Lie softly, Leisure! Doubtless you But we, to whom our age allows Scarce space to wipe our weary brows, Look down upon your narrow house, Old friend, and miss you! A GENTLEWOMAN OF THE OLD НЕ SCHOOL SHE lived in Georgian era too. Most women then, if bards be true, Succumbed to Routs and Cards, or grew Devout and acid. But hers was neither fate. She came Patience or Prudence,-what you will, And for her youthful portrait take Some long-waist child of Hudson's make, Stiffly at ease beside a lake With swans and willows. I keep her later semblance placed In shadowy sanguine stipple traced By Bartolozzi; A placid face, in which surprise For her e'en Time grew debonair. And lingering dimples, Had spared to touch the fair old face, So left her beautiful. Her age Was comely as her youth was sage, And yet she once had been the rage;— It hath been hinted, Indeed, affirmed by one or two, Some spark at Bath (as sparks will do) I know she thought; I know she felt; Perchance could sum, I doubt she spelt; She knew as little of the Celt As of the Saxon; I know she played and sang, for yet Her tastes were not refined as ours; Her art was sampler-work design, Her luxury was elder-wine,— She loved that "purely." She was renowned, traditions say, For June conserves, for curds and whey, And ratafia; She knew, for sprains, what bands to choose, Yet studied little. She would read, Seeing she chose for her retreat The warm west-looking window-seat, Where, if you chanced to raise your feet, This, 'twixt ourselves. The dear old dame, In truth, was not so much to blame; The excellent divine I name Is scarcely stirring; Her plain-song piety preferred Pure life to precept. If she erred, If she had loved, or if she kept I know not. Only this I know, Younger than she, well-born and bred. Starving, in fact, 'twixt want and pride; He worshipped her, you may suppose. She gained him pupils, gave him clothes, Delighted in his dry bons mots And cackling laughter; And when, at last, the long duet Of conversation and picquet Ceased with her death, of sheer regret He died soon after. |