Ill-fashion'd fishes, dead and swimming,
And untimely fruits of women;
All the thirty skins infuse
In Alcohol's Phlogistic dews.
Steep them till the blessed Sun
Through half his mighty round hath run-
Hours twelve-the time exact
Their inmost virtues to extract.
Lest the potion should be heady,
As Circe's cup, or gin of Deady,
Water from the crystal spring,
Thirty quarterns, draw and bring;
Let it, after ebullition,
Cool to natural condition.
Add, of powder saccharine,
Pounds thrice five, twice superfine;
Mingle sweetest orange blood,
And the lemon's acid flood;
Mingle well, and blend the whole
With the spicy Alcohol.
Strain the mixture, strain it well
Through such vessel, as in Hell
Wicked maids, with vain endeavour,
Toil to fill, and toil for ever.
Nine-and-forty Danaides,
Wedded maids, and virgin brides,
(So blind Gentiles did believe,)
Toil to fill a faithless sieve;
Thirsty thing, with nought content,
Thriftless and incontinent.
Then, to hold the rich infusion,
Have a barrel, not a huge one,
But clean and pure from spot or taint,
Pure as any female saint
That within its tight-hoop'd gyre
Has kept Jamaica's liquid fire;
Or luscious Oriental rack,
Or the strong glory of Cognac,
Whose perfume far outscents the Civet,
And all but rivals rare Glenlivet.
To make the compound soft as silk,
Quarterns twain of tepid milk,
Fit for babies, and such small game,
Diffuse through all the strong amalgame.
The fiery souls of heroes so do
Combine the suaviter in modo,
Bold as an eagle, meek as Dodo.
Stir it round, and round, and round,
Stow it safely under ground,
Bung'd as close as an intention
Which we are afraid to mention ;
Seven days six times lèt pass,
Then pour it into hollow glass;
Be the vials clean and dry,
Corks as sound as chastity ;-
Years shall not impair the merit
Of the lively, gentle spirit.,
Babylon's Sardanapalus,
Rome's youngster Heliogabalus,
Or that empurpled paunch, Vitellius,
So famed for appetite rebellious→→
Ne'er, in all their vasty reign,
Such a bowl as this could drain.
Hark, the shade of old Apicius
Heaves his head, and cries-Delicious!
Mad of its flavour and its strength-he
Pronounces it the real Nepenthe.
'Tis the Punch, so clear and bland,
Named of Norfolk's fertile land,
Land of Turkeys, land of Coke,
Who late assumed the nuptial yoke-
Like his county beverage,
Growing brisk and stout with age.
Joy I wish-although a Tory-
To a Whig, so gay and hoary
May he, to his latest hour,
Flourish in his bridal bower-
Find wedded love no Poet's fiction,
And Punch the only contradiction.
N. B. The Arabians, notwithstanding the sober precepts of their prophet, are supposed to have discovered distillation, as the word Alcohol plainly indicates. The Dodo is a clumsy good sort of a bird, the Lord G―h of the feathered creation, whose conciliatory politics have nearly, if not quite, occasioned its extinction.
SUMMER MORNING LANDSCAPE.
THE eyelids of the morning are awake;
The dews are disappearing from the grass;
The sun is o'er the mountains; and the trees,
Moveless, are stretching through the blue of heaven,
Exuberantly green. All noiselessly
The shadows of the twilight fleet away,
And draw their misty legion to the west,
Seen for a while, 'mid the salubrious air,
Suspended in the silent atmosphere,
As in Medina's mosque Mahomet's tomb.
Up from the coppice, on exulting wing,
Mounts, mounts the skylark through the clouds of dawn,—
The clouds, whose snow-white canopy is spread
Athwart, yet hiding not, at intervals,
The azure beauty of the summer sky;
And, at far distance heard, a bodyless note
Pours down, as if from cherub stray'd from Heaven!
Maternal Nature! all thy sights and sounds
Now breathe repose, and peace, and harmony.
The lake's unruffled bosom, cold and clear,
Expands beneath me, like a silver veil
Thrown o'er the level of subjacent fields,
Revealing, on its conscious countenance,
The shadows of the clouds that float above:-
Upon its central stone the heron sits
Stirless, as in the wave its counterpart,-
Looking, with quiet eye, towards the shore
Of dark-green copse-wood, dark, save, here and there,
Where spangled with the broom's bright aureate flowers.-
The blue-wing'd sea-gull, sailing placidly
Above his landward haunts, dips down alert
His plumage in the waters, and, anon,
With quicken'd wing, in silence re-ascends.-
Whence comest thou, lone pilgrim of the wild?
Whence wanderest thou, lone Arab of the air?
Where makest thou thy dwelling-place? Afar,
O'er inland pastures, from the herbless rock,
Amid the weltering ocean, thou dost hold,
At early sunrise, thy unguided way,—
The visitant of Nature's varied realms,-
The habitant of Ocean, Earth, and Air,-
Sailing with sportive breast, mid wind and wave,
And, when the sober evening draws around
Her curtains, clasp'd together by her Star,
Returning to the sea-rock's breezy peak.
And now the wood engirds me, the tall stems
Of birch and beech tree hemming me around,
Like pillars of some natural temple vast;
And, here and there, the giant pines ascend,
Briareus-like, amid the stirless air,
High stretching; like a good man's virtuous thoughts
Forsaking earth for heaven. The cushat stands
Amid the topmost boughs, with azure vest,
And neck aslant, listening the amorous coo
Of her, his mate, who, with maternal wing
Wide-spread, sits brooding on opponent tree.
Why, from the rank grass underneath my feet,
Aside on ruffled pinion dost thou start,
Sweet minstrel of the morn? Behold her nest,
Thatch'd o'er with cunning skill, and there, her young
With sparkling eye, and thin-fledged russet wing:
Younglings of air! probationers of song!
From lurking dangers may ye rest secure,
Secure from prowling weasel, or the tread
Of steed incautious, wandering 'mid the flowers;
Secure beneath the fostering care of her
Who warm'd you into life, and gave you birth;
Till, plumed and strong, unto the buoyant air,
Ye spread your equal wings, and to the morn,
Lifting your freckled bosoms, dew-besprent,
Salute, with spirit- stirring song, the man
Wayfaring lonely.-Hark! the striderous neigh!-
There, o'er his dogrose fence, the chesnut foal,
Shaking his silver forelock, proudly stands,-
To snuff the balmy fragrance of the morn :-
Up comes his ebon compeer, and, anon,
Around the field in mimic chase they fly,
Startling the echoes of the woodland gloom.
How sweet, contrasted with the din of life, Its selfish miseries, and ignoble cares,
Are scenes like these; yet, in the book of Time,
Of many a blot, there is a primal leaf,
Whose pictures are congenial to the soul,
Concentring all in peace, whose wishes rest ;-
With rapture to the Patriarchal days'-
The days of pastoral innocence, and health,
And hope, and all the sweetnesses of life-
The thought delighted turns; when shepherds held
Dominion o'er the mountain and the plain;
When, in the cedar shade, the lover piped
Unto his fair, and there was none to chide ;
Nor paltry hate nor petty perfidy:
But Peace unfurl'd her ensign o'er the world;
And joy was woven through the web of life,
In all its tissue; and the heart was pure;
And Angels held communion with mankind.
Far different are the days in which 'tis ours
To live; a demon spirit hath gone forth,
Corrupting many men in all their thoughts,
And blighting with its breath the natural flowers,
Planted by God to beautify our earth :-
Wisdom and worth no more are chiefest deem'd
Of man's possessions; Gain, and Guilt, and Gold,
Reign paramount; and, to these idols, bow,
All unreluctant, as if man could boast
No loftier attributes, the supple knees
Of the immortal multitude. Ah me!
That centuries, in their lapse, should nothing bring
But change from ill to worse, that man, uncouch'd,
Blind to his interests, ever should remain
The interests of his happiness; and prove,
Even to himself, the fiercest of his foes.
Look on the heartlessness that reigns around-
Oh, look and mourn; if springs one native joy,
Doth art not check it? In the cup of Fate,
If Chance hath dropp'd one pearl, do cruel hands
Not dash it rudely from the thirsting lip?
With loud lament, mourn for the ages gone,
Long gone, yet gleaming from the twilight past,
With sunbright happiness on all their hills,
The days, that, like a rainbow, pass'd away,-
The days that fled never to come again,-
When Jacob served for Leah; and when Ruth,
A willing exile, with Naomi came
From Bethlem-Judah; glean'd the barley-fields
Of Boaz, her mother's kinsman, trembling crept,
At starry midnight, to the threshing floor,
And laid herself in silence at his feet.
Thou, Nature, ever-changing, changest not-
The evening and the morning duly come-
And spring, and summer's heat, and winter's cold
The very sun that look'd on Paradise,
On Eden's bloomy bowers, and sinless man,
Now blazes in the glory of his power.
Yea! Ararat, where Noah, with his sons,
And tribes, again to people solitude,
Rested, lone-gazing on the floods around,
Remains a landmark for the pilgrim's path!
VOL. XXIV.
And thus the months shall come, and thus the years
Revolve; and day, alternating with night,
Lead on from blooming youth to hoary age,
Till Time itself grows old; and Spring forgets
To herald Summer; and the fearful blank
Of Chaos overspreads, and mantles all!
Farewell, ye placid scenes! amid the land Ye smile, an inland solitude; the voice Of peace-destroying man is seldom heard Amid your landscapes. Beautiful ye raise Your green embowering groves, and smoothly spread Your waters, glistening in a silver sheet. The morning is a season of delight— The morning is the self-possession'd hour'Tis then that feelings, sunk, but unsubdued, Feelings of purer thoughts, and happier days, Awake, and, like the sceptred images
Of Banquo's mirror, in succession pass!
And first of all, and fairest, thou dost pass
In memory's eye, beloved! though now afar
From those sweet vales, where we have often roam'd
Together. Do thy blue eyes now survey
The brightness of the morn in other scenes?
Other, but haply beautiful as these,
Which now I gaze on; but which, wanting thee,
Want half their charms; for, to thy poet's thought,
More deeply glow'd the heaven, when thy fine eye,
Surveying its grand arch, all kindling glow'd;
The white cloud to thy white brow was a foil;
And, by the soft tints of thy cheek outvied,
The dew-bent wild-rose droop'd despairingly.
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