| |
| I HEARD a sick man’s dying sigh, | |
| And an infant’s idle laughter: | |
| The Old Year went with mourning by— | |
| The New came dancing after! | |
| Let Sorrow shed her lonely tear— | 5 |
| Let Revelry hold her ladle; | |
| Bring boughs of cypress for the bier— | |
| Fling roses on the cradle; | |
| Mutes to wait on the funeral state, | |
| Pages to pour the wine: | 10 |
| A requiem for Twenty-eight, | |
| And a health to Twenty-nine! | |
| |
| Alas for human happiness! | |
| Alas for human sorrow! | |
| Our yesterday is nothingness— | 15 |
| What else will be our morrow? | |
| Still Beauty must be stealing hearts, | |
| And Knavery stealing purses; | |
| Still cooks must live by making tarts, | |
| And wits by making verses; | 20 |
| While sages prate, and courts debate, | |
| The same stars set and shine; | |
| And the world, as it rolled through Twenty-eight, | |
| Must roll through Twenty-nine. | |
| |
| Some king will come, in heaven’s good time, | 25 |
| To the tomb his father came to; | |
| Some thief will wade through blood and crime | |
| To a crown he has no claim to; | |
| Some suffering land will rend in twain | |
| The manacles that bound her, | 30 |
| And gather the links of the broken chain | |
| To fasten them proudly round her; | |
| The grand and great will love and hate | |
| And combat and combine; | |
| And much where we were in Twenty-eight, | 35 |
| We shall be in Twenty-nine. | |
| |
| O’Connell will toil to raise the Rent, | |
| And Kenyon to sink the Nation; | |
| And Shiel will abuse the Parliament, | |
| And Peel the Association; | 40 |
| And thought of bayonets and swords | |
| Will make ex-Chancellors merry; | |
| And jokes will be cut in the House of Lords | |
| And throats in the County of Kerry; | |
| And writers of weight will speculate | 45 |
| On the Cabinet’s design; | |
| And just what it did in Twenty-eight | |
| It will do in Twenty-nine. | |
| |
| And the goddess of Love will keep her smiles, | |
| And the god of Cups his orgies; | 50 |
| And there’ll be riots in St. Giles, | |
| And weddings in St. George’s; | |
| And mendicants will sup like kings, | |
| And lords will swear like lacqueys; | |
| And black eyes oft will lead to rings, | 55 |
| And rings will lead to black eyes; | |
| And pretty Kate will scold her mate, | |
| In a dialect all divine; | |
| Alas! they married in Twenty-eight | |
| They will part in Twenty-nine. | 60 |
| |
| My uncle will swathe his gouty limbs, | |
| And talk of his oils and blubbers; | |
| My aunt, Miss Dobbs, will play longer hymns, | |
| And rather longer rubbers; | |
| My cousin in Parliament will prove | 65 |
| How utterly ruined trade is; | |
| My brother, at Eaton, will fall in love | |
| With half a hundred ladies; | |
| My patron will sate his pride from plate, | |
| And his thirst from Bordeaux wine— | 70 |
| His nose was red in Twenty-eight, | |
| ’T will be redder in Twenty-nine. | |
| |
| And O! I shall find how, day by day, | |
| All thoughts and things look older— | |
| How the laugh of Pleasure grows less gay, | 75 |
| And the heart of Friendship colder; | |
| But still I shall be what I have been, | |
| Sworn foe to Lady Reason, | |
| And seldom troubled with the spleen, | |
| And fond of talking treason; | 80 |
| I shall buckle my skait, and leap my gate, | |
| And throw and write my line; | |
| And the woman I worshipped in Twenty-eight | |
| I shall worship in Twenty-nine. | |
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