6
TO IVOR THE GENEROUS.
THE GLOVES.
The poet thanks Ivor for a present of a pair of gloves, containing a gift of money[1]. This poem was probably written on the same occasion as the preceding one, viz., the bard’s departure from North Wales.
All who Ivor’s palace leave,
Gold from Ivor’s hand receive.
On the day the poet went
From his halls—the baron sent
Gloves, replete with precious store,
(To the bard) of radiant ore;
On the better hand bestowed
Gold—the left with silver glowed:
From his grasp these gloves to gain,
Maidens oft have vied in vain;
For the bard, to fair or friend,
Ivor’s gift will never lend.
- ↑ It was the custom of those times to make presents of money in gloves. “When Sir John More was chancellor, in the time of Henry VIII., a Mrs. Croker, for whom he had made a decree against Lord Arundel, came to him to request his acceptance of a pair of gloves, in which were contained forty pounds in angels; he told her, with a smile, that it would be ill manners to refuse a lady’s present, but though he should keep the gloves, he must return the gold, which he enforced her to receive.—Life of Sir John More, by Sir James Mackintosh, in Lardner’s Cyclopædia.
