FRANK. Better the twilight and the cheery chatting,- All worship mine. LAWRENCE. 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,- LAWRENCE. Mine is a Lady, beautiful and queenly, FRANK. Mine is a Woman, kindly beyond measure, LAWRENCE. "Jack's sister Florence!" Never, Francis, never 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 thread. bare, "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 haven'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. THE LADY. A'POET. IR POET, ere you crossed the lawn SIR (If it was wrong to watch you, pardon), Behind this weeping birch withdrawn, I watched you saunter round the garden.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, And narrowly escaped a stinging; Dropped on the seat before the peaches. What was your thought? You waited long. Sublime or graceful,-grave, A Morris Greek-and-Gothic song? A tender Tennysonian lyric? satiric? 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. More empty things, I fear, than rhymes, "A primrose by a river's brim" Is absolutely unsuggestive. |