Reynolds has painted him,-a face

Filled with a fine, old-fashioned grace,

Fresh-coloured, frank, with ne'er a trace

To smoke his pipe in "garden trim,"

And watch, about the fish tank's brim,

The swallows darting.

He liked the well-wheel's creaking tongue,

He liked the thrush that stopped and sung,—

He liked the drone of flies among

His netted peaches;

He liked to watch the sunlight fall

Athwart his ivied orchard wall;

Or pause to catch the cuckoo's call

Beyond the beeches.

His were the times of Paint and Patch,
And yet no Ranelagh could match

The sober doves that round his thatch

Spread tails and sidled;

He liked their ruffling, puffed content,
For him their drowsy wheelings meant
More than a Mall of Beaux that bent,
Or Belles that bridled.

Not that, in truth, when life began

He shunned the flutter of the fan;

He too had maybe "pinked his man"
In Beauty's quarrel;

But now his "fervent youth" had flown Where lost things go; and he was grown As staid and slow-paced as his own

Old hunter, Sorrel.