Go, therefore, thou! thy betters went
Long since, and came no more:
With peals of genial clamor 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-warmed,
He flashed his random speeches;
Ere days, that deal in ana, swarmed
His literary leeches.

So mix forever with the past,

Like all good things on earth!

For should I prize thee, couldst 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

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 such
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 polished tins,

To serve the hot-and-hot;

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

And watched by silent gentlemen,

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.

LADY CLARE.

LORD RONALD courted Lady Clare,
I trow they did not part in scorn;
Lord Ronald, her cousin, courted her,
And they will wed the morrow morn.

"He does not love me for my birth,
Nor for my lands so broad and fair;
He loves me for my own true worth,
And that is well," said Lady Clare.

In there came old Alice the nurse,

Said, "Who was this that went from thee?" "It was my cousin," said Lady Clare,

"To-morrow he weds with me."

"O God be thanked!" said Alice the nurse, "That all comes round so just and fair: Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands,

"Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse?" Said Lady Clare, "that ye speak so wild?" "As God's above," said Alice the nurse,

"I speak the truth: you are my child.

"The old Earl's daughter died at my breast,
I speak the truth as I live by bread!
I buried her like my own sweet child,
And put my child in her stead."

"Falsely, falsely have ye done,

O mother," she said, "if this be true,

To keep the best man under the sun
So many years from his due."

"Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse, "But keep the secret for your life,

And all you have will be Lord Ronald's, you are man and wife."

When

"If I'm a beggar born," she said,
"I will speak out, for I dare not lie.
Pull off, pull off the brooch of gold,