THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 145 



table, on which, in spite of erasures and alterations, I 

 could decipher the following lines (the fair copies, I pre- 

 sume, he may have put into his pocket, intending, as may 

 be also presumed, to throw the rough ones into the fire). 

 The first ran thus : 



' Sweet's the light of morning breaking 



O'er the dew-bespangled mead ; 

 Sweet the night-breeze, hardly shaking 



In its course the pliant reed. 

 Sweeter far the smile enlightening 



Beauty's soft and sparkling cheek ; 

 And the sigh love's ardour heightening, 



With its breath so soft and meek.' 



" Then scrap the second contained these : 



' Thou hast an eye of tender blue, 

 And thou hast locks of sable hue, 

 And cheeks that shame the morning's break, 

 And lips that might, for redness, make 



Roses seem pale beside them : 

 But whether soft or sweet as they, 

 Lady, alas ! I cannot say, 



For / have never tried them. 



' Yet thus created for delight, 

 Lady ! thou art not ' 



" He proceeds no further ; vulgarly speaking, there is 

 a hole in the ballad. But, turning over the paper, I 

 found that his muse had been again at work, and had 

 again failed. Even love, I fear, will not make Francis a 

 poet. He had scribbled thus : 



' The music ceased, the last gay dance was o'er, 



And one by one the brilliant beauties fled ; 



The garlands vanished from the frescoed floor, 



The nodding fiddler hung his weary head ; 



' And I, a melancholy single man, 



Retired to mourn my solitary fate ; 

 I slept awhile, but o'er my slumbering ran 

 The sylph-like image of my darling mate. 



' I dreamt of mutual love, and Hymen's joys, 

 Of happy moments and connubial blisses ; 

 And then I thought of little girls and boys, 

 The mother's glances, and the infant's kisses. 



' But when I woke, how changed appear'd the scene ; 

 I found ' 



10 



