A rosebud and a pair of gloves,
And "Fly not yet," upon the river; Some jealousy of some one's heir,
Some hopes of dying broken-hearted, A miniature, a lock of hair,
The usual vows-and then we parted.
We parted-months and years rolled by;
We met again four summers after;
Our parting was all sob and sigh-
Our meeting was all mirth and laughter; For in my heart's most secret cell
There had been many other lodgers; And she was not the ballroom belle, But only Mrs.-Something-Rogers.
YOU'LL Come to our ball-since we parted,
I've thought of you more than I'll say;
Indeed, I was half broken-hearted
For a week, when they took you away.
Fond fancy brought back to my slumbers
Our walks on the Ness and the Den,
And echoed the musical numbers
Which you used to sing to me then.
I know the romance, since it's over,
'Twere idle, or worse, to recall;-
I know you're a terrible rover;
But, Clarence, you'll come to our Ball!
It's only a year since, at College,
You put on your cap and your gown;
But, Clarence, you've grown out of knowledge,
And changed from the spur to the crown:
The voice that was best when it faltered,
Is fuller and firmer in tone:
And the smile that should never have altered-
Dear Clarence-it is not your own;
Your cravat was badly selected,
Your coat don't become you at all;
And why is your hair so neglected?
You must have it curled for our Ball.
I've often been out upon Haldon
To look for a covey with Pup;
I've often been over to Shaldon,
To see how your boat is laid up.
In spite of the terrors of Aunty,
I've ridden the filly you broke;
And I've studied your sweet little Dante
In the shade of your favorite oak:
When I sat in July to Sir Lawrence,
I sat in your love of a shawl;
And I'll wear what you brought me from Florence,
Perhaps, if you'll come to our Ball.
You'll find us all changed since you vanished;
We've set up a National School;
And waltzing is utterly banished;
And Ellen has married a fool;
The Major is going to travel;
Miss Hyacinth threatens a rout;
The walk is laid down with fresh gravel;
Papa is laid up with the gout:
And Jane has gone on with her easels,
And Anne has gone off with Sir Paul;
And Fanny is sick with the measles— And I'll tell you the rest at the Ball.
You'll meet all your beauties;-the Lily
And the Fairy of Willowbrook Farm,
And Lucy, who made me so silly
At Dawlish, by taking your arm!
Miss Manners, who always abused you,
For talking so much about Hock;
And her sister who often amused you,
By raving of rebels and Rock;
And something which surely would answer,
An heiress quite fresh from Bengal ;-
So, though you were seldom a dancer,
You'll dance, just for once, at our Ball.
But out on the world!--from the flowers
It shuts out the sunshine of truth:
It blights the green leaves in the bowers,
It makes an old age of our youth;
And the flow of our feeling, once in it,
Like a streamlet beginning to freeze,
Though it cannot turn ice in a minute,
Grows harder by sudden degrees.
Time treads o'er the graves of affection;
Sweet honey is turned into gall;
Perhaps you have no recollection
That ever you danced at our Ball.
You once could be pleased with our ballads-
To-day you have critical ears;
You once could be charmed with our salads;
Alas! you've been dining with Peers;
You trifled and flirted with many;
You've forgotten the when and the how;
There was one you liked better than any;
Perhaps you've forgotten her now.
But of those you remember most newly,
Of those who delight or enthral,
None love you a quarter so truly
As some you will find at our Ball.
They tell me you've many who flatter,
Because of your wit and your song;
They tell me (and what does it matter?)
You like to be praised by the throng;
They tell me you're shadowed with laurel,
They tell me you're loved by a Blue;
They tell me you're sadly immoral-
Dear Clarence, that cannot be true!
But to me you are still what I found you
Before you grew clever and tall;
And you'll think of the spell that once bound
And you'll come, won't you come? to our Ball?
TWENTY-EIGHT AND TWENTY-NINE.
I HEARD a sick man's dying sigh,
And an infant's idle laughter,
The Old Year went with mourning by-
The New came dancing after!
Let Sorrow shed her lonely tear,
Let Revelry hold her ladle;
Bring boughs of cypress for the bier,
Fling roses on the cradle;
Mutes to wait on the funeral state;
Pages to pour the wine;
A requiem for Twenty-Eight,
And a health to Twenty-Nine!
Alas for human happiness!
Alas for human sorrow!
Our yesterday is nothingness,
What else will be our morrow?
Still Beauty must be stealing hearts,
And Knavery stealing purses;
Still cooks must live by making tarts,
And wits by making verses;
While sages prate and courts debate,
The same stars set and shine;
And the world as it rolled through Twenty-Eight
Must roll through Twenty-Nine.
Some King will come, in Heaven's good time,
To the tomb his father came to;
Some thief will wade through blood and crime
To a crown he has no claim to;
Some suffering land will rend in twain
The manacles that bound her;
And gather the links of the broken chain
To fasten them proudly round her;
The grand and great will love and hate,
And combat and combine;
And much where we were in Twenty-Eight
We shall be in Twenty-Nine.
O'Connell will toil to raise the Rent,
And Kenyon to sink the Nation; And Shiel will abuse the Parliament, And Peel the Association;
And thought of bayonets and swords
Will make ex-Chancellors merry;
And jokes will be cut in the House of Lords,
And throats in the County of Kerry;
And writers of weight will speculate
On the Cabinet's design;
And just what it did in Twenty-Eight
It will do in Twenty-Nine.
And the Goddess of Love will keep her smiles,
And the God of Cups his orgies;
And there'll be riots in St. Giles,
And weddings in St. George's;
And mendicants will sup like Kings,
And Lords will swear like lacqueys;
And black eyes oft will lead to rings,
And rings will lead to black eyes;
And pretty Kate will scold her mate,
In a dialect all divine;
Alas! they married in Twenty-Eight,
They will part in Twenty-Nine.
My uncle will swathe his gouty limbs,
And talk of his oils and blubbers;
My aunt, Miss Dobbs, will play longer hymns, And rather longer rubbers;
My cousin in Parliament will prove
How utterly ruined trade is;
My brother, at Eton, will fall in love
With half a hundred ladies;
My patron will sate his pride from plate,
And his thirst from Bordeaux wine:
His nose was red in Twenty-Eight,
"Twill be redder in Twenty-Nine.
But Folly little cares what name
Of friend or foe she handles,
When merriment directs the game,
And midnight dims the candles;
I know that Folly's breath is weak.
And would not stir a feather;
But yet I would not have her speak
Your name and mine together.
Oh no! this life is dark and bright,
Half rapture and half sorrow;
My heart is very full to-night,
My cup shall be to-morrow;
But they shall never know from me,
On any one condition,
Whose health made bright my Burgundy,
Whose beauty was my vision.
WHERE is Miss Myrtle? can any one tell? Where is she gone, where is she gone? She flirts with another, I know very well; And I-am left all alone!
CHILDHOOD AND HIS VISITORS.
She flies to the window when Arundel rings;
She's all over smiles when Lord Archibald sings;
It's plain that her Cupid has two pair of wings:
Where is she gone, where is she gone?
Her love and my love are different things;
And I-am left all alone!
I brought her, one morning, a rose for her brow;
Where is she gone, where is she gone?
She told me such horrors were never worn now;
And I-am left all alone!
But I saw her at night with a rose in her hair, And I guess whom it came from-of course I don't care!
We all know that girls are as false as they're fair;
Where is she gone, where is she gone?
I'm sure the lieutenant's a terrible bear;
And I-am left all alone!
Whenever we go on the Downs for a ride,
Where is she gone, where is she gone?
She looks for another to trot by her side;
And I-am left all alone!
And whenever I take her down-stairs from a ball,
She nodds to some puppy to put on her shawl;
I'm a peaceable man, and I don't like a brawl;
Where is she gone, where is she gone?
But I would give a trifle to horsewhip them all;
And I-am left all alone!
She tells me her mother belongs to the sect,
Where is she gone, where is she gone?
Which holds that all waltzing is quite incorrect:
And I-am left all alone!
But a fire's in my heart, and a fire's in my brain,
When she waltzes away with Sir Phelim O'Shane;
I don't think I ever can ask her again;
Where is she gone, where is she gone?
And, Lord! since the summer she's grown very plain;
And I-am left all alone!
She said that she liked me a twelvemonth ago; Where is she gone, where is she gone?
And how should I guess that she'd torture me so?
And I-am left all alone!
Some day she'll find out it was not very wise
To laugh at the breath of a true lover's sighs;
After all, Fanny Myrtle is not such a prize:
Where is she gone, where is she gone?
Louisa Dalrymple has exquisite eyes;
And I'll be no longer alone!
But Time so swiftly winged his flight,
In haste a Grecian tomb to batter That Childhood watched his paper kite, And knew just nothing of the matter. With curling lip and glancing eye, Guilt gazed upon the scene a minute; But Childhood's glance of purity Had such a holy spell within it, That the dark demon to the air Spread forth again his baffled pinion, And hid his envy and despair,
Self-tortured, in his own dominion.
Then stepped a gloomy phantom up,
Pale, cypress-crowned Night's awful daughter,
And proffered him a fearful cup,
Full to the brim of bitter water.
Poor Childhood bade her tell her name,
And when the beldame muttered, "Sorrow," He said, "Don't interrupt my game! I'll taste it, if I must, to-morrow."
The Muse of Pindus thither came,
And wooed him with the softest numbers
That ever scattered wealth and fame
Upon a youthful poet's slumbers.
Though sweet the music of the lay,
To Childhood it was all a riddle;
And "Oh," he cried, "do send away
That noisy woman with the fiddle!"
Then Wisdom stole his bat and ball,
And taught him, with most sage endeavor,
Why bubbles rise and acorns fall,
She talked of all the wondrous laws
And why no toy may last forever:
Which Nature's open book discloses;
And Childhood, ere she made a pause,
Was fast asleep among the roses.
Sleep on, sleep on !-oh, manhood's dreams
Are all of earthly pain or pleasure,
Of glory's toils, ambition's schemes,
Of cherished love, or hoarded treasure;
But to the couch where Childhood lies
A more delicious trance is given,
Lit up by rays from seraph-eyes,
And glimpses of remembered heaven.
CHILDHOOD AND HIS VISITORS.
ONCE on a time, when sunny May
Was kissing up the April showers,
I saw fair Childhood hard at play
Upon a bank of blushing flowers:
Happy-he knew not whence or how,
And smiling-who could choose but love him? For not more glad than Childhood's brow
Was the blue heaven that beamed above him.
Old Time, in most appalling wrath,
That valley's green repose invaded; The brooks grew dry upon his path,
The birds were mute, the lilies faded.
I REMEMBER, I remember,
How my childhood fleeted byThe mirth of its December,
And the warmth of its July; On my brow, love, on my brow, love, There are no signs of care, But my pleasures are not now, love, What childhood's pleasures were:
Then the bowers, then the bowers,
Were as blithe as blithe could be,
And all their radiant flowers
Were coronals to me:
Gems to-night, love, gems to-night, love,
Are gleaming in my hair;
But they are not half so bright, love,
As childhood's roses were.
And his cheek grew pale as he lay and listened; For he thought, or he dreamed, that fiends and fays
Were reckoning o'er his fleeting days,
And telling out their number.
Was it my Second's ceaseless tone?
On my Second's hand he laid his own:
The hand that trembled in his grasp
Was crushed by his convulsive clasp.
Sir Everard did not fear my First:
He had seen it in shapes that men deem worst
In many a field and flood;
Yet, in the darkness of that dread,
His tongue was parched, and his reason fled; And he watched, as the lamp burned low and dim, To see some phantom, gaunt and grim,
Come dabbled o'er with blood.
Sir Everard kneeled, and strove to pray:
He prayed for light, and he prayed for day,
Till terror checked his prayer;
And ever I muttered, clear and well,
Click, click, click," like a tolling bell,
Till, bound by Fancy's magic spell,
Sir Everard fainted there.
And oft, from that remembered night,
Around the taper's flickering light,
The wrinkled beldames told
Sir Everard had knowledge won
Of many a murder darkly done,
Of fearful sights and fearful sounds,
And ghosts that walk their midnight rounds,
In the Tower of Kenneth Hold!
Row on, row on! The First may light
My shallop o'er the wave to-night;
But she will bide in a little while
The lustre of her silent smile;
For fickle she is, and changeful still,
As a madman's wish, or a woman's will.
Row on, row on! The Second is high
In my own bright lady's balcony;
And she, beside it, pale and mute,
Untold her beads, untouched her lute,
Is wondering why her lover's skiff
So slowly glides to the lonely cliff.
Row on, row on! When the Whole is fled,
The song will be hushed, and the rapture dead;
And I must go in my grief again
To the toils of day and the haunts of men,
To a future of fear, and a present of care,
And memory's dream of the things that were.
WHEN Ralph by holy hands was tied For life to blooming Cis,
Sir Thrifty, too, drove home his bride, A fashionable Miss:
That day, my First, with jovial sound, Proclaimed the happy tale;
And drunk was all the country round With pleasure or with ale.
The chieftain, ere his band he led,
Came thither with his prayer;
The boatman, ere his sail he spread,
Watched for an omen there;
And ever the shriek rang loud within,
And ever the red blood ran;
And amid the sin and smoke and din,
I sate with a changeless, endless grin,
Forging my First for man!
My priests are rotting in the grave;
My shrine is silent now;
There is no victim in my cave,
No crown upon my brow;
Nothing is left but dust and clay
Of all that was divine;
My name and my memory pass away;
But dawn and dusk of one week-day
Are called by mortals mine.
On yes! her childhood hath been nurst
In all the follies of my First;
And why doth she turn from the glittering throng,
From the courtier's jest, and the minstrel's song?
Why doth she look where the ripples play
Around my Second in yon fair bay,
While the boat in the twilight nears the shore, With her speechless crew, and her muffled oar?
Hath she not heard in her lonely bower
My Whole's fond tale of magic power?
Softer and sweeter that music flows
Than the bulbul's hymn to the midnight rose.
He talked of daggers and of darts,
Of passions and of pains,
Of weeping eyes and wounded hearts,
Of kisses and of chains;
He said, though love was kin to grief,
He was not born to grieve;
He said, though many rued belief,
She safely might believe:
But still the lady shook her head,
And swore, by yea and nay,
My Whole was all that he had said,
And all that he could say.
He said my First-whose silent car
Was slowly wandering by,
Veiled in a vapor, faint and far,
Through the unfathomed sky-
Was like the smile whose rosy light
Across her young lips passed;
Yet, oh! it was not half so bright,
It changed not half so fast:
But still the lady shook her head,
And swore, by yea and nay,
My Whole was all that he had said,
And all that he could say.
And then he set a cypress wreath
Upon his raven hair,
And drew his rapier from its sheath,
Which made the lady stare,
And said his life-blood's purple flow
My Second there should dim,
If she, beloved and worshipped so,
Would only weep for him:
But still the lady shook her head,
And swore, by yea and nay,
My Whole was all that he had said,
And all that he could say.
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