Page:Hemans Miscellaneous Poetry 2.pdf/6



["It was either during the present or a future visit to the same friends, that the jeu-d'esprit was produced which Mrs Hemans used to call her 'sheet of forgeries' on the use of the word Barb. A gentleman had requested her to furnish him with some authorities from the old English writers, proving that this term was in use as applied to a steed. She very shortly supplied him with the following imitations, which were written down almost impromptu: the mystification succeeded perfectly, and was not discovered until some time afterwards."—Memoir, p. 43.]

The warrior donn'd his well-worn garb, And proudly waved his crest, He mounted on his jet-black barb, And put his lance in rest. 's Reliques.

Eftsoons the wight, withouten more delay, Spurr'd his brown barb, and rode full swiftly on his way. .

Hark! was it not the trumpet's voice I heard? The soul of battle is awake within me! The fate of ages and of empires hangs On this dread hour. Why am I not in arms? Bring my good lance, caparison my steed? Base, idle grooms! are ye in league against me? Haste with my barb, or, by the holy saints, Te shall not live to saddle him to-morrow!

No sooner had the pearl-shedding fingers of the young Aurora tremulously unlocked the oriental portals of the golden horizon, than the graceful flower of chivalry and the bright cynosure of ladies' eyes—he of the dazzling breastplate and swanlike plume—sprang impatiently from the couch of slumber, and eagerly mounted the noble barb presented to him by the Emperor of Aspramontania. 's Arcadia.

See'st thou yon chief whose presence seems to rule The storm of battle? Lo! where'er he moves Death follows. Carnage sits upon his crest— Fate on his sword is throned—and his white barb, As a proud courser of Apollo's chariot, Seems breathing fire.'s Æschylus.

Oh! bonnie look'd my ain true knight, His barb so proudly reining; I watch'd him till my tearfu' sight Grew amaist dim wi' straining. Border Minstrelsy.