ENGLISH IDYLS AND OTHER POEMS.
AT Francis Allen's on the Christmas-eve,- The game of forfeits done-the girls all kiss'd Beneath the sacred bush and past away— The parson Holmes, the poet Everard Hall, The host, and I sat round the wassail-bowl, Then half-way ebb'd: and there we held a talk, How all the old honour had from Christmas gone, Or gone, or dwindled down to some odd games In some odd nooks like this; till I, tired out With cutting eights that day upon the pond, Where, three times slipping from the outer edge, I bump'd the ice into three several stars, Fell in a doze; and half-awake I heard
The parson taking wide and wider sweeps, Now harping on the church-commissioners, Now hawking at Geology and schism; Until I woke, and found him settled down Upon the general decay of faith
Right thro' the world, "at home was little left, And none abroad: there was no anchor, none, To hold by." Francis, laughing, clapt his hand. On Everard's shoulder, with "I hold by him." "And I," quoth Everard, "by the wassail-bowl." "Why yes," I said, "we knew your gift that way At college but another which you had,
I mean of verse (for so we held it then,)
What came of that?" "You know," said Frank," he burnt His epic, his King Arthur, some twelve books ❞— And then to me demanding why? “Oh, sir, He thought that nothing new was said, or else Something so said 'twas nothing-that a truth Looks freshest in the fashion of the day : God knows: he has a mint of reasons: ask. It pleased me well enough." Nay, nay," said Hall, "Why take the style of those heroic times? For nature brings not back the Mastodon, Nor we those times; and why should any man Remodel models ? these twelve books of mine Were faint Homeric echoes, nothing-worth, Mere chaff and draff, much better burnt." Said Francis, "pick'd the eleventh from this hearth, And have it keep a thing, its use will come.
I hoard it as a sugar-plum for Holmes."
He laugh'd, and I, though sleepy, like a horse That hears the corn-bin
open, prick'd my ears; For I remember'd Everard's college fame
When we were Freshmen: then at my request He brought it; and the poet little urged, But with some prelude of disparagement, Read, mouthing out his hollow oes and aes, Deep-chested music, and to this result.
So all day long the noise of battle roll'd Among the mountains by the winter sea; Until King Arthur's table, man by man, Had fall'n in Lyonness about their Lord, King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep, The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him, Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights, And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, A broken chancel with a broken cross, That stood on a dark strait of barren land. On one side lay the Ocean, and on one Lay a great water, and the moon was full. Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : "The sequel of to-day unsolders all The goodliest fellowship of famous knights Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep They sleep-the men I loved. I think that we
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