Classic Poem

33

That house was Delia's, last of all her name,
To her lone hand bequeathed through many sires;
There seventy years she dwelt in virgin fame,
Fair daughter of a race of ruddy squires.
Few were their tastes, and artless their desires;
A stock deep-rooted like their forest oak;
Remote from foreign customs of the shires,
And foemen by their blood to outland folk,
Who scorned not wooden shoes, nor Christian English spoke.

34

Not yet had London taught the rural Thane
To sigh for charms across the county bound.
Content they watched, like old Verona's swain,
Sunrise and sunset on their fathers' ground.
Yet sometimes, resting from the horn and houd,
Or loosed from business of the sylvan sphere,
More social joys in yonder walls they found;
Here would they swell the gay Assembly, here
Would greet the welcome spring, or speed the waning year.

35

Of wider worlds beyond their ingle's nook
But little did they hear, and nothing read;
Yet mightier fame at time their bosoms shook,
Of Lisbon ruined, or of Robespierre dead;
And when, with patriot laurels garlanded,
From north to south the Mail exultant flew,
And east and west the fiery message sped,
Belfrey to belfry pealed the county through,
And A LBUERA roared, or thundered W ATERLOO !

36

And Delia's self? Methinks I see the Maid,
Even in her winter wrinkles kind and fair;
Her gold-topped cane; her petticoat's brocade;
Her silver snuff-box; and her powdered hair.
Much could she tell of each presumptive heir
In every County House; nor would forget
The name of one tenth cousin in her prayer;
On Heaven and Heraldry her soul was set;
And each by heart she knew her Bible and Debrett.

37

Long has she vanished with her pride of birth,
And vanished, too, her far descended race.
Hushed are the scenes of once familiar mirth;
Of all those genial hours of courtly grace
No memory lingers. To what uses base
The scutcheoned Parlour turns! With drudging quill
The Legal Genius grimly rules the place;
And, on the tables sacred to Quadrille,
Drones o'er the mouldered Deed, or drafts the dying Will.