| |
| PITCH here the tent, while the old horse grazes: | |
| By the old hedge-side we ’ll halt a stage. | |
| It ’s nigh my last above the daisies: | |
| My next leaf’ll be man’s blank page. | |
| Yes, my old girl! and it ’s no use crying: | 5 |
| Juggler, constable, king, must bow. | |
| One that outjuggles all ’s been spying | |
| Long to have me, and he has me now. | |
| |
| We ’ve travell’d times to this old common: | |
| Often we ’ve hung our pots in the gorse. | 10 |
| We ’ve had a stirring life, old woman! | |
| You, and I, and the old gray horse. | |
| Races, and fairs, and royal occasions, | |
| Found us coming to their call: | |
| Now they ’ll miss us at our stations: | 15 |
| There ’s a Juggler outjuggles all! | |
| |
| Up goes the lark, as if all were jolly! | |
| Over the duck-pond the willow shakes. | |
| Easy to think that grieving ’s folly, | |
| When the hand’s firm as driven stakes! | 20 |
| Ay! when we ’re strong, and braced, and manful, | |
| Life ’s a sweet fiddle; but we ’re a batch | |
| Born to become the Great Juggler’s han’ful: | |
| Balls he shies up, and is safe to catch. | |
| |
| Here ’s where the lads of the village cricket; | 25 |
| I was a lad not wide from here; | |
| Couldn’t I whip of the bale from the wicket? | |
| Like an old world those days appear! | |
| Donkey, sheep, geese, and thatch’d ale-house—I know them! | |
| They are old friends of my halts, and seem, | 30 |
| Somehow, as if kind thanks I owe them: | |
| Juggling don’t hinder the heart’s esteem. | |
| |
| Juggling ’s no sin, for we must have victual; | |
| Nature allows us to bait for the fool. | |
| Holding one’s own makes us juggle no little; | 35 |
| But, to increase it, hard juggling ’s the rule. | |
| You that are sneering at my profession, | |
| Have n’t you juggled a vast amount? | |
| There ’s the Prime Minister, in one Session, | |
| Juggles more games than my sins ’ll count. | 40 |
| |
| I ’ve murder’d insects with mock thunder: | |
| Conscience, for that, in men don’t quail. | |
| I ’ve made bread from the bump of wonder: | |
| That ’s my business, and there ’s my tale. | |
| Fashion and rank all prais’d the professor; | 45 |
| Ay! and I ’ve had my smile from the Queen: | |
| Bravo, Jerry! she meant: God bless her! | |
| Ain’t this a sermon on that scene? | |
| |
| I ’ve studied men from my topsy-turvy | |
| Close, and, I reckon, rather true. | 50 |
| Some are fine fellows: some, right scurvy: | |
| Most, a dash between the two. | |
| But it ’s a woman, old girl, that makes me | |
| Think more kindly of the race; | |
| And it ’s a woman, old girl, that shakes me | 55 |
| When the Great Juggler I must face. | |
| |
| We two were married, due and legal: | |
| Honest we ’ve liv’d since we ’ve been one. | |
| Lord! I could then jump like an eagle: | |
| You danced bright as a bit o’ the sun. | 60 |
| Birds in a May-bush we were! right merry! | |
| All night we kiss’d—we juggled all day. | |
| Joy was the heart of Juggling Jerry! | |
| Now from his old girl he ’s juggled away. | |
| |
| It ’s past parsons to console us: | 65 |
| No, nor no doctor fetch for me: | |
| I die without my bolus; | |
| Two of a trade, lass, never agree! | |
| Parson and Doctor!—don’t they love rarely, | |
| Fighting the devil in other men’s fields! | 70 |
| Stand up yourself and match him fairly; | |
| Then see how the rascal yields! | |
| |
| I, lass, have liv’d no gypsy, flaunting | |
| Finery while his poor helpmate grubs; | |
| Coin I ’ve stor’d, and you won’t be wanting: | 75 |
| You shan’t beg from the troughs and tubs. | |
| Nobly you’ve stuck to me, though in his kitchen | |
| Many a Marquis would hail you Cook! | |
| Palaces you could have rul’d and grown rich in, | |
| But your old Jerry you never forsook. | 80 |
| |
| Hand up the chirper! ripe ale winks in it; | |
| Let ’s have comfort and be at peace. | |
| Once a stout draught made me light as a linnet. | |
| Cheer up! the Lord must have his lease. | |
| May be—for none see in that black hollow— | 85 |
| It ’s just a place where we ’re held in pawn, | |
| And, when the Great Juggler makes us to swallow, | |
| It ’s just the sword-trick—I ain’t quite gone! | |
| |
| Yonder came smells of the gorse, so nutty, | |
| Gold-like and warm; it ’s the prime of May. | 90 |
| Better than mortar, brick, and putty, | |
| Is God’s house on a blowing day. | |
| Lean me more up the mound; now I feel it; | |
| all the old health-smells! Ain’t it strange? | |
| There ’s the world laughing, as if to conceal it, | 95 |
| But He ’s by us, juggling the change. | |
| |
| I mind it well, by the sea-beach lying, | |
| Once—it ’s long gone—when to gulls we beheld, | |
| Which as the moon got up, were flying | |
| Down a big wave that spark’d and swell’d. | 100 |
| Crack! went a gun: one fell: the second | |
| Wheel’d round him twice, and was off for new luck: | |
| There in the dark her white wing beckon’d:— | |
| Drop me a kiss—I ’m the bird dead-struck! | |
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