More empty things, I fear, than rhymes, Is absolutely unsuggestive. The fickle Muse! As ladies will, She flies the more that we pursue her; But cannot comfortably show it. You thought, no doubt, the garden-scent Brings back some brief-winged bright sensation Of love that came and love that went,Some fragrance of a lost flirtation, Born when the cuckoo changes song, Dead ere the apple's red is on it, That should have been an epic long, Yet scarcely served to fill a sonnet. H Or else you thought,—the murmuring noon, He turns it to a lyric sweeter, With birds that gossip in the tune, And windy bough-swing in the metre ; Or else the zigzag fruit-tree arms Recall some dream of harp-prest bosoms, Round singing mouths, and chanted charms, And mediæval orchard blossoms,— Quite à la mode. Alas for prose!— When first my graceless boyhood gamboled, Climbed on the dial, teased the fish, And chased the kitten round the beeches, Till widening instincts made me wish Three peaches. Not the Graces three I would not look, yet went to see; The Laws of Property beset them; And, half-abstractedly, I ate them; Or Two of them. Forthwith Despair More keen that one of these was rottenMoved me to seek some forest lair Where I might hide and dwell forgotten, Attired in skins, by berries stained, Absolved from brushes and ablution;— But, ere my sylvan haunt was gained, Fate gave me up to execution. I saw it all but now. The grin That gnarled old Gardener Sandy's features; My father, scholar-like and thin, Unroused, the tenderest of creatures; I saw-ah me--I saw again My dear and deprecating mother; And then, remembering the cane, Regretted that I'd left the Other. I TU QUOQUE. AN IDYLL IN THE CONSERVATORY. "-romprons-nous, Ou ne romprons-nous pas ?" LE DÉPIT AMOUREUX. NELLIE. F I were you, when ladies at the play, sir, Beckon and nod, a melodrama through, I would not turn abstractedly away, sir, If I were you! FRANK. If I were you, when persons I affected, Wait for three hours to take me down to Kew, I would, at least, pretend I recollected, If I were you! NELLIE. If I were you, when ladies are so lavish, Sir, as to keep me every waltz but two, I would not dance with odious Miss M'Tavish If I were you! FRANK. If I were you, who vow you cannot suffer Whiff of the best,-the mildest "honey-dew," I would not dance with smoke-consuming Puffer, If I were you! NELLIE. If I were you, I would not, sir, be bitter, FRANK. No, I should doubtless find flirtation fitter, If I were you! NELLIE. Really! You would? Why, Frank, you're quite delightful, Hot as Othello, and as black of hue; FRANK. "It is the cause." I mean your chaperon is Bringing some well-curled juvenile. Adieu ! I shall retire. I'd spare that poor Adonis, If I were you! |