ODE TO THE CAMELEOPARD

WELCOME to Freedom's birth-place-and a den!
Great Anti-climax, hail!

So very lofty in thy front—but then,

So dwindling at the tail!

In truth, thou hast the most unequal legs :
Has one pair gallop'd, whilst the other trotted,
Along with other brethren, leopard-spotted,
O'er Afric sand, where ostriches lay eggs?
Sure thou wert caught in some hard uphill chase,
Those hinder heels still keeping thee in check!

And yet thou seem'st prepar'd in any case,
Tho' they had lost the race,

To win it-by a neck!

That lengthy neck-how like a crane's it looks!
Art thou the overseer of all the brutes ?

Or dost thou browze on tip-top leaves or fruits-
Or go a-bird-nesting amongst the roks?
How kindly nature caters for all wants;
Thus giving unto thee a neck that stretches,
And high food fetches-

To some a long nose, like the elephant's!

Oh! had'st thou any organ to thy bellows,
To turn thy breath to speech in human style,
What secrets thou might'st tell us,

Where now our scientific guesses fail;

For instance, of the Nile,

Whether those Seven Mouths have any tail-
Mayhap thy luck too,

From that high head, as from a lofty hill,
Has let thee see the marvellous Timbuctoo-
Or drink of Niger at its infant rill;

What were the travels of our Major Denham,

Or Clapperton, to thine

In that same line,

If thou could'st only squat thee down and pen 'em!

Strange sights, indeed, thou must have overlook'd,
With eyes held ever in such vantage-stations!
Hast seen, perchance, unhappy white folks cook'd,
And then made free of negro corporations?
Poor wretches saved from cast away three deckers-

By sooty wreckers

From hungry waves to have a loss still drearier,
To far exceed the utmost aim of Park-

And find themselves, alas! beyond the mark,
In the insides of Africa's Interior!

ΤΟ

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Live on, Giraffe! genteelest of raff kind!-
Admir'd by noble and by royal tongues !-
May no pernicious wind,

Or English fog, blight thy exotic lungs !
Live on in happy peace, altho' a rarity,
Nor envy thy poor cousin's more outrageous
Parisian popularity ;-

Whose very leopard-rash is grown contagious,
And worn on gloves and ribbons all about,
Alas! they'll wear him out !—

So thou shalt take thy sweet diurnal feeds-
When he is stuff'd with undigested straw,
Sad food that never visited his jaw!

And staring round him with a brace of beads!

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I thank my literary fortune that I am not reduced, like many better wits, to barter dedications, for the hope or promise of patronage, with some nominally great man; but that where true affection points, and honest respect, I am free to gratify my head and heart by a sincere inscription. An intimacy and dearness, worthy of a much earlier date than our acquaintance can refer to, direct me at once to your name: and with this acknowledgment of your ever kind feeling towards me, I desire to record a respect and admiration for you as a writer, which no one acquainted with our literature, save Elia himself, will think disproportionate or misplaced. If I had not these better reasons to govern me, I should be guided to the same selection by your intense yet critical relish for the works of our great Dramatist, and for that favourite play in particular which has furnished the subject of my verses.

It is my design, in the following Poem, to celebrate, by an allegory, that immortality which Shakspeare has conferred on the Fairy mythology by his Midsummer Night's Dream. But for him, those pretty children of our childhood would leave barely their names to our maturer years; they belong, as the mites upon the plumb, to the bloom of fancy, a thing generally too frail and beautiful to withstand the rude handling of time: but the Poet has made this most perishable part of the mind's creation equal to the most enduring; he has so intertwined the Elfins with human sympathies, and linked them by so many delightful associations with the productions of nature, that they are as real to the mind's eye, as their green magical circles to the outer sense.

It would have been a pity for such a race to go extinct, even though they were but as the butterflies that hover about the leaves and blossoms of the visible world.

I am, my dear Friend, Yours most truly,

T. HOOD.

I

'TWAS in that mellow season of the year,
When the hot Sun singes the yellow leaves
Till they be gold,-and with a broader sphere
The Moon looks down on Ceres and her sheaves;
When more abundantly the spider weaves,

And the cold wind breathes from a chillier clime;
That forth I fared, on one of those still eves,

Touch'd with the dewy sadness of the time,

To think how the bright months had spent their prime.

II

So that, wherever I address'd my way,

I seem'd to track the melancholy feet
Of him that is the Father of Decay,

And spoils at once the sour weed and the sweet ;-
Wherefore regretfully I made retreat

To some unwasted regions of my brain,

Charm'd with the light of summer and the heat,
And bade that bounteous season bloom again,
And sprout fresh flowers in mine own domain.

III

It was a shady and sequester'd scene,
Like those famed gardens of Boccaccio,
Planted with his own laurels evergreen,
And roses that for endless summer blow;
And there were founting springs to overflow
Their marble basins,-and cool green arcades
Of tall o'erarching sycamores, to throw

Athwart the dappled path their dancing shades,—
With timid coneys cropping the green blades.

IV

And there were crystal pools, peopled with fish,
Argent and gold; and some of Tyrian skin,
Some crimson-barr'd ;-and ever at a wish
They rose obsequious till the wave grew thin
As glass upon their backs, and then dived in,
Quenching their ardent scales in watery gloom;
Whilst others with fresh hues row'd forth to win
My changeable regard,-for so we doom
Things born of thought to vanish or to bloom.

V

And there were many birds of many dyes,
From tree to tree still faring to and fro,
And stately peacocks with their splendid eyes,
And gorgeous pheasants with their golden glow,

Like Iris just bedabbled in her bow,
Besides some vocalists, without a name,
That oft on fairy errands come and go,
With accents magical;-and all were tame,
And peckled at my hand where'er I came.

VI

And for my sylvan company, in lieu
Of Pampinea with her lively peers,
Sat Queen Titania with her pretty crew,
All in their liveries quaint, with elfin gears,
For she was gracious to my childish years,
And made me free of her enchanted round;
Wherefore this dreamy scene she still endears,
And plants her court upon a verdant mound,
Fenced with umbrageous woods and groves profound.

VII

'Ah me,' she cries, 'was ever moonlight seen
So clear and tender for our midnight trips
Go some one forth, and with a trump convene
My lieges all!'-Away the goblin skips
A pace or two apart, and deftly strips
The ruddy skin from a sweet rose's cheek,

Then blows the shuddering leaf between his lips,
Making it utter forth a shrill small shriek,
Like a fray'd bird in the grey owlet's beak.

VIII

And lo! upon my fix'd delighted ken
Appear'd the loyal Fays.—Some by degrees
Crept from the primrose buds that open'd then,
And some from bell-shap'd blossoms like the bees,
Some from the dewy meads, and rushy leas,

Flew up like chafers when the rustics pass;

Some from the rivers, others from tall trees
Dropp'd, like shed blossoms, silent to the grass,
Spirits and elfins small, of every class.

IX

Peri and Pixy, and quaint Puck the Antic,
Brought Robin Goodfellow, that merry swain;
And stealthy Mab, queen of old realms romantic,
Came too, from distance, in her tiny wain,
Fresh dripping from a cloud-some bloomy rain,

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Then circling the bright Moon, had washed her car,
And still bedew'd it with a various stain:

Lastly came Ariel, shooting from a star,
Who bears all fairy embassies afar.

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