So sitting, served by man and maid, monee T
She felt her heart grow prouder :
But ah! the more the white goose laid
It clack'd and cackled louder.
It clutter'd here, it chuckled there;
It stirr'd the old wife's mettle :
She shifted in her elbow-chair,
And hurl'd the pan and kettle.
"A quinsy choke thy cursed note!'
Then wax'd her anger stronger.
'Go, take the goose, and wring her throat,
I will not bear it longer.'
Then yelp'd the cur, and yawl'd the cat;
Ran Gaffer, stumbled Gammer.
The goose flew this way and flew that,
And fill'd the house with clamour.
As head and heels upon the floor
They flounder'd all together,
There strode a stranger to the door,
And it was windy weather:
He utter'd words of scorning;
'So keep you cold, or keep you warm,
It is a stormy morning.'
The wild wind rang from park and plain,
And round the attics rumbled,
Till all the tables danced again,
And half the chimneys tumbled.
The glass blew in, the fire blew out,
The blast was hard and harder.
Her cap
blew off, her gown blew up,
And a whirlwind clear'd the larder;
And while on all sides breaking loose
Her household fled the danger,
Quoth she, The Devil take the goose,
And God forget the stranger!
Ar 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,wp
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
The Epic Right thro' the world, at home was little left, And none abroad: there was no anchor, none, To hold by. Francis, laughing, clapt his
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
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 flung
His epic of King Arthur in the fire!'
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
Why take the style of those heroic times?oil
For nature brings not back the Mastodon,
Nor we those times; and why should any man
Remodel models rather than the life?
And these twelve books of mine (to speak the
yametruth)
Were faint Homeric echoes, nothing worth, Mere chaff and draff, much better burnt.' 'But I,'
Said Francis, pick'd the eleventh from this
And have it keep a thing, its use will come.
I hoard it as a sugar-plum for Holmes.'
He laugh'd, and I, tho' sleepy, like a horse
That hears the corn-bin open, prick'd my ears; Morte
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 fallen 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
Shall never more, at any future time,
Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds,
Walking about the gardens and the halls
Of Camelot, as in the days that were.
Morte I perish by this people which I made,-
Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again
To rule once more but let what will be, be,
I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm
That without help I cannot last till morn.
Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur,
Which was my pride for thou rememberest
In those old days, one summer noon, an arm
Rose up
from out the bosom of the lake,
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
Holding the sword-and how I row'd across
And took it, and have worn it, like a king:
And, wheresoever I am sung or told
In aftertime, this also shall be known:
But now delay not: take Excalibur,
And fling him far into the middle meer :
Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me
word.'
To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere :
'It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus,
Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm.
A little thing may harm a wounded man.
Yet I thy hest will all perform at full,
Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee
word.'
So saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept
And in the moon athwart the place of tombs,
Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men,
Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping
down
By zig-zag paths, and juts of pointed rock,
Came on the shining levels of the lake.
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