Henry S. Leigh

“ ANTICIPATIONS. I AM thirty to-day, and my health
Will be drunk at our family party,
Where prophecies touching my wealth
And my fame will be fluent and hearty.
Then Fancy, excited by themes
That are born of the wine and the dinner,
May bring back belief in the dreams
That I dream'd as a hopeful beginner.
Ah! my ballads, my songs, how I 've yearn'd
For the time to collect you and edit
A book that perhaps would have earn'd,
Not a name, but a quantum of credit. ”

“ For one evening a life that is lonely.
In this region of pleasure my clouded career
May be thought for a time pretty sunny;
I 'll join in the valse or the banquet, my dear,
But I cannot begin to be funny.
Go, tell your Mamma that the sun may arise
On a day when my cares shall have left me;
When Time shall once more have brought back, as he
flies,
All the hopes of which Time has bereft me.
Yes, the day may arrive that shall see me content
With my share of health, talent, and money:
Then, fitly to hail that auspicious event,
I will try to begin to be funny! ”

“ To my aspiration's altitude, whatever it may be.
Tis a faculty that haunts me with an obstinate persistence,
For I felt it in my boyhood, and I feel it in my prime,—
All the efforts and endeavours I have made in my existence
Have invariably ended "but a step from the sublime."
As a boy I made a tender of my tenderest affection,
In a lovely little sonnet to the fairest of the fair:
(Though nothing but a youngster, I've preserved the recollection
Of her tyranny, her beauty, and the way she did her hair.) ”

“ No; I've tried it in vain once or twice,
And I've thoroughly made up my mind
That the country is all very nice—
But I'd much rather mix with my kind.
Yes; to-day—if I meet with a train—
I will fly from these hills and these dells;
And to-night I will sleep once again
(Happy thought!) within sound of Bow Bells.
THE PLOT OF A ROMANCE. Ay there they stood on the self-same spot,
And, it might be, the self-same day;
But one was thinking and one was not,
In exactly the old, old way. ”

“ May ask, (and I may ask in vain,)
"Why am I so intensely plain?"
WISDOM AND WATER. FIELDS are green in the early light,
When Morning treads on the skirts of Night
Fields are gray when the sun's gone west,
Like a clerk from the City in search of rest.
"Flesh," they tell us, "is only grass
And that is the reason it comes to pass
That mortals change in a life's long day
From the young and green to the old and gray. ”

“ In fact, if you ever learnt Greek, you 'll confess
That it's hardly the right kind of tongue to impress
An intelligent lobster or well-inform'd crab,
With the deepest respect for the Gift of the Gab.
Still Eloquence gives men a wonderful power,
And it often strikes me, after sitting an hour
At a lecture on something I don't understand,
That the Gift of the Gab is decidedly grand.
Indeed, I am frequently heard to declare,
If the Queen of the Fairies would answer my prayer,
I should instantly drop on my knees to Queen Mab,
Crying, Grant me, oh grant me, the Gift of the Gab. ”

“ I've join'd in all your battles, in your banquets, and your loves
(Including one occasion when you found a pair of gloves:)
I've seen you kiss and ride away—most cowardly behaviour!
But then, to damsels in distress I've seen you act the saviour.
You 're vastly entertaining; but I fancy that I hear
A deal too much about you, O eternal Cavalier!
AN OLD CYNIC IS Cupid quite the rosy god
That poets try to make him out? ”

“ I will enter to your credit all the talent ye may claim;
For the sake, my Best and Bellingham, of Little What 's-her-
name.
I have yielded, I confess it, quite a dozen times before
To the fatal fascinations of the darlings of the Drama.
I have idolised my Wilton, I have loved my Nelly Moore;
And I see a host of others in a sort of panorama,
Reaching downwards to Miss Thingamy—an evanescent flame,
Whom I sacrificed a month ago for Little What 's-her-name.
The man who takes the money for my shillingsworth of pit
Has an aggravating habit of alluding to the weather ”

“ Nonsense: if you 're not a fool
You may always break the rule,
But you must be sly;
For they'll whip you, past a doubt,
If they ever find you out.
"Little boys," they say, "should be
Seen but never heard!"
Rubbish: what can people see
In an ugly brat if he
Never says a word?
Talk, then, if you feel inclin'd;
Talking shows the active mind.
Folks will tell you, "Children must
Do as they are bid
But you understand, I trust,
That the rule is quite unjust
To a thoughtful kid:
For, if once brute force appears. ”

“ The million airs that you pervade in English, French, and
Spanish.
I hold your dark Pepitas and your mules immensely dear,
But you begin to bore me, O eternal Muleteer!
O Gondolier! my Gondolier! pray quit the Adriatic;
That cold lagoon will make me soon incurably asthmatic.
Enough of barcarolling when the moon is in the skies;
I'm sick of the Rialto and I hate the Bridge of Sighs.
Your craft may suit, on summer nights, the songster or the
dreamer ”

“ To the brave Bacchanalian all wines are the same:
For the best of Champagne and the mildest of Cape
Are alike manufactured from juice of the grape.
What matters it whether the North or the South
May have yielded its blood for the epicure's mouth?
What matters it whether the East or the West
May have sent the rich fluid that gladdens this breast?
Amidst Burgundy's hills or the plains of Bordeaux
May the national fruit long continue to grow.
May the art of fermenting improve day by day,
And the vatting take place in its usual way. ”

“ There's nought in the dramatic way
That I can quite abide,
Except the pieces that they play
Upon the Surrey side.
AN UNAPPRECIATED CRICHTON.
ONES has a party to-night,
But there's no invitation for me to it.
People are cutting me quite;
I shall pay a few visits and see to it.
True, I've a thousand a-year,
And am reckon'd the pink of propriety;
As to good-looking, look here!
Yet I never get on in Society.
'Tis not as though I were shy,
Or unmanner'd, or not introducible;
Lower-bred people than I
Have triumphantly gone through the crucible. ”

“ But the House of Correction will grant them protection,
(Supposing Society starves them outright,)
Where pickers and stealers and such evil dealers
Are feasted like aldermen morning and night.+
Sincerely I pity our friends in the City,
And Mansion-House banquets cut short in their prime,
Where, 'mid roses and myrtle, the love of mock-turtle
"Now melts into sorrow, now maddens to crime." ”

“ I've a latent respect for it still;
Many sentiments thrill me whenever I gaze
At the House on the Top of a Hill.
Permission to enter that fortress I find
Can be got from a judge now and then,
Through a letter of recommendation that's sign'd
By a dozen respectable men.
You have merely to put a friend out of the way,
Or abstract the contents of his till,
To make yourself heartily welcome, they say,
At the House on the Top of a Hill.
There is lodging and board for the destitute poor,
With a diet nutritious though cheap ”

“ When my heart was won instanter by a lady in a canter,
On a certain sunny day in Rotten Row!
A LAST RESOURCE.
LONE on India's burning plain,
Beneath a banyan tree,
A mortal many hours had lain
In ceaseless agony.
Mosquitoes with a constant buzz
Came flocking round their prize
(It varies—the mosquito does—
In appetite and size.)
But, though it varies as to form,
And varies as to thirst,
In Asia, (where the nights ara warm,)
The small ones are the worst. ”

“ But since I 've neither intellect nor money at command,
She would probably insult me by declining such an offer.
It's not so much the intellect—if Fortune, fickle dame,
Would grant me only opulence and Little What 's-her-name.
Will she read this emanation of a long-endured despair
With a particle of pity or an atom of emotion?
Will she linger for a moment o'er the verses that declare
All the fondness and the fulness of a Nobody's devotion? ”

“ I dare not stray in any way
An inch beyond my tether;
And, when I've nothing else to say,
I talk about the weather.
When Mary Ann and I go out
I long to play the lover,
But what on earth to talk about
I never can discover.
I blush to say I often show
The whitest kind of feather,
And stammer out, "Look here, you know—
Let's talk about the weather."
I've run a bill at Mr Snip's
For articles of raiment;
He always has upon his lips
A hint about its payment. ”

“ And he used his slate and pencil in so barbarous a way,
That the grinders of his governess got looser ev'ry day.
At last he grew so obstinate that no one could contrive
To cure him of a theory that two and two made five;
And, when they taught him how to spell, he show'd his wicked
whims
By mutilating Pinnock and mislaying Watts's Hymns.
Instead of all such pretty books, (which must improve the mind,)
He cultivated volumes of a most improper kind;
Directories and almanacks he studied on the sly,
And gloated over Bradshaw's Guide when nobody was by. ”

“ Perhaps, though, as I've scarcely got
A single claim to lay
To such a gift, you'd rather not?
Répondez, s'il vous plait.
Well, well, Tomorrow, you may strike
A line through what 's above:
And bring me folks that I can like
And folks that I can love.
A warmer heart—a quicker brain—
I 'll ask for, if I may:
Tomorrow, shall I ask in vain?
Répondez, s'il vous plait
A COCKNEY'S EVENING SONG. FADES into twilight the last golden gleam
Thrown by the sunset on upland and stream
Glints o'er the Serpentine—tips Notting Hill—
Dies on the summit of proud Pentonville. ”

“ That corpulence now seems the greatest of crimes.
Folks fancy good feeding a proof of ill breeding,
And stick to low diet through thick and through thin,
Till they find that their best coats, and trousers, and waistcoats,
Are perfectly "done for," if not "taken in."
Each day it grows harder to find a good larder,
And lean diners-out will, of course, suffer most;
For those who are thinnish won't care to diminish
What little they 've got for the sake of the host. ”

“ Comes to dispute Laurence—Pountney with Death.
Westward the stream of Humanity glides;—
'Busses are proud of their dozen insides.
Put up thy shutters, grim Care, for to-day—
Mirth and the lamplighter hurry this way.
Out on the glimmer weak Hesperus yields!
Gas for the cities and stars for the fields.
Daisies and buttercups, do as ye list;
I and my friends are for music or whist.
ROMANTIC RECOLLECTIONS. I.
HEN I lay in a cradle and suck'd a coral,
I lov'd romance in my childish way;
And stories, with or without a moral,
Were welcome as ever the flow'rs in
May. ”

“ Observ'd about "ev'ry inordinate cup!"
Reflect on that proverb, diminutive being,
Which tells us "Enough is as good as a feast;"
And, mark me, there's nothing more painful than seeing
An insect behaving so much like a beast.
Nay, in vain would you seek to escape while I'm talking,
And shake from your pinions the fast-clinging drops,
It is only too clear, from your efforts at walking,
That after your malt you intend to take hops.
Pray, where is your home? and oh! how shall you get there? ”

“ From my cot that lies buried a short way
from Lerida
Love and a diligence lent me their wings.
Swift as a falcon I flew to thy balcony.
(Is it bronchitis? I can't sing a bar.)
Greet not with merriment Love's first experi-
ment;
Listen, Pépita! I 've brought my catarrh.
Manuel the matador may, like a flat, adore
Donna Dolores. I pity his choice,
For they say that her governor lets neither lover nor
Any one else hear the sound of her voice. ”

“ We are taught a simple moral,
Still we doubt the moral's truth.
When a boy they found, me rather
Loth to do as I was bid.
'I shall buy a birch," said father—
Broken vows! He never did.
Grown extravagant, when youthful,
In my tailor's debt I ran;
He appear'd about as truthful
In his talk as any man.
Let me tell you how he sold me:
"Look you, Mr What's-Your-Name,
I shall summons you," he told me—
But the summons never came!
Through the meadows, daisy-laden,
Once it was my lot to stray,
Talking to a lovely maiden
In a very loving way ”

“ And at evening they kindly make sure of your door,
Just in case you should walk in your sleep.
There's a medical man to attend on the guests,
And a chaplain who strives to instil
The most laudable sentiments into their breasts
At the House on the Top of a Hill.
Ev'ry guest has a private apartment;—in fact,
It's a kind of luxurious hotel,
Where a man who commits any praiseworthy act
Can be treated remarkably well.
Nay; it's better than many hotels you can find,
For they never present any bill ”

“ I read my Blue Beard and believed it blindly!
One cure there is for all the ills that make
Existence duller than a blue-book's pages:—
A strong blue-pill is just the thing to take
For indigestion in the early stages.
ROTTEN ROW. THERE'S a tempting bit of greenery—of rustic
scenery—
That's haunted by the London "upper ten
Where, by exercise on horseback, an equestrian may force back
Little fits of tedium vitæ now and then. ”

“ That our ball has been quite a success.
As for me—I've been looking a monster, my dear,
In that old-fashion'd guy of a dress.
You had better at once hurry home, dear, to bed;
It is getting so dreadfully late,
You may catch the bronchitis or cold in the head
If you linger so long at our gate. ”

“ The limit of their pretension is obvious from their individual brevity and collective title; with few exceptions, they were intended simply as drawing-room songs. Without aspiring to the high level of the days when Praed, Bayly, Hood, Fitzgerald, Theodore Hook, and the two Smiths wrote for music, may I flatter myself that these Carols are at least equal in point of taste (if not in point of humour) to certain light and lively ballads that are at present popular through the medium of the music-halls? ”