| |
| SHE smiled as she gave him a draught from the springlet,— | |
| Tunbridge, thy waters are bitter, alas! | |
| But love finds an ambush in dimple and ringlet; | |
| “Thy health, pretty maiden!”—He emptied the glass. | |
| |
| He saw, and he loved her, nor cared he to quit her; | 5 |
| The oftener he came, why the longer he stayed; | |
| Indeed, though the spring was exceedingly bitter, | |
| We found him eternally pledging the maid. | |
| |
| A preux chevalier, and but lately a cripple, | |
| He met with his hurt where a regiment fell, | 10 |
| But worse was he wounded when staying to tipple | |
| A bumper to “Phœbe, the Nymph of the Well.” | |
| |
| Some swore he was old, that his laurels were faded, | |
| All vowed she was vastly too nice for a nurse; | |
| But Love never looks on the matter as they did, | 15 |
| She took the brave soldier for better or worse. | |
| |
| And here is the home of her fondest election,— | |
| The walls may be worn, but the ivy is green; | |
| And here she has tenderly twined her affection | |
| Around a true soldier who bled for the Queen. | 20 |
| |
| See, yonder he sits, where the church-bells invite us; | |
| What child is that spelling the epitaphs there? | |
| ’T is the joy of his age, and may fate so requite us | |
| When time shall have broken, or sickness, or care. | |
| |
| Erelong, ay, too soon, a sad concourse will darken | 25 |
| The doors of that church and that peaceful abode; | |
| His place then no longer will know him,—but hearken, | |
| The widow and orphan appeal to their God. | |
| |
| Much peace will be hers. “If our lot must be lowly, | |
| Resemble the father who ’s with us no more”; | 30 |
| And only on days that are high or are holy, | |
| She ’ll show him the cross that her warrior wore. | |
| |
| So taught, he will rather take after his father, | |
| And wear a long sword to our enemies’ loss; | |
| And some day or other he ’ll bring to his mother | 35 |
| Victoria’s gift,—the Victoria Cross! | |
| |
| And still she ’ll be charming, though ringlet and dimple | |
| Perhaps may have lost their peculiar spell; | |
| And often she ’ll quote, with complacency simple, | |
| The compliments paid to the Nymph of the Well. | 40 |
| |
| And then will her darling, like all good and true ones, | |
| Console and sustain her,—the weak and the strong; | |
| And some day or other two black eyes or blue ones | |
| Will smile on his path as he journeys along. | |
| |
| Wherever they win him, whoever his Phœbe, | 45 |
| Of course of all beauty she must be the belle,— | |
| If at Tunbridge he chance to fall in with a Hebe, | |
| He will not fall out with a draught from the well. | |
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