No mounted man is overthrown:
A tilt!--it is a thing unknown--
Except upon a cart!

Methinks I see the bounding barb,
Clad like his Chief in steely garb,
For warding steel's appliance!
Methinks I hear the trumpet stir!
'Tis but the guard, to Exeter,
That bugles the "Defiance"!

In cavils when will cavaliers
Set ringing helmets by the ears,
And scatter plumes about?
Or blood--if they are in the vein?
That tap will never run again--
Alas! the _Casque_ is out!

No iron-crackling now is scored
By dint of battle-axe or sword,
To find a vital place--
Though certain doctors still pretend,
Awhile, before they kill a friend,
To labor through his case.

Farewell, then, ancient men of might!
Crusader, errant squire, and knight!
Our coats and customs soften;
To rise would only make you weep--
Sleep on, in rusty-iron sleep,
As in a safety coffin!

[Footnote 42: The allusion to our modern "Black Prince" is
apparently to Prince Le Boo, whose death, while on a visit to England,
had so impressed the public imagination. He came, however, from the
Pelew Islands, not the "Sandwich;" and it was smallpox, not measles,
that "took him off."]

PLAYING AT SOLDIERS.

"Who'll serve the King?"

What little urchin is there never
Hath had that early scarlet fever,
Of martial trappings caught?
Trappings well call'd--because they trap
And catch full many a country chap
To go where fields are fought!

What little urchin with a rag
Hath never made a little flag
(Our plate will show the manner),
And wooed each tiny neighbor still,
Tommy or Harry, Dick or Will,
To come beneath the banner!

Just like that ancient shape of mist,
In Hamlet, crying "'List, oh, 'list!"
Come, who will serve the king,
And strike frog-eating Frenchmen dead,
And cut off Bonyparty's head?--
And all that sort of thing.

So used I, when I was a boy,
To march with military toy,
And ape the soldier's life;--
And with a whistle or a hum,
I thought myself a Duke of Drum
At least, or Earl of Fife.

With gun of tin and sword of lath,
Lord! how I walk'd in glory's path
With regimental mates,
By sound of trump and rub-a dubs--
To 'siege the washhouse--charge the tubs--
Or storm the garden gates.

Ah me! my retrospective soul!
As over memory's muster-roll
I cast my eyes anew,
My former comrades all the while
Rise up before me, rank and file,
And form in dim review.

Ay, there t