Joseph Ashby-Sterry - The Lazy Minstrel

O for the feeling of days agone,
The simple faith and truth,
The Spring of time, life's rosy dawn —
O for the love and the youth!

ALL through the lazy afternoon,
Beneath the sycamore,
I listen to the distant Lune,
Or slumber to its roar;
'Tis sweet to muse, to sleep or sing,
When talk is superfluity;
'Tis sweet beneath the trees to swing,
And practise hammockuity.

Forgotten here, I would forget
The destiny fate weaves,
The while I smoke a cigarette
To music of the leaves;
I wish my present lazy life
A lengthy continuity;
Away from trouble, care, and strife,
In happy hammockuity!

While others work, while others play,
Or love, or laugh, or weep;
I watch the smoke-rings curl away,
And almost fall asleep!
I'd give up thought of future fame —
Despite such incongruity —
I'd forfeit riches, power, name,
For blissful hammockuity!

I hate the booming busy bee
Who dares to wake me up —
I wonder if it's time for tea,
Or grateful cyder-cup?
I would I could, beneath the trees,
Repose in perpetuity,
And swing, and sing, and take mine ease
In lasting hammockuity!

TO Town, about the close of dull November,
Up comes the Country Cousin, pray remember, —
The Cattle Show to visit in December!

Her winsome, watchet eyes, they are the sweetest,
Her chaussure and her gloves they are the neatest,
Her toilette you'll consider the completest.

She's pretty, piquante, pouting, and capricious;
So dainty, dimpled, daring, and delicious:
She's joyful, and she's jaunty and judicious.

She loves to hear the latest tittle-tattle;
On manners, music, crinoline, and cattle,
And pictures, peers and poets will she prattle!

She often goes out shopping with her Mother,
The Park she sometimes visits with her Brother —
She'd much prefer to stroll there with Another!

The gay Mikado music sets her humming —
And how she likes the Temple kettle-drumming,
With those who love to go chrysanthemumming!

She has no views on "rights" or vivisection,
Finds politics a nuisance on reflection —
To bores she has a most supreme objection!

Delight she takes in anything that's merry,
She dearly loves a pleasant lunch chez Verrey,
And much prefers dry Pommery to sherry!

She rattles through a picture exhibition,
Then goes to see a circus or magician,
And does a morning concert in addition!

Of theatres, you'll find, she'll ne'er grow weary;
Each night she'll go – let plays be good or dreary —
And sit them through, still looking bright and cheery!

She can't e'en rest 'twixt Saturday and Monday,
But in a hansom – despite Mrs. Grundy —
She drives down to the Abbey on a Sunday!

She's bright each morn – as fresh as any daisy —
And when with seeing sights I'm nearly crazy,
She says I am "incorrigibly lazy!"

But when one morn from Euston she has started —
Those eyelids drooped a wee bit when we parted —
I certainly feel dismal and down-hearted.

That merry whirling time at last is ended! —
And as for hearts? Pooh! pooh! I'm feeling splendid.
"Least said," the proverb hints, "is soonest mended."

O, HOLIDAY-MAKERS can rarely be still,
But take superhuman exertions
And make themselves hot and exhausted and ill
To organize horrid "excursions"!
Let those who enjoy it ride out in a "shay" —
Exploring each dell and each dingle —
But let me throw stones in the water all day
And roll on the sand and the shingle!

They think it delightful to walk on the pier,
And try to create a sensation;
When passengers land, looking pallid and queer,
A cause is for great jubilation:
Let lunatics listen to bands when they play,
And nod to their noise and their jingle —
But let me throw stones in the water all day
And roll on the sand and the shingle!

Anemone-hunters roam over the rocks,
All hoping to fish up a tank-full;
They hopelessly ruin their shoes and their socks —
O, why can't they rest and be thankful?
They rave o'er a winkle, a wrass, or a wray,
And sea-weeds that with them commingle —
But let me throw stones in the water all day
And roll on the sand and the shingle!

They fancy 'tis pleasant to go for a sail
With wind in a dubious quarter;
When waves "chop about," and they get very pale,
And up to their knees in the water.
Let maritime maniacs, wetted with spray,
Discourse on a cleat or a cringle —
But let me throw stones in the water all day
And roll on the sand and the shingle!

I'd much rather take a good pull at ozone
Without all this bustle and riot;
If well-meaning friends would but leave me alone,
To bask in the sunshine and quiet.
Such labour as theirs fills my heart with dismay —
The thought of it makes my blood tingle —
So I will throw stones in the water all day
And roll on the sand and the shingle!

SAINT ALOYS the Great is both mouldy and grim,
The Decalogue's dusty, the windows are dim;
If I'm not mistaken, you'll long have to search
Before you discover this old City church:
But it's whereabouts I don't intend to betray,
Though a pilgrim each week to the shrine of Saint May!

The one bell is cracked in its crazy old tower,
The sermon oft lasts rather more than an hour;
The parson is prosy, the clerk eighty-three,
The organ drones out in a sad minor key:
Yet how quickly the moments, I find, fly away,
I pass every week 'neath the spell of Saint May.

She sits in a high, ancient black oaken pew,
Which almost conceals her fair face from my view;
The sweetest of pictures, it can't be denied,
With two tiny sisters who sit by her side:
And they lisp the responses and kneel down to pray,
With their little hands locked in the palm of Saint May.

Of saints I've seen many in churches before —
In Florence or Venice, they're there by the score;
Agnese, Maria – the rest I forget —
By Titian, Bassano, and brave Tintoret —
Though as pictures delightful, I fancy that they,
E'en as pictures, can't rival my gentle Saint May.

She's almost too young and too plump for a saint,
With sweet little dimples that Millais might paint;
She wears no ascetic or mortified mien,
No wimple of yellow or vestment of green —
But her soft golden hair throws a sunshiny ray,
Like a nimbus, around the fair face of Saint May!