But to return: if you have owed to me One witless jest, one pointless repartee―― If I at good mens’ feasts too long have lolled, And seldom stirred when bells to church have knolled―― If censuring tongues might of my errors tell, As loving mirth, not wisely but too well―― If even in caution’s course I missed my aim, Tried jokes by stealth, and blushed to find them fame―― The few preposterous efforts I have made By this too partial tribute are repaid. Could my big bosom prop the sinking line, Then I could speak what feelings now are mine. But fancy fails, expression dies away; In feeble murmers I can only say, Amidst my throbbing heart’s tumultuous strife: “This is the proudest moment of my life!” ――――:o:―――― LAMENT FOR TABBY; or, _The Cat’s Coronach_. And art thou fall’n, and lowly laid, The housewife’s boast, the cellar’s aid, Great mouser of thy day; Whose rolling eyes, and aspect dread, Whole whiskered legions oft have fled In midnight battle fray. There breathes not kitten of thy line, But would have given his life for thine. O! could I match the peerless strain, That wailed for Black Sir Roderic slain, Or that whose milder tone O’er Gertrude, fall’n in beauty’s prime, The grace of Pennsylvania’s clime, Raised the sepulchral moan! Such strain might burst th’ eternal bar, And reach thy spirit from afar. But thou remote from pain and strife. Now reap’st the meed of virtuous life In some Elysian grove, Where endless streams of milk abound, And soft valerian paints the ground, Thy joyous footsteps rove; With Tasso’s cat, by poets named, And Whittington’s in story famed, _Requiescat in pace!_ From _The Satirist_, March 1814. ――――:o:―――― THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL. The numerous Parodies of this poem are principally founded upon passages in the introduction, and the opening verses of Cantos the second, third, and sixth, a few lines from each of which will be given to recall them to the reader’s mind for comparison. INTRODUCTION.