XVIII

     Sudden, as it were a monster oak
     Split to yield a limb by stress of heat,
     Strained he, staggered, broke
     Doubled at their feet.

     Whimper of sympathy

     Hawk or shrike has done this deed
     Of downy feathers:  rueful sight! 
     Sweet sentimentalist, invite
     Your bosom’s Power to intercede.

     So hard it seems that one must bleed
     Because another needs will bite! 
     All round we find cold Nature slight
     The feelings of the totter-knee’d.

     O it were pleasant with you
     To fly from this tussle of foes,
     The shambles, the charnel, the wrinkle! 
     To dwell in yon dribble of dew
     On the cheek of your sovereign rose,
     And live the young life of a twinkle.

     Young Reynard

     I

     Gracefullest leaper, the dappled fox-cub
     Curves over brambles with berries and buds,
     Light as a bubble that flies from the tub,
     Whisked by the laundry-wife out of her suds. 
     Wavy he comes, woolly, all at his ease,
     Elegant, fashioned to foot with the deuce;
     Nature’s own prince of the dance:  then he sees
     Me, and retires as if making excuse.

     II

     Never closed minuet courtlier!  Soon
     Cub-hunting troops were abroad, and a yelp
     Told of sure scent:  ere the stroke upon noon
     Reynard the younger lay far beyond help. 
     Wild, my poor friend, has the fate to be chased;
     Civil will conquer:  were ’t other ’twere worse;
     Fair, by the flushed early morning embraced,
     Haply you live a day longer in verse.

     Manfred

     I

     Projected from the bilious Childe,
     This clatterjaw his foot could set
     On Alps, without a breast beguiled
     To glow in shedding rascal sweat. 
     Somewhere about his grinder teeth,
     He mouthed of thoughts that grilled beneath,
     And summoned Nature to her feud
     With bile and buskin Attitude.

     II

     Considerably was the world
     Of spinsterdom and clergy racked
     While he his hinted horrors hurled,
     And she pictorially attacked. 
     A duel hugeous.  Tragic?  Ho! 
     The cities, not the mountains, blow
     Such bladders; in their shapes confessed
     An after-dinner’s indigest.

     Hernani

     Cistercians might crack their sides
     With laughter, and exemption get,
     At sight of heroes clasping brides,
     And hearing—­O the horn! the horn! 
     The horn of their obstructive debt!

     But quit the stage, that note applies
     For sermons cosmopolitan,
     Hernani.  Have we filched our prize,
     Forgetting . . .?  O the horn! the horn! 
     The horn of the Old Gentleman!