Pleasant the hand that, in the gusty porches,
Light as a snow-flake, settles on your arm.

FRANK.

Better the twilight and the cheery chatting,-
Better the dim, forgotten garden-seat,

Where one may lie, and watch the fingers tatting,
Lounging with Bran or Bevis at her feet.

LAWRENCE.

All worship mine. Her purity doth hedge her
Round with so delicate divinity, that men,
Stained to the soul with money-bag and ledger,
Bend to the goddess, manifest again.

FRANK.

None worship mine. But some, I fancy, love her,—
Cynics to boot. I know the children run,
Seeing her come, for naught that I discover,
Save that she brings the summer and the sun.

LAWRENCE.

Mine is a Lady, beautiful and queenly,

Crowned with a sweet, continual control,

Grandly forbearing, lifting life serenely

E'en to her own nobility of soul.

FRANK.

Mine is a Woman, kindly beyond measure,
Fearless in praising, faltering in blame:
Simply devoted to other people's pleasure,—
Jack's sister Florence,—now you know her name.

LAWRENCE.

"Jack's sister Florence!" Never, Francis, never. Jack, do you hear? Why, it was she I meant. She like the country! Ah, she's far too clever

FRANK.

There you are wrong. I know her down in Kent.

LAWRENCE.

You'll get a sunstroke, standing with your head bare. Sorry to differ. Jack,-the word 's with you.

FRANK.

How is it, Umpire? Though the motto 's threadbare, "Cœlum, non animum ”—is, I take it, true.

JACK.

"Souvent femme varie," as a rule, is truer ;

Flattered, I'm sure,—but both of you romance.

Happy to further suit of either wooer,

Merely observing-you have n't got a chance.

LAWRENCE.

Yes. But the Pipe

FRANK.

The Pipe is what we care for,

JACK.

Well, in this case, I scarcely need explain, Judgment of mine were indiscreet, and therefore,-Peace to you both. The Pipe I shall retain.

A GARDEN IDYLL.

A LADY.

А РОЕТ.

THE LADY.

IR POET, ere you crossed the lawn

STR

(If it was wrong to watch you, pardon,) Behind this weeping birch withdrawn,

I watched you saunter round the garden. I saw you bend beside the phlox,

Pluck, as you passed, a sprig of myrtle, Review my well-ranged hollyhocks,

Smile at the fountain's slender spurtle;

You paused beneath the cherry-tree, Where my marauder thrush was singing, Peered at the bee-hives curiously,

And narrowly escaped a stinging; And then-you see I watched-you passed Down the espalier walk that reaches

Out to the western wall, and last

Dropped on the seat before the peaches.

What was your thought? You waited long. Sublime or graceful,—grave,—satiric?

A Morris Greek-and-Gothic song?
A tender Tennysonian lyric?
Tell me. That garden-seat shall be,
So long as speech renown disperses,
Illustrious as the spot where he—
The gifted Blank —composed his verses.

THE POET.

Madam,-whose uncensorious eye
Grows gracious over certain pages,
Wherein the Jester's maxims lie,
It may be, thicker than the Sage's-
I hear but to obey, and could

Mere wish of mine the pleasure do you, Some verse as whimsical as Hood,

As gay as Praed,—should answer to you.

But, though the common voice proclaims
Our only serious vocation
Confined to giving nothings names,

And dreams a "local habitation";

Believe me there are tuneless days,

When neither marble, brass, nor vellum,

Would profit much by any lays

That haunt the poet's cerebellum.