bout from clime to clime,
The side of virtue or yet of crime
Ready to take in a regular way
For any leader and regular pay;
Who trusted steel, and thought it odd
To fear the Devil or honor God.
His _forte_ was not in the field alone,
He was no common fighter,
For in all accomplishments he shone,--
At least, in all the lighter.
To lance or lute alike _au fait_,
With grasp now firm, now light,
He flourished this to knightly lay,
And that to lay a knight.
Ready in fashion to lead the _ton_,
In the battle-field his men,
He danced like a Zephyr, and, harness on,
Could walk his mile in ten.
And Nature gave him such a frame,
His tailor such a fit,
That, whether a head or a heart his aim,
He always made a hit.
Wherever he went, the ladies dear
Would very soon adore him,
And, quite of course, the lords would sneer,--
But never sneer before him!
Perhaps it fared with the ladies worse
Than it fared with their gallants;
For he broke a vow with as slight remorse
As he ever broke a lance.
Thus, tilting here and jilting there,
He fought a foe or he fooled a fair,
But little recking how;
So deadly smooth, so cruel and vain,
He might have made a capital Cain,
Or a splendid dandy now.
In short, if you looked o'er land and sea,
From London to the Niger,
You certainly must have said with me,--
If Richard was lion, Marcadee
Might well have been the tiger.

A month went by. They lay there still,
And chafed with nothing but time to kill,--
A tough old foe. Observe the way
They laid him out, as thus:--One day,--
'Twas after dinner and afternoon,
When the noise was over of knife and fork,
And only was heard an occasional cork
And Blondel idly thrumming a tune,--
King Richard pushed the wine along,
And rapped the table, and cried, "A song!
Dulness I hold a shame, a sin
Against good wine. Come, Blondel, begin!"
Blondel coughed,--was "half afraid,"--
Was "out last night on a serenade,
And caught a cold,"--his "voice was gone,--
And really, just now, his head"--"Go on!"
He bowed, and swept the chords--"Brrrrang"--
With a handful of notes, and thus he sang:--

BLONDEL.

Life is fleeting,--make it pleasant;
Care for nothing but the present;
For the past we leave behind us,
And the future may not find us.
Though we cannot shun its troubles,
Care an