Ballades and Verses Vain

The painted Briton built his mound,

And left his celts and clay,

On yon fair slope of sunlit ground

That fronts your garden gay;

The Roman came, he bore the sway,

He bullied, bought, and sold,

Your fountain sweeps his works away

Beside your manor old!


But still his crumbling urns are found

Within the window-bay,

Where once he listened to the sound

That lulls you day by day;—

The sound of summer winds at play,

The noise of waters cold

To Yarty wandering on their way,

Beside your manor old!


The Roman fell: his firm-set bound

Became the Saxon's stay;

The bells made music all around

For monks in cloisters grey,

Till fled the monks in disarray

From their warm chantry's fold,

The Abbots slumber as they may,

Beside your manor old!

"All these for Fourpence."


Oh, where are the endless Romances

Our grandmothers used to adore?

The Knights with their helms and their lances,

Their shields and the favours they wore?

And the Monks with their magical lore?

They have passed to Oblivion and Nox

They have fled to the shadowy shore,—

They are all in the Fourpenny Box!


And where the poetical fancies

Our fathers were fond of, of yore?

The lyric's melodious expanses,

The Epics in cantos a score?

They have been and are not: no more

Shall the shepherds drive silvery flocks,

Nor the ladies their long words deplore,—

They are all in the Fourpenny Box!


And the Music! The songs and the dances?

The tunes that Time may not restore?

And the tomes where Divinity prances?

And the pamphlets where Heretics roar?

They have ceased to be even a bore,—

The Divine, and the Sceptic who mocks,—

They are "cropped," they are "foxed" to core,—

They are all in the Fourpenny Box!