Long have these mighty monsters known disgrace,
Yet still some trophies hold their ancient place;
Where, round the hall, the oak's high surbase rears
The field-day triumphs of two hundred years.
The enormous antlers here recall the day
That saw the forest monarch forced away;
Who, many a flood, and many a mountain passed,
Not finding those, nor deeming these the last,
O'er floods, o'er mountains yet prepared to fly,
Long ere the death-drop filled his failing eye!
Here famed for cunning, and in crimes grown old,
Hangs his gray brush, the felon of the fold.
Oft as the rent-feast swells the midnight cheer,
The maudlin farmer kens him o'er his beer,
And tells his old, traditionary tale,
Though known to every tenant of the vale.
Here, where of old the festal ox has fed,
Marked with his weight, the mighty horns are spread:
Some ox, O Marshall, for a board like thine,
Where the vast master with the vast sirloin
Vied in round magnitude--Respect I bear
To thee, though oft the ruin of the chair.
These, and such antique tokens that record
The manly spirit, and the bounteous board,
Me more delight than all the gewgaw train,
The whims and zigzags of a modern brain,
More than all Asia's marmosets to view,
Grin, frisk, and water in the walks of Kew.
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