Well hast thou cried, departed Burke,

All chivalrous romantic work

Is ended now and past! —

That iron age — which some have thought

Of metal rather overwrought —

Is now all overcast!

Ay! where are those heroic knights

Of old — those armadillo wights

Who wore the plated vest? —

Great Charlemagne and all his peers

Are cold — enjoying with their spears

An everlasting rest!

The bold King Arthur sleepeth sound;

So sleep his knights who gave that Round

Old Table such éclat!

Oh, Time has pluck’d the plumy brow!

And none engage at tourneys now

But those that go to law!

Grim John o’ Gaunt is quite gone by,

And Guy is nothing but a Guy,

Orlando lies forlorn! —

Bold Sidney, and his kidney — nay,

Those “early champions”— what are they

But “Knights without a morn”?

No Percy branch now perseveres,

Like those of old, in breaking spears —

The name is now a lie! —

Surgeons, alone, by any chance,

Are all that ever couch a lance

To couch a body’s eye!

Alas for Lion-Hearted Dick,

That cut the Moslems to the quick,

His weapon lies in peace:

Oh, it would warm them in a trice,

If they could only have a spice

Of his old mace in Greece!

The famed Rinaldo lies a-cold,

And Tancred too, and Godfrey bold,

That scaled the holy wall!

No Saracen meets Paladin,

We hear of no great Saladin,

But only grow the small!

Our Cressys, too, have dwindled since

To penny things — at our Black Prince?

Historic pens would scoff:

The only one we moderns had

Was nothing but a Sandwich lad,

And measles took him off!

Where are those ............