OLD ROGER.

OLD ROGER died: but how old Roger lived,
His wishes satisfied, his wealth derived,
Sing, Muse, disdaining not the oaten reed,
Whence humble notes of village song proceed.
Sly rural Muse, you did not fear to sing

Of frogs and mice, when Homer touched the string;
Nor with your Virgil on the grassy plat,
To hum of bees, and to adorn a gnat.
Then doom not Roger to a silent ban,
The verse you gave to insects spare to man.
Got by a Herd, who kept a leash of cows,
Young Roger herited melodious lows;
Hence all the music of his after days
Were lows remodulate in various ways.
From garments long, from sock to pinching shoe,
He crawled and walked as other children do.
At last, despised within the chimney-nook,
Roger beheld that curious thing-a book.
With eye distended, and with mouth agape,
Amazed he pondered o'er the lettered shape.
For purpose what?-from region where obtain'd

Those leaves, those scrawls?-were mysteries unexplain'd.

Hence in the boy begot the thirst to know,

Chance showed the fountain ere he sought the flow.

A rustic Dame received a pupil new,
In Roger added to her clownish few.
She had the elements at her command,

The elements of grammar, not on land.

With pointed cap, and most dumbfounding rod,
That wrought more terror than the Jovial nod,
She ruled. But need I picture to a line
The art and magic of her discipline?

One witty bard such mistress deigned to trace,
And, in describing one, display'd the race.
Now Roger studied at a task well set,
His mind was bent upon her alphabet;
His body too, long stooping o'er the leaves,
That rope to fabricate which wisdom weaves.
Twelve years found Roger satisfied with lore,
He knew his letters, and he sought no more.
That mystery known, he cared not to pursue
Deep wisdom's labyrinth with lengthen'd clew.
Words he could spell, pronounce, and read aloud;
He wrote his sirname, and it made him proud.
Nor was the conquering worlds to heroes grim,
A victory more illustrious to him.

Grown an adept, he sought his father's shed,
To share with cows the knowledge in his head.

Now when the crocus raised her golden glow,
To dream of spring upon a sheet of snow;
Or, when the summer kissed the breeze to hush,
And, shocked by sun, the cherries learned to blush;
Or, when the breezes sent the leaves afar,
And through the trees you saw the shivering star;

Still wander'd Roger, dapper lad and slim,
Minding his cows, his cows ne'er minding him.
The watery drop now drawn into the air,
The pregnant atmosphere shall onward bear,
There to descend in the ambrosial rain,
By shrubs absorb'd upon the growing plain.
Bright in a blossom shall the drop appear,
The new-born glory of the future year;
Or, taking seed, and gendering with the oak,
Hewn into order by the shipwright's stroke,
As a proud ship, careering o'er the wave,
Bear the strong Briton, and the tempest brave.
Nature's so prone to make the small advance,
That half our greatness seems the work of chance.
Oh happy eve, one stilly eve in June,

When the day-flowers declined the inviting moon,
Young Roger, distant from his village strayed,
Where clustering grass a grateful pasture made;
There trees tall rising, form'd the dusky rook
A nestling covert in a leafy nook:

There, crouching low, a gypsy band out-spread-
The sky a counterpane, the turf a bed-

Their brawny limbs, luxurious to the blaze

Of stick-fire crackling, mixed with stubble maze;
While one, arm moving, upward, to and fro,
Struck merry music out at every blow.

Why pondered Roger? why withheld his feet?
His eyes to widen, and his heart to beat?
Why pause to move, yet feel his timid heels
Anxious to leap, confessing what he feels?
'Twas music, music never heard till now,
Made his steps startle, and his spirit flow.
Thus at Dodona, where the oaks sublime
Bowed their eternal heads at passing time,
The truth-desirer, eager to be made
The slave of knowledge, was at first betrayed:
Music, soft witch, with her allaying tone,
His senses wrought, and willed him for her own.

Time fled, but Roger fled not from the spot :
The night came on, but Roger knew it not.
The cows came home without their usual guide,
The father wonder'd, and the mother cried,

"Where is my Roger? where my darling care?"

"Where is my Roger?"-Echo answered, "Where?' The father's bass, the mother's treble wail,

With Roger! Roger! terrified the vale.

Not since her name possessed the realms of air,

The raped Eurydice, the poet's fair,

Had nature been so voluble of song,

To weep a loss, or to proclaim a wrong.

Forth went the father, by a lanthorn's aid,

To mark the passages where cows had strayed;

A weary task, but not a task mispent,

For mirth and music made his ears attent,
As through a hedge he saw, with angry eyes,
His dancing Roger attitudinize,

While up and down, in clumsy shoes, he leapt,
To the swarth fiddler who in motion kept.

Hoarse as a raven, and as loud he spoke-
A raven snared, whom rage and wonder choke-

"Ho! truant idler! doomed to be undone,
Thy mother asks thee, and bewails her son."
But the caught youth the witching fiddle eyed,
And nearer drew him to the gipsy's side.

The fiddle ceased, and Roger's spirit fell;
More had it struck, his mind was to rebel;
Had not the gipsy cautiously retired,

Awed by the light the Senior's anger fired.
The son and sire stood steadfast arm to arm,
The one with dancing, one with anger warm.
The sturdy parent, with relentless hand,
Collared the lout, a bailiff-like command,
No sooner touched than instantly obeyed,
As the King's fiat had the seizure made.

Sullen and slow the twain returned to home,
Forward stept one, whose ears did backward roam,
Roam to the covert and the gipsies' cot,
Bound by the music absent, not forgot:
The mind will wander to past scenes enjoyed,
As Judah weeping o'er her fane destroyed;
The bygone dreams the present overcast,
Though sighs be memory's music of the past.
Sad sat the mother, silent as the mouse,
That deep considers hath a cat the house.
Now for the son her inward heart was torn.
The cows were meek, and bloodless of the horn!
Where had he strayed? What mischief overta'en-
What water drowned him-or, what peril slain ?
The ways he knew,-the secret winding wood,
The days of danger, and the time of flood!
Then where withholden? or by what affair?
Her best conclusions only came to-" where ?"

Fear fled; red anger kindled to a glow ;
Then anger drowned him in a tearful flow.
Warmed from the heart, yet chilly looked the tears,
As the iced fire in shining glass appears.
What hope forego, what prospect to uphold,
Till speech found virtue in " I'll scold! I'll scold!"
Her mind revolved, as with a tinkling sound
The ventilating pane went round and round.

God gave us mothers--I have one to own!

She knew my wants ere I. could make them known;
She felt for me ere I could say I feel,

She taught my infant knees at prayer to kneel;
I owe her much, and if I did her wrong,
May God forgive me, and deny me song.

No sooner echo brought the footsteps near,
Music well known to her accustomed ear,
No sooner had the door, e'er either knocked,
Received the shadows, 'twas unbarred, unlocked;
The wife, the mother, with extended arms,
Hugged her two treasures, and forgot alarms.
The frown prepared expressed a ready joy,
A mother's kiss reproved the truant boy,
While Roger shrinking, to his meal betook,
Fagged in his body, thoughtful in his look.
Of why, to wherefore, and for what delay ?
The silent boy had no excuse to say.
Shame, and self-will, or inward glowing joy,
For the past scene made questioning annoy.

Silence his safeguard, silence made him strong
As coated armour, 'gainst the shafts of wrong.
But much the father to the matron spoke
Of that adventure, ere the morn awoke-
Praying the Lord, at many an interval,
An idle son might not his age befall.

As on sharp faculties a sudden fear,
While working mischief, hath attuned the ear,
Till the grand organ feels the beaten drum,
Stopp'd to one music, but to others dumb;
So Roger's mind, still tortured and awake,
Discord discover'd for sweet music's sake,
As links half chain'd, perplexities increase,
His sought-for harmony denied him peace.
His quickened pulse a mighty madness feels,
A trembling palsy had possess'd his heels,
His step now totters, now half upward rears,
And aye the fiddle tingled in his ears.

So when the muse, in the impassioned play,
Flooded Abdera with Andromeda,

The waking peasant, red with sleepless eyes,
Asked of his love, Andromeda replies,-
The busy merchant, ere his nightly sleep,
Forgot his gains with Perseus' wife to weep.
Fictitious wo man's real to believe,
The actor taught, so skilful to deceive,
Andromeda produced the doctor's pay,
The nation's fever was-Andromeda.

The father saw the cows were lean and spare,
The starving teat produced the watery fare;
The feeder, leaner than the cows, as one
Vile spirit, moped his cattle and his son.
The watchful father, with enquiring eye,
Follow'd, unseen, in mental scrutiny,-
What could offend the cattle, what the child,
What food unhealthy, or what temper spoil'd?
One day beheld them in the covert space,
The next day found them in the self-same place.
The cows drawn up to that peculiar spot,
Where shade was grateful, but the grass was not.
That spot so darling to his darling son,
For music cherished, but for cows undone;
Still daily here his magnet fancy veer'd
To touch the point where happiness appeared.
So love-sick girls, whose soldiers, at the war,
Knee-deep in blood are gaining fields afar,
Oft downcast, musing, seek the silent grove,
That first was conscious of their plighted love,
There vows recalled, and promises to pay,
Drawn on the heart of one so far away,
Oaths, smiles, and tears revive the bygone scene,
Love keeps the spot when summer leaves it, green.

"Why wander here?" the hoary father said-
Anger, not age, beshook the offended head-
"Why here? why ever where the barren ground
With grass uncarpeted the hoofs rebound?

Are there no plains-no moistened banks of green ?
Is the world dotted to this border'd scene?
Why, Roger, why these starving hides, and why
Thy laboured day return thine infamy?"