"When the eye of beauty closes, When the weary are at rest, When the shade the sunset throws is But a vapour in the west;When the moonlight tips the billow With a wreath of silver foam, And the whisper of the willow Breaks the slumber of the gnome, -Night may come, but sleep will linger, When the spirit, all forlorn, Shuts its ear against the singer, And the rustle of the corn Round the sad old mansion sobbing Bids the wakeful maid recall Who it was that caused the throbbing Of her bosom at the ball."Will this not do to sing just as well as the original? and is it not true that "almost any man you please could reel it off for days together"? Anything will do that speaks of forgetting people, and of being forsaken, and about the sunset, and the ivy, and the rose.
"Tell me no more that the tide of thine anguish Is red as the heart's blood and salt as the sea;That the stars in their courses command thee to languish, That the hand of enjoyment is loosened from thee!
"Tell me no more that, forgotten, forsaken, Thou roamest the wild wood, thou sigh'st on the shore.
Nay, rent is the pledge that of old we had taken, And the words that have bound me, they bind thee no more!
"Ere the sun had gone down on thy sorrow, the maidens Were wreathing the orange's bud in thy hair, And the trumpets were tuning the musical cadence That gave thee, a bride, to the baronet's heir.
"Farewell, may no thought pierce thy breast of thy treason;Farewell, and be happy in Hubert's embrace.
Be the belle of the ball, be the bride of the season, With diamonds bedizened and languid in lace."This is mine, and I say, with modest pride, that it is quite as good as -"Go, may'st thou be happy, Though sadly we part, In life's early summer Grief breaks not the heart.
"The ills that assail us As speedily pass As shades o'er a mirror, Which stain not the glass."Anybody could do it, we say, in what Edgar Poe calls "the mad pride of intellectuality," and it certainly looks as if it could be done by anybody. For example, take Bayly as a moralist. His ideas are out of the centre. This is about his standard:
"CRUELTY.
"'Break not the thread the spider Is labouring to weave.'
I said, nor as I eyed her Could dream she would deceive.
"Her brow was pure and candid, Her tender eyes above;And I, if ever man did, Fell hopelessly in love.
"For who could deem that cruel So fair a face might be?
That eyes so like a jewel Were only paste for me?
"I wove my thread, aspiring Within her heart to climb;I wove with zeal untiring For ever such a time!
"But, ah! that thread was broken All by her fingers fair, The vows and prayers I've spoken Are vanished into air!"Did Bayly write that ditty or did I? Upon my word, I can hardly tell. I am being hypnotised by Bayly. I lisp in numbers, and the numbers come like mad. I can hardly ask for a light without abounding in his artless vein. Easy, easy it seems; and yet it was Bayly after all, not you nor I, who wrote the classic -"I'll hang my harp on a willow tree, And I'll go to the war again, For a peaceful home has no charm for me, A battlefield no pain;The lady I love will soon be a bride, With a diadem on her brow.
Ah, why did she flatter my boyish pride?
She is going to leave me now!"
It is like listening, in the sad yellow evening, to the strains of a barrel organ, faint and sweet, and far away. A world of memories come jigging back--foolish fancies, dreams, desires, all beckoning and bobbing to the old tune:
"Oh had I but loved with a boyish love, It would have been well for me."How does Bayly manage it? What is the trick of it, the obvious, simple, meretricious trick, which somehow, after all, let us mock as we will, Bayly could do, and we cannot? He really had a slim, serviceable, smirking, and sighing little talent of his own; and--well, we have not even that. Nobody forgets "The lady I love will soon be a bride."Nobody remembers our cultivated epics and esoteric sonnets, oh brother minor poet, mon semblable, mon frere! Nor can we rival, though we publish our books on the largest paper, the buried popularity of "Gaily the troubadour Touched his guitar When he was hastening Home from the war, Singing, "From Palestine Hither I come, Lady love! Lady love!
Welcome me home!"
Of course this is, historically, a very incorrect rendering of a Languedoc crusader; and the impression is not mediaeval, but of the comic opera. Any one of us could get in more local colour for the money, and give the crusader a cithern or citole instead of a guitar. This is how we should do "Gaily the Troubadour" nowadays:-"Sir Ralph he is hardy and mickle of might, Ha, la belle blanche aubepine!
Soldans seven hath he slain in fight, Honneur e la belle Isoline!
"Sir Ralph he rideth in riven mail, Ha, la belle blanche aubepine!
Beneath his nasal is his dark face pale, Honneur e la belle Isoline!
"His eyes they blaze as the burning coal, Ha, la belle blanche aubepine!
He smiteth a stave on his gold citole, Honneur e la belle Isoline!
"From her mangonel she looketh forth, Ha, la belle blanche aubepine!
'Who is he spurreth so late to the north?'
Honneur e la belle Isoline!
"Hark! for he speaketh a knightly name, Ha, la belle blanche aubepine!
And her wan cheek glows as a burning flame, Honneur e la belle Isoline!
"For Sir Ralph he is hardy and mickle of might, Ha, la belle blanche aubepine!
