| |
| HOW lovely the elder brother’s | |
| Life all laced in the other’s, | |
| Lóve-laced!—what once I well | |
| Witnessed; so fortune fell. | |
| When Shrovetide, two years gone, | 5 |
| Our boys’ plays brought on | |
| Part was picked for John, | |
| Young Jóhn: then fear, then joy | |
| Ran revel in the elder boy. | |
| Their night was come now; all | 10 |
| Our company thronged the hall; | |
| Henry, by the wall, | |
| Beckoned me beside him: | |
| I came where called, and eyed him | |
| By meanwhiles; making my play | 15 |
| Turn most on tender byplay. | |
| For, wrung all on love’s rack, | |
| My lad, and lost in Jack, | |
| Smiled, blushed, and bit his lip; | |
| Or drove, with a diver’s dip, | 20 |
| Clutched hands down through clasped knees— | |
| Truth’s tokens tricks like these, | |
| Old telltales, with what stress | |
| He hung on the imp’s success. | |
| Now the other was bráss-bóld: | 25 |
| Hé had no work to hold | |
| His heart up at the strain; | |
| Nay, roguish ran the vein. | |
| Two tedious acts were past; | |
| Jack’s call and cue at last; | 30 |
| When Henry, heart-forsook, | |
| Dropped eyes and dared not look. | |
| Eh, how áll rúng! | |
| Young dog, he did give tongue! | |
| But Harry—in his hands he has flung | 35 |
| His tear-tricked cheeks of flame | |
| For fond love and for shame. | |
| Ah Nature, framed in fault, | |
| There ’s comfort then, there ’s salt; | |
| Nature, bad, base, and blind, | 40 |
| Dearly thou canst be kind; | |
| There dearly thén, deárly, | |
| I’ll cry thou canst be kind. | |
| |
| See Notes. |
| |
