The Champion of England

Mr. Dymoke! Sir Knight! if I may be so bold--(I’m a poor simple gentleman just come to town,)Is your armour put by, like the sheep in a fold?--Is your gauntlet ta’en up, which you lately flung down?

Are you--who that day rode so mail’d and admired,Now sitting at ease in a library chair?Have you sent back to Astley the war-horse you hired,With a cheque upon Chambers to settle the fare?

What’s become of the cup? Great tin-plate worker! say!Cup and ball is a game which some people deem fun!Oh: three golden balls haven’t lured you to playRather false, Mr. D., to all pledges but one?

How defunct is the show that was chivalry’s mimic!The breastplate--the feathers--the gallant array!So fades, so grows dim, and so dies, Mr. Dymoke!The day of brass breeches! as Wordsworth would say!

Perchance in some village remote, with a cot,And a cow, and a pig, and a barndoor, and all;--You show to the parish that peace is your lot,And plenty,--though absent from Westminster Hall!

And of course you turn every accoutrement nowTo its separate use, that your wants may be well-met;--You toss in your breastplate your pancakes, and growA salad of mustard and cress in your helmet.

And you delve the fresh earth with your falchion, less brightSince hung up in sloth from its Westminster task;And you bake your own bread in your tin; and, Sir Knight,Instead of your brow, put your beer in the casque!

How delightful to sit by your beans and your peas,With a goblet of gooseberry gallantly clutched,And chat of the blood that had deluged the PleasAnd drenched the King’s Bench,--if the glove had been touched!

If Sir Columbine Daniel, with knightly pretensionsHad snatched your “best doe,”--he’d have flooded the floor;--Nor would even the best of his crafty inventions,“Life Preservers,” have floated him out of his gore!

Oh, you and your horse! what a couple was there!The man and his backer,--to win a great fight!Though the trumpet was loud,--you’d an undisturbed air!And the nag snuffed the feast and the fray sans affright!

Yet strange was the course which the good Cato boreWhen he waddled tail-wise with the cup to his stall;--For though his departure was at the front door,Still he went the back way out of Westminster Hall.

He went,--and ’twould puzzle historians to say,When they trust Time’s conveyance to carry your mail,--Whether caution or courage inspired him that day,For though he retreated, he never turned tail.

By my life, he’s a wonderful charger!--The best!Though not for a Parthian corps!--yet for you!--Distinguished alike at a fray and a feast,What a horse for a grand Retrospective Review!

What a creature to keep a hot warrior coolWhen the sun’s in the face, and the shade’s far aloof!--What a tailpiece for Bewick!--or piebald for Poole,To bear him in safety from Elliston’s hoof!

Well! hail to old Cato! the hero of scenesMay Astley or age ne’er his comforts abridge;--Oh, long may he munch Amphitheatre beans,Well “pent up in Utica” over the Bridge!

And to you, Mr. Dymoke, Cribb’s rival, I keepWishing all country pleasures, the bravest and best!And oh! when you come to the Hummums to sleep,May you lie “like a warrior taking his rest!”