WESTMINSTER HALL. 345
��Ten thousand guests ! Alas, poor thoughtless king !
Mid all those joyous shouts, the roof that rent, Rose there no vision of thy future woes ?
Usurping Bolingbroke, with stern intent ? The crowd, whose loud hosannas turned to hate, And Pomfret-Cas tie s deeds, of dire, mysterious fate ?
��I cannot laugh in England, I have tried, But a majestic shadow seems to rise,
Like Pallas lofty, or like Dian cold, And put to flight my mirthful melodies ;
And this is well enough, since we were made
Surely for nobler ends, than the light jester s trade.
��I cannot laugh in England, when I ve tried,
Although there s much to cheer both heart and eye ;
It seems as if a lessoned child decried Teachers and magistrates, or lifted high
A loud guffaw in its grave mother s face
At some ill-chosen hour, a fearful want of "race.
��Yet if I fail to laugh, I still may trust
A\ iser to grow, and bring some seeds away
To plant at home, and yield a healthful fruit For my young children, when I m laid in clay,
And that s a better husbandry than Mirth,
Mocking at sober Thought, may often boast on earth.
�� �
