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    FABLES OF JOHN GAY
    (SOMEWHAT ALTERED).

    [Illustration]




    FABLES OF JOHN GAY
    (SOMEWHAT ALTERED).

    AFFECTIONATELY PRESENTED TO
    MARGARET ROSE,

    BY HER UNCLE
    JOHN BENSON ROSE.

    [_FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION._]

    LONDON:
    PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES & SONS, STAMFORD STREET,
    AND CHARING CROSS.

    1871.




DEDICATION.

Si doulce la Margarite.


When I first saw you--never mind the year--you could speak no English,
and when next I saw you, after a lapse of two years, you _would_
prattle no French; when again we met, you were the nymph with bright
and flowing hair, which frightened his Highness Prince James out of
his feline senses, when, as you came in by the door, he made his bolt
by the window. It was then that you entreated me, with "most
petitionary vehemence," to write you a book--a big book--thick, and
all for yourself--

    "Apollo heard, and granting half the prayer,
    Shuffled to winds the rest and tossed in air."

I have not written the book, nor is it thick: but I have printed you a
book, and it is thin. And I take the occasion to note that old Geoffry
Chaucer, our father poet, must have had you in his mind's eye, by
prescience or precognition, or he could hardly else have written two
poems, one on the daisy and one on the rose. They are poems too long
for modern days, nor are we equal in patience to our fore-fathers, who
read 'The Faerie Queen,' 'Gondibert,' and the 'Polyolbion,' annually,
as they cheeringly averred, _through and out_. Photography, steam, and
electricity make us otherwise, and Patience has fled to the spheres;
therefore, if feasible, shall "brevity be the soul of wit," and we
will eschew "tediousness and outward flourishes" in compressing 'The
Flower and the Leaf' into little:--


    THE FLOWER AND THE LEAF.

    A maiden in greenwood in month of sweet May,
    Arose and awoke at the dawn of the day:
            As she wended along,
            She heard fairie song--
    "Si doulce est la Margarite."
    There the Ladye the Flower and Ladye the Leaf,
    With knights and squires of fairie chief,
            Were met upon mead,
            For devoir and deed--
    Homage unto "La doulce Margarite."

    There the ladye in white and the ladye in green
    Sat on their thrones by the Fairie Queen,
            Whilst knights did their duty,
            And bowed down to beauty--
    "Si doulce est la Margarite,"--
    When the skies grew hot and the ladies pale,
    And the storm descended in lightning and hail,
            As they danced and sung,
            And the burden rung--
    "Sous la feuille, sous la feuille, meet."

    Our Ladye of Leaf asked her of the Flower
    And fairie Nymphs to shelter in bower:
            And they danced and sung,
            And the refrain rung--
    "Si doulce est la Margarite."
    All woe begone shivered the Ladye Flower,
    The Ladye Leaf glittered in gems from the shower:
            As they danced and sung,
            And the refrain rung--
    "Si doulce est la Margarite."

    And knights and squires then wended forth,
    East and west, and south, and north:
            To free forests and shores
            From giants and boars,
    And shelter in night and in storm;
    And every knight bore _in chief_ on his shield
    The _foyle en verte_ on an _argent_ field:
            And they rode and they sung
            The huge oaks among:--
    "Sous la feuille, sous la feuille, dorme."

    The maiden then asked of the Fairie Queen
    To tell her the moral of what she had seen:
            Who answered and sung
            In her fairie tongue--
    "Si doulce est la Margarite."
    The knight that is wise will lead from bower
    The lasting Leaf--not the fading Flower:
            And when storms arise
            To turmoil life's skies--
    "Sous la feuille, sous la feuille, meet."


    Romaunt of the Rose.

      Within my twentie yeares of age,
      When Love asserteth most his courage,
      I dreamed a dream, now fain to tell--
      A dream that pleased me wondrous well.
      Now this dream will I rime aright,
      To make your heartes gaye and light;
      For Love desireth it--also
      Commandeth me that it be so.
      It is the Romaunt of the Rose,
      And tale of love I must disclose.
      Fair is the matter for to make,
      But fairer--if she will to take
      For whom the romaunt is begonne
      For that I wis she is the fair one
      Of mokle prise; and therefore she
      So worthier is beloved to be;
      And well she ought of prise and right
      Be clepened Rose of every wight.
      But it was May, thus dreamed me,--
      A time of love and jollitie:
      A time there is no husks or straw,
      But new grene leaves on everie shaw;
      The woods were grene, the earth was proud,
      Beastes and birdes snug aloud;
      And earth her poore estate forgote,
      In which the winter her had fraught.
      Ah! ben in May the sunne is bright,
      And everie thing does take delight:
      The nightingale then singeth blithe;
      Then is blissful many a scithe;
      The goldfinch and the popinjay,
      They then have many things to say.
      Hard is his heart that loveth nought
      In May, when all such love is wrought.

      Right from my bed full readilie,
      That it was by the morrow earlie;
      And up I rose, and gan me clothe
      Anon I with my handes bothe:
      A silver needle forth I drew
      Out of an aguiler quainte inew,
      And gan this needle threade anone,
      For out of town me list to gone,
      Jollife and gaye, full of gladnesse,
      Towards a river gan I me dresse,
      For from a hill that stood there neere
      Came down the stream of that rivere--
      My face, I wis, there saw I wele,
      The bottom ypaved everie dele
      With gravel, which was shining shene,
      In meadows soft and soote and greene.
      And full attempre out of drede
      Then gan I walken throw the mede
      Downward ever in my playing
      As the river's waters straying;
      And when I had awhile igone
      I saw a garden right anone,
      Of walls with many portraitures,
      And bothe of images and peintures--

    But you may read it as it flows
    In Chaucer's _Romaunt of the Rose_.


    Chaucer to his Booke.

    Now go, my booke, and be courageous,
      For now I send you forthe into the worlde.
    And though ye may find some outrageous,
      And in a pette be in some cornere hurl'd;
    Yet you by little fingeres will be greased
      And known hereafter by the marke of thumbe;
    At which, my little booke, be ye well pleased,
      For booke, like mouthe, unopened is dumbe.
    And there be some, perchance, will bidde you off
      To Conventre, or Yorke, or Jericho;
    But be not you, my booke, abashed by scoff,
      For I will teach you where you boun to go,--
    Which is in Gloucestershire, there unto Bisley,
      Where the church spire is spied long afarre;
    It is not either uncouth, square, or grisly,
      But soareth high, as if to catch a starre;
    Where shall the brother of the _Christian Yeare_,
      Keble, hereafter tend the seven springs,
    Above whose fountains doth The Grove uproar,
      Like to Mount Helicon, where Clio sings,
    Where rookes build, and peacocke spreadeth tail.
      And there the wood-pigeon doth sobbe Coo coo;
    Neither do sparrow, merle or mavis fail,
      And there the owl at midnight singeth Whoo.
    And where there are a Laurel and a Rose,
      Beneath whose branches wide a broode doth haunt;
    The whom high walls and fretted gates enclose,
      Where goode may enter, badde are bidde avaunt.
    And there is one yclepen Margarete,
      Who alsoe for the nonce is clepen Rose,
    For she must on some other hille be sette
      When Hymenaeos shall her lotte dispose.
    And, little booke, it is to