[4] By the word 'columnæ,' Horace (though BENTLEY knew it not) evidently meant the columns of the Roman newspapers.
While thus, between our filberts and our wine, We mourned with sighs your mistress's decline, You half indulged the fond imagination, That what seemed death was but her _emigration_. Perhaps, quoth you, and 'twas a bold 'perhaps,' Ere many years of exile shall elapse, The wand'ring maid may find in foreign lands More loving hearts and hospitable hands. Perchance her feet, with furry buskins graced, May shuddering walk the cold Canadian waste, And rest contented with a bleak repose In shrubless climes of never-thawing snows. Yes, in those woods that gird the northern lakes, Pathless as yet, and wild with shaggy brakes, Or in the rank savannahs of the south, Or sea-like prairies near Missouri's mouth, Fate may conduct her to some sacred spot, Where to resume her sceptre and to--squat. Some happier settlement and simpler race, Where, though her worship lack its ancient grace, New days may dawn, like those of royal BESS, And every stream a Stratford shall possess; Where, though in marshes resonant with frogs, And rudely housed in temples built of logs, The nymph, regenerate in her classic robe, May see revived the 'Fortune' and the 'Globe.'
Such was the dream your fancy dared to mould Of what yourself had witnessed here of old; When with your twins--your FANNY and your fame-- Among our cousins of the west you came; But you mistook a momentary fashion For a deep-seated and enduring passion: Now to your own a friend's experience add, And judge what grounds your glorious vision had. Beyond that Cape which mortals christen Cod, Where drifted sand-heaps choke the scanty sod, Round the rough shore a crooked city clings, Sworn foe to queens, it seems, as well as kings. On three steep hills it soars, as Rome on seven, To claim a near relationship with heaven. Fit home for saints! the very name it bears A kind of sacred origin declares; Ta'en, as I find by hunting records o'er, From one BOTOLFO, canonized of yore,[5] Whom bards have left nor epitaph nor verse on, Though in his day, sans doubt, a decent person: This town, in olden times of stake and flame, A famous nest of Puritans became; Sad, rigid souls, who hated as they ought The carnal arms wherewith the Devil fought; Dancing and dicing, music, and whate'er Spreads for humanity the hell-born snare. Stage-plays especially their hearts abhorred, Holding the Muses hateful to the Lord, Save when old STERNHOLD and his brother bard Oped their hoarse throats and strained an anthem hard.