Fables were not more

Bright, nor loved of yore,

Yet they grew not, like the flow'rs, by every old pathway.
Grossest hand can test us;

Fools may prize us never;

Yet we rise, and rise, and rise, marvels sweet for ever.

Who shall say that flowers

Dress not heav'n's own bowers?

Who its love, without them, can fancy,-or sweet floor?

Who shall even dare

To say we sprang not there,

And came not down that Love might bring one piece of heav'n the more?

Oh pray believe that angels

From those blue dominions

Brought us in their white laps down, 'twixt their golden pinions.

WEALTH AND WOMANHOOD

[First published in The New Monthly Magazine, September 1836; reprinted 1844-60.]

HAVE you seen an heiress

In her jewels mounted,

Till her wealth and she seemed one,
And she might be counted?

Have you seen a bosom

With one rose betwixt it?
And did you mark the grateful blush,
While the bridegroom fixed it?

7 mark] see 1836.

CHRISTMAS

A SONG FOR THE YOUNG AND THE WISE

[First published in The New Monthly Magazine, December 1836; reprinted 1844-60.]

CHRISTMAS comes ! He comes, he

comes,

Ushered with a rain of plums;
Hollies in the windows greet him;
Schools come driving post to meet

him ;

Gifts precede him, bells proclaim him,
Every mouth delights to name him;
Wet, and cold, and wind, and dark,
Make him but the warmer mark;
And yet he comes not one-embodied,
Universal's the blithe godhead,

And in every festal house

Presence hath ubiquitous.

Hang upon his million-shoulders.

10

Curtains, those snug room-enfolders,

Now he 's town gone out of town,

And now a feast in civic gown,

And now the pantomime and clown
With a crack upon the crown,

And all sorts of tumbles down;

Sub-title. A song for good fellows, young and old 1836.

Between 52 and 53 1836 inserts a couplet with footnote:

(Vide Mr. Hervey's book,

And the picture of the cook,)1

1 The Book of Christmas. By Thomas K. Hervey; with Illustrations by R. SeyA manual, plump and sufficing as the season, the production of a spirit companionable, gentlemanly, and poetical.

DOGGREL ON DOUBLE COLUMNS AND LARGE

TYPE

OR, THE PRAISE OF THOSE PILLARS OF OUR STATE, AND ITS
CLEAR EXPOSITOR

[First published in The Monthly Repository,
BE present, ye home Truths and
Graces,

That throw a charm on common-
places,

And make a street or an old door
Look as it never looked before,
Nay, doggrel 's very self refine
Into a bark not quite canine
(Rather, a voice that once those
fairies

ΤΟ

Took delight in, called the Lares;
Fire-side gods, that used to sit
Loving jolly dogs and wit ;)
For with a truth on our own part,
Which, though it frisketh, is at heart
The solemnest of all the solemns,
We sing, imprimis, Double Columns ;
And secondly, our noble Type,
Beauteous as Raphael, clear as Cuyp.

Double Columns, in all places,
Are always cause of double graces;
They grace one's front, and grace
one's wings,

And do all sorts of graceful things,
Making a welcome fit for queens; 21
But most of all in magazines.

Look at the fact. All monthly
publi-

cations that have been columned
doubly,

Have always hit the public fancy
Better, and with more poignancy
Than your platter-faced, broad pages;
Witness things that lived for ages,-
London Magazines, and Towns
And Countrys, of charade renowns;
The old Monthly, still surviving
Though with single life now striving;
And the old Gentleman's (why also
Should he change, and risk a fall
so ?)

31

July 1837; reprinted 1860. No variants.]
Truly old gentleman was he,
And lived to hail the century,
Although his diet was no better
Than an old tombstone or dead letter.
Then look at Blackwood, look at
Fraser;

To them and their sales what d'ye say,
Sir?

40

Tories, I own; the more 's the pity;
But double-columned, and therefore

Sub-title in 1837 only.

BODRYDDAN

TO THE MEMORY OF B. Y. AND A. M. D.

[Published in The Monthly Repository, October 1837; also in Joseph Ablett's Literary Hours, 1837; reprinted 1844-60.]

Sub-title. The residence of Barbara Y. and Anna Maria D. Monthly Repository.