ABSTRACT
HE lived in that past Georgian day, When men were less inclined to say That ‘Time is Gold,’ and overlay With toil their pleasure; He held some land, and dwelt thereon,— Where, I forget,—the house is gone; His Christian name, I think, was John,— His surname, Leisure. Reynolds has painted him,—a face Filled with a fine, old-fashioned grace, Fresh coloured, frank, with ne’er a trace Of trouble shaded; The eyes are blue, the hair is drest In plainest way,—one hand is prest Deep in a flapped canary vest, With buds brocaded. He wears a brown old Brunswick coat, With silver buttons,—round his throat, A soft cravat;—in all you note An elder fashion,— A strangeness, which, to us who shine In shapely hats,—whose coats combine All harmonies of hue and line,— Inspires compassion. He lived so long ago, you see! Men were untravelled then, but we, Like Ariel post o’er land and sea With careless parting; He found it quite enough for him To smoke his pipe in ‘garden trim,’ And watch, about the fish-tank’s brim, The swallows darting. He liked the well-wheel’s creaking tongue,— He liked the thrush that fed her young,— He liked the drone of flies among His netted peaches; He liked to watch the sunlight fall Athwart his ivied orchard wall; Or pause to catch the cuckoo’s call Beyond the beeches. His were the times of Paint and Patch, And yet no Ranelagh could match The sober doves that round his thatch Spread tails and sidled; He liked their ruffling, puffed content,— For him their drowsy wheelings meant More than a Mall of Beaux that bent, Or Belles that bridled. Not that, in truth, when life began, He shunned the flutter of the fan; He too had maybe ‘pinked his man’ In Beauty’s quarrel; But now his ‘fervent youth’ had flown Where lost things go; and he was grown As staid and slow-paced as his own Old hunter, Sorrel. Yet still he loved the chase, and held That no composer’s score excelled The merry horn, when Sweetlip swelled Its jovial riot; But most his measured words of praise Caressed the angler’s easy ways,— His idly meditative days,— His rustic diet. Not that his ‘meditating’ rose Beyond a sunny summer doze; He never troubled his repose With fruitless prying; But held, as law for high and low, What God withholds no man can know, And smiled away inquiry so, Without replying. We read—alas, how much we read! The jumbled strifes of creed and creed With endless controversies feed Our groaning tables; His books—-and they sufficed him—were Cotton’s ‘Montaigne,’ ‘The Grave’ of Blair, A ‘Walton’—much the worse for wear— And ‘Æsop’s Fables.’ One more,—‘The Bible.’ Not that he Had searched its page as deep as we; No sophistries could make him see Its slender credit; It may be that he could not count The sires and sons to Jesse’s fount,— He liked the ‘Sermon on the Mount,’ And more, he read it. Once he had loved, but failed to wed, A red-cheeked lass who long was dead; His ways were far too slow, he said, To quite forget her; And still when time had turned him gray The earliest hawthorn buds in May Would find his lingering feet astray, Where first he met her. ‘In Coelo Quies’ heads the stone On Leisure’s grave,—now little known, A tangle of wild-rose has grown So thick across it; The ‘Benefactions’ still declare He left the clerk an elbow-chair, And ‘12 Pence Yearly to Prepare A Christmas Posset.’ Lie softly, Leisure! Doubtless you With too serene a conscience drew Your easy breath, and slumbered through The gravest issue; But we, to whom our age allows Scarce space to wipe our weary brows, Look down upon your narrow house, Old friend, and miss you!
