Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/370

 WESTMINSTER HALL. 345

��Ten thousand guests ! Alas, poor thoughtless king !

Mid all those joyous shouts, the roof that rent, Rose there no vision of thy future woes ?

Usurping Bolingbroke, with stern intent ? The crowd, whose loud hosannas turned to hate, And Pomfret-Cas tie s deeds, of dire, mysterious fate ?

��I cannot laugh in England, I have tried, But a majestic shadow seems to rise,

Like Pallas lofty, or like Dian cold, And put to flight my mirthful melodies ;

And this is well enough, since we were made

Surely for nobler ends, than the light jester s trade.

��I cannot laugh in England, when I ve tried,

Although there s much to cheer both heart and eye ;

It seems as if a lessoned child decried Teachers and magistrates, or lifted high

A loud guffaw in its grave mother s face

At some ill-chosen hour, a fearful want of &quot;race.

��Yet if I fail to laugh, I still may trust

A\ iser to grow, and bring some seeds away

To plant at home, and yield a healthful fruit For my young children, when I m laid in clay,

And that s a better husbandry than Mirth,

Mocking at sober Thought, may often boast on earth.

�� �