A DEAD LETTER. "A cœur blessé — l'ombre et le silence." H. DE BALZAC. I. I It came out feebly scented With some thin ghost of past perfume To read with due composure, I sought the sun-lit window-sill, Above the gray enclosure, That glimmering in the sultry haze, Slumbered like Goldsmith's Madam Blaize, Bedizened and brocaded. A queer old place! You'd surely say Some tea-board garden-maker Had planned it in Dutch William's day To please some florist Quaker, So trim it was. The yew-trees still, With pious care perverted, Grew in the same grim shapes; and still The lipless dolphin spurted; Still in his wonted state abode Only, as fresh young Beauty gleams From coffee-coloured laces, So peeped from its old-fashioned dreams The fresher modern traces; For idle mallet, hoop, and ball A magazine, a tumbled shawl, Round which the swifts were flying; And, tossed beside the Guelder rose, If we too, like Tithonus, Could find some God to stretch the gray, "But now by steam we run our race, "The time is out of joint.' Who will, II. "Dear John (the letter ran), it can't, can't be, For Father's gone to Chorley Fair with Sam, And Mother's storing Apples, Prue and Me Up to our Elbows making Damson Jam: But we shall meet before a Week is gone, ''Tis a long Lane that has no Turning,' John! "Only till Sunday next, and then you'll wait "John, she's so smart,-with every Ribbon new, Flame-coloured Sack, and Crimson Padesoy: As proud as proud; and has the Vapours too, Just like My Lady; - calls poor Sam a Boy, And vows no Sweet-heart's worth the Thinking-on Till he's past Thirty. . . I know better, John! "My Dear, I don't think that I thought of much Before we knew each other, I and you; And now, why, John, your least, least Fingertouch, Gives me enough to think a Summer through. See, for I send you Something! There, 'tis gone Look in this corner, - mind you find it, John!" ! III. This was the matter of the note, A long-forgot deposit, Dropped in an Indian dragon's throat, Deep in a fragrant closet, Piled with a dapper Dresden world,- Ah, heart that wrote! Ah, lips that kissed! Into what keeping you dismissed A reverent one. Though we to-day Starring some pure primeval spring, I need not search too much to find That feel upon me yet the kind, |