[BNP/E3, 78B – 53-55]
ELEGY.
ON THE MARRIAGE OF MY DEAR FRIEND MR. JINKS,
BUT WHICH MAY WITH EQUAL MADNESS BE APPLIED
TO THE MARRIAGE OF MANY OTHER GENTLEMEN.
I.
Ye nymphs whose beauties all your hills
Adorn,
Embodied graces of the sun-traced rills,
Mourn,
For gentle Corydon*[1] henceforth,
In this hard world where all must pass,
Will feel as icy as the North.
Alas!
II.
Ah, Corydon! Ah, Corydon!
And hast thou left all happiness,
Immoraled joy and whiskied liberty?
Ah, Corydon!
Great is our distress.
And art thou no more free?
[54r]
Bars shall be useless now. Alas, in vain
The music-hall shall ring with voices known,
In vain the horse shall course the plain,
And the struck sparrer groan.
And dogs and beasts and women,
And brandy, gin and wine,
And brutish brutes and human —
Oh, say, shall all these joys no more be thine?
III.
Ah, frailness of mankind!
Thou first to sneer at woman who didst hold
Thyself superior, now (alas!) wilt find, –
Amid thy waning joy and waning gold,
Thou learnedst in a sorry school
That taught thee to disdain
The seeming-tender being whose iron rule
Shall now wreak on thee horrid pain.
Too late now wilt thou learn, too late,
When thy voice is low and humble thy gait,
When thy soul is crushed and thy dress sedate,
The greatest of all ills the gods on humans rain.
IV.
Ah, what avails all mourning? Thou art gone
From life and hope and gaudy loveliness,
[55r]
From that deep rest that men call drunkenness.
Ah, Corydon! Ah, Corydon!
Thou, the first hope of all our race
Hast left the blessèd paths of peace and love.
Ah, wilt thou be content to rove
From shop to shop with her, thy mother-in-law,
Or tremble full to hear at night,
With horror deep and deep affright.
The wordy torrent from thy spouse’s jaw?
V.
Oh, the troubles to come to thee can ever I dare name?
To work in the day, and at night to walk the bedroom’s length,
On a seeming-heavy baby to waste thy seeming-waning strength,
And as the husband of thy wife to reach the light of fame.
Now my voice is broke with weeping, and mine eyes red, as with sand,
And my spirit worn with sighing, and with sighing worn my breast.
Ah, farewell, that thou art gone now to the dreaded obscure land
Where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary never rest.
C.R. Anon
id est, Alexander Search
[1] * Corydon for Jinks is rather strong; but let me have, at least, the approbation of those numerous bards who call decayed teeth “pearls” and exalt a squint into eyes divine. [NOTA DO AUTOR]
