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THE BARDS OF BURNS.

A Lay of ye Crystalle Palace.

FYTTE THE FIRST.

It fell about the Christmas tide, when graziers kill their beeves, When hall and hut are hung around with the holly's glossy leaves, When turkey, chine, and pudding plump present a goodly show, And many pleasant things are done beneath the mistletoe;

That our good Lord of Syddenhame blew from his Crystal Tower A blast that pealed through all the land with most uncommon power; It scared the man of Manchester beside his cotton twists, The Cornish miner in his mine, the Gaël among his mists.

“Ho! now, my merry minstrels, get all your harps in tune! A hundred years ago a bard was born by Bonnie Doon, And he who best his praises chaunts in most melodious strains, Shall fifty pieces broad receive of the red gold for his pains!

Full joyfully on hungry ears that guerdon's tidings smote, And every bard caught up his lyre, and coughed, and cleared his throat, And to that Tower of Crystal sheen right swiftly made repair, Through the pleasant glades of Forest Hill, and of Penge the hamlet fair.

Oh! never drew such motley crew to tournament or feast, There were thirty score of jongleurs, and gleemaidens at the least, And hope flashed high in every eye, and they sang out loud and bold, For those who cared not for the fame cared extremely for the gold.

“An umpire! Now, an umpire; oh! who will bring to me? An umpire good, my gay foot page!”—“My lord, you shall have three! The doughtiest men, that may be found, search all broad England through.” “God help the merry gentlemen, they'll have enough to do!

“Ho! fetch them here, and spread the cheer; pie, pasty, pipes amass, Hock, Burgundy, and lordly Port, Brown Stout and palest Bass! They must be ammunitioned well, as for a lengthened siege, To stand such shock of bedlam bards.”—“It shall be done, my liege!”

Then in they came, that lusty three! All fresh as from the hills, And bearing high a branch of palm, stout Monckton hight De Mylnes; Sir Tom-Le-Tailzeour, from Whitehall, a swarthy man and strong; Bon Gaultier humming, as he strode, the butt-end of a song.

They ranged themselves behind the Board, they dashed into the cheer. “Ha! they manage all this sort of thing most admirably here. This Hock is famous!”—“So is this, the vintage of Moselle!” “And I like this tap of Burgundy particularly well.”

And so they laughed, and joked, and quaffed, and chirruped o'er their wine. “Six hundred bards,” quoth stout De Mylnes, “who cares though they were nine!— Let's have these Minnesingers in, and hear them in their turns!” “I fear, not I, no end of Scalds!”—“And I no end of Burns!”

Then one by one they led them in, and every poet there First turned his collar down, and ran his fingers through his hair, Then broke into a gush of song, and forth his fancies flung With emphasis immense, and wild expenditure of lung.

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And still the three full jauntily submitted to the din, And bowed the rival minstrels out, as they had bowed them in. The sun went down, the moon went down, the starry dark had gone, And in the sky the sun was high, yet still The Three sat on.

A gleemaiden came tripping in, and, as she twang'd her lute Beneath her swelling Crinoline she showed a dainty foot. “No tampering with the Court, Ma'am!” cried De Mylnes, with brow of gloom; Bon Gaultier kissed her fairy hand, and bowed her from the room.

In rushed a frantic lutanist, and he dashed his gauntlet down, “The red gold shall be mine,” he cries, “and mine the laurel crown! My lyre among the seraph spheres I tuned!” “Oh that will do! To the seraph spheres go back!” outspake Sir Tom, “and play it too!”

So on they came, these minstrel men; one measure scarce was done, Ere with unintermitting crash another had begun; Night settled down, all night they sang, the day “began to daw,” And seated still the morning chill The Three in judgment saw.

Yet still the minstrel rout poured down, and still they played and sang, Some softly as the dove, and some with agonising twang, The fife, the apollonicon, the clarionet resound, And the dreary barrel-organ there its grating torture ground.

And some on the accordion play'd and some upon the bones And some drew from the ophicleide the most guttural of groans, Some shrieked upon the bagpipes wild a maddening Pillalu, And some on the cornopean a cheery woodnote blew.

Another day! another night! still rang the minstrelsie, And there with blanching cheeks sat on The Rhadamanthine Three; They clutched their goblets in their hands, and their eyes stood in their head, With the look most unpoetical of codfish that are dead.

They sat like men who had been stunned, they sat like things of stone, And ever, as the minstrels sang, they sobbed a feeble moan, And Burns, and Doon, and Mauchlin Belles, and Cutty Sark, and Jean, Danced through their brains like Will-o'-wisps, or ghosts at Hallowe'en.

At length a mantled form stole in, and with a touch of fire, That woke triumphant tones, he ran his fingers o'er the lyre; When from The Three that eerie trance to pass away began, They rubbed their eyes, and slapped their thighs, and shouted “That's the Man!”

FYTTE THE SECOND.

When January chill had reached its Five and Twentieth day, The Crystal halls of Syddenhame beheld a brave array, All London's chrivalry was there, and ladies bright of sheen, In a bountiful circumference of flounce and Crinoline.

And through the throng, with faces long, and tresses thin and wild, The elbowing minstrels pushed their way, and grimly too they smiled, For aloft a laurelled purse was hung, and you might hear them gasp, As met their eyes that golden prize, and they dreamed it in their grasp.

“A lane there, ho! Hats off! Sit down!” And lo! The Fatal Three Upon a dais tottered forth of the old and cramoisie, And each was by his squires upheld, hard task it were, I ween, To know them then, these ghastly men, so altered was their mien.

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The stout De Mylnes looked feebly round, his eyes were dim and sunk And in flapping gaberdine his goodly limbs were shrunk, With grizzled beard and drooping head Sir Tom-Le-Tailzeour stood, And a perfect walking skeleton was Gaultier the Good.

They sank like lead into their seats and a thrill ran through the hall, When he that sang The Leaves of Palm piped out before them all, “Ho! Trumpeters, a blast of might upon your bugles blow! And for the Victor's Scutcheon you, my merry footpage, go!”

With triumph high full many an eye and brow was upwards thrown, For every minstrel there knew well that scutcheon was his own, And many an eye and brow was dropped with dark and deadly frown, When they found that all their hopes were done ridiculously brown.

For high upborne by that foot page, they saw a blazoned shield, With Cruiser kicking sinister three donkeys in a field, And from his jaws in letters gules an argent scroll did neigh “A man's a man for a' that,” with some notes of “Scots wha' hae!”

Then rose a yell that scared the owls in Croydon and in Penge, “Revenge! Revenge!” rang through the air, the cry was still “Revenge!” The very pterodactyle at the bottom of the park Was startled in his oozy lair, and grunted, “Here's a lark!”

And to the dais on they dashed, that rabblement of bards, A surging mass that covered full one hundred cubic yards, “Let's hew them down!” “"I claim the crown!” “And I the golden fee!” “And I!” “And I!” “And I!” “And I!” roared all that weltering sea.

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Up sprang The Three and spread their chests, and their manly tresses shook, And from their Squires their harness proof, and dinted falchions took: “Now by Saint Widdicomb the Just, this day ye well shall rue!” And the very maddest minstrel there grew pale their wrath to view.

Tyrtæus Toodles bit the dust, and Shakspeare Scraggs went down, Low lay the great Poseidon Hicks, and the valiant Milton Brown, Longfellow Spinks, fair Brixton's pride, and Whistlebinkie bold, And of young spasmodic bards a score died grappling for the gold.

For before that laurelled guerdon Bon Gaultier grimly strode, And down these reiving troubadours like corn in harvest mowed, And well his brothers kept their posts, and stood that minstrel shock, As Eddystone hurls back the surge that raves around his rock.

And back before their strokes the tide of minstrel battle rolls, Some shriek for help to salve their shins, some for priests to shrive their souls, And fear fell on the men of song, and they called, “A truce! A truce!” Then might you hear that cry of fear, “A Mayne à la Rescousse!”

And the chivalry of Scotland Yard came charging fierce through, And their staves rat-tat on brain and hat beat a terrible tattoo, Like leaves before the autumn gale fled all they could not catch, “Another hit,” Le-Tailzeour cried, “ in An Unequal Match!”

To the Banquet-hall they bore The Three, of wine they quaffed the best, And to recruit their weary souls was many a dainty dressed; What chanced to all the bards who fled, no mortal ever heard, But legends tell, that those who fell, were decently interred.