou art the best of earthly goods—
The five Miss Woods!
Oh Peace! thou art the goddess I adore—
There come some more.
Oh Peace! thou child of solitude and quiet—
That’s Lord Dunn’s footman, for he loves a riot!
Oh Peace!
Knocks will not cease.
Oh Peace! thou wert for human comfort plann’d—
That’s Weippert’s band.
Oh Peace! how glad I welcome thy approaches—
I hear the sound of coaches.
Oh Peace! oh Peace! another carriage stops—
It’s early for the Blenkinsops.
Oh Peace! with thee I love to wander,
But wait till I have showed up Lady Squander,
And now I’ve seen her up the stair,
Oh Peace!—but here comes Captain Hare.
Oh Peace! thou art the slumber of the mind,
Untroubled, calm and quiet, and unbroken,—
If that is Alderman Guzzle from Portsoken,
Alderman Gobble won’t be far behind.
Oh Peace! serene in worldly shyness,—
Make way there for his Serene Highness!
Oh Peace! if you do not disdain
To dwell amongst the menial train,
I have a silent place and lone,
That you and I may call our own;
Where tumult never makes an entry—
Susan! what business have you in my pantry?
Oh Peace! but there is Major Monk,
At variance with his wife—Oh Peace!
And that great German, Vander Trunk,
And that great talker, Miss Apreece;
Oh Peace! so dear to poet’s quills—
Oh Peace! our greatest renovator;
I wonder where I put my waiter—
Oh Peace! but here my Ode I’ll cease,
I have no peace to write of Peace!
III.
A FEW LINES ON COMPLETING FORTY-SEVEN.
When I reflect with serious sense,
While years and years run on,
How soon I may be summoned hence—
There’s cook a-calling John.
Our lives are built so frail and poor,
On sand and not on rocks,
We’re hourly standing at Death’s door—
There’s some one double knocks.
All human days have settled terms,
Our fates we cannot force;
This flesh of mine will feed the worms—
They’re come to lunch of course!
And when my body’s turned to clay,
And dear friends hear my knell,
Oh let them give a sigh and say—
I hear the upstairs bell!
IV.
TO MARY HOUSEMAID, ON VALENTINE’S DAY.
Mary, you know I’ve no love nonsense,
And though I pen on such a day,
I don’t mean flirting, on my conscience,
Or writing in the courting way.
Though Beauty hasn’t formed your feature,
It saves you p’rhaps from being vain,
And many a poor unhappy creature
May wish that she was half as plain.
Your virtues would not rise an inch,
Although your shape was two foot taller,
And wisely you let others pinch
Great waists and feet to make them smaller.
You never try to spare your hands
From getting red by household duty,
But doing all that it commands,
Their coarseness is a moral beauty.
Let Susan flourish her fair arms,
And at your old legs sneer and scoff,
But let her laugh, for you have charms
That nobody knows nothing of.
LAMENT FOR THE DECLINE OF CHIVALRY.41
Well hast thou cried, departed Burke,
All chivalrous romantic work
Is ended now and past!—
That iron age—which some have thought
Of metal rather overwrought—
Is now all overcast!
Ay! where are those heroic knights
Of old—those armadillo wights
Who wore the plated vest?—
Great Charlemagne and all his peers
Are cold—enjoying with their spears
An everlasting rest!
The bold King Arthur sleepeth sound;
So sleep his knights who gave that Round
Old Table such éclat!
Oh, Time has pluck’d the plumy brow!
And none engage at tourneys now
But those that go to law!
Grim John o’ Gaunt is quite gone by,
And Guy is nothing but a Guy,
Orlando lies forlorn!—
Bold Sidney, and his kidney—nay,
Those “early champions”—what are they
But “Knights without a morn”?
No Percy branch now perseveres,
Like those of old, in breaking spears—
The name is now a lie!—
Surgeons, alone, by any chance,
Are all that ever couch a lance
To couch a body’s eye!
Alas for Lion-Hearted Dick,
That cut the Moslems to the quick,
His weapon lies in peace:
Oh, it would warm them in a trice,
If they could only have a spice
Of his old mace in Greece!
The famed Rinaldo lies a-cold,
And Tancred too, and Godfrey bold,
That scaled the holy wall!
No Saracen meets Paladin,
We hear of no great Saladin,
But only grow the small!
Our Cressys, too, have dwindled since
To penny things—at our Black Prince42
Historic pens would scoff:
The only one we moderns had
Was nothing but a Sandwich lad,
And measles took him off!
Where are those old and feudal clans,
Their pikes, and bills, and partisans,
Their hauberks, jerkins, buffs?
A battle was a battle then,
A breathing piece of work; but men
Fight now—with powder puffs!
The curtal-axe is out of date;
The good old crossbow bends—to Fate;
’Tis gone, the archer’s craft!
No tough arm bends the spinning yew,
And jolly draymen ride, in lieu
Of Death, upon the shaft!
The spear,—the gallant tilter’s pride,
The rusty spear, is laid aside,—
Oh, spits now domineer!
The coat of mail is left alone,—
And where is all chain armor gone?
Go ask at Brighton Pier.
We fight in ropes, and not in lists,
Bestowing hand-cuffs with our fists,
A low and vulgar art!—
No mounted man is overthrown:
A tilt!—it is a thing unknown—
Except upon a cart!
Methinks I see the bounding barb,
Clad like his Chief in steely garb,
For warding steel’s appliance!
Methinks I hear the trumpet stir!
’Tis but the guard, to Exeter,
That bugles the “Defiance”!
In cavils when will cavaliers
Set ringing helmets by the ears,
And scatter plumes about?
Or blood—if they are in the vein?
That tap will never run again—
Alas! the Casque is out!
No iron-crackling now is scored
By dint of battle-axe or sword,
To find a vital place—
Though certain doctors still pretend,
Awhile, before they kill a friend,
To labor through his case.
Farewell, then, ancient men of might!
Crusader, errant squire, and knight!
Our coats and customs soften;
To rise would only make you weep—
Sleep on, in rusty-iron sleep,
As in a safety coffin!