Like fond Medora, watching at her window, Yet not of any Corsair bark in search The jutting lodging-house of Mrs. Lindo, "The Cheapest House in Town" of Todd and Sturch, The private house of Reverend Doctor Birch, The public-house, closed nightly at eleven, And then that house of prayer, the parish church, Some roofs and chimneys, and a glimpse of heaven, Made up the whole look-out of Number Seven. Yet something in the prospect so absorbed her, She seemed quite drowned and dozing in a dream ;+ As if her own beloved full moon still orbed her, Lulling her fancy in some lunar scheme, As if some midnight ghost, from regions colder, "Lorenzo!", "Ellen!"- then came "Sir!" and "Madam!" They tried to speak, but hammered at each word, As if it were a flint for great MacAdam; Such broken English never else was heard, "Ellen! I'm come to bid you - fare farewell; They thus began to fight their verbal duel; "Since some more hap hap-happy man must "Alas-Loren - Lorenzo!- cru cru- cruel!" For so they split their words like grits for gruel. At last the Lover, as he long had planned, Drew out that once inestimable jewel, Her portrait, which was erst so fondly scanned, "There take it, Madam - take it back, I crave, The face of one - but I must now forget her; Bestow it on whatever hapless slave Your art has last enticed into your fetter And there are your epistles - there! each letter! I wish no record of your vows' infractions; Send them to South- - or Children — you had better→ They will be novelties rare benefactions To shine in Philosophical Transactions ! "Take them pray take them—I resign them quite ! A Juliet's faith, that time could only harden! Fool that I was, in my mistaken zeal! I should have led you - by your leave and pardonTo Bartley's Orrery, not Covent Garden! "And here's the birth-day ring nor man nor devil Should once have torn it from my living hand; Perchance 'twill look as well on Mr. Neville; and now I stand And that and that is all Shall reap our lives; in this, or foreign land And there he ceased, as truly it was time; For of the various themes that left his mouth, One half surpassed her intellectual climb : She knew no more than the old Hill of Howth About that "Children of a larger growth," Who notes proceedings of the F. R. S.'s; Kit North was just as strange to her as South, Except the South the weathercock expresses; Nay, Bartley's Orrery defied her guesses. Howbeit some notion of his jealous drift She gathered from the simple outward fact Though quite unconscious of his cause to act "I false! - unjust Lorenzo! — and to you! O, all ye holy gospels that incline By all that lives, of earthly or divine — So long as this poor throbbing heart is mine— True as the streamlet to the stars that shine True as the dial to the sun at noon, True as the tide to 'yonder blessed moon'!” And as she spoke, she pointed through the window, Meanwhile, as she upraised her face so Grecian, "The Moon!" he cried, and an electric spasm Seemed all at once his features to distort, At last his voice came, of most shrilly sort, Just like a sea-gull's wheeling round a rock · "Speak! - Ellen! — is your sight indeed so short! The Moon! - Brute! savage that I am, and block! The Moon! (O, ye Romantics, what a shock !) Why, that's the new Illuminated Clock!" MORNING MEDITATIONS. LET Taylor preach, upon a morning breezy, By half as lying. What if the lark does carol in the sky, Talk not to me of bees and such-like hums, Only lie long enough, and bed becomes A bed of time. To me Dan Phoebus and his car are nought, Right beautiful the dewy meads appear, My stomach is not ruled by other men's, Why from a comfortable pillow start Excepting bacon. An early riser Mr. Gray has drawn, With charwomen such early hours agree, So here I lie, my morning calls deferring, |