Pleasant the hand that, in the gusty porches, FRANK. Better the twilight and the cheery chatting,- Where one may lie, and watch the fingers tatting, 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. None worship mine. her, FRANK. But some, I fancy, love 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, FRANK. Mine is a Woman, kindly beyond measure, 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 Sorry to differ. Jack, the word 's with you. FRANK. How is it, Umpire? Though the motto 's thread 66 bare, Cœlum, non animum" — is, I take it, true. JACK. "Souvent femme varie," as a rule, is truer ; but both of you romance. Happy to further suit of either wooer, 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. A POET. THE LADY. SIR POET, ere you crossed the lawn (If it was wrong to watch you, pardon,) Behind this weeping birch withdrawn, I watched you saunter round the garden.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. A Morris Greek-and-Gothic song? THE POET. Madam, whose uncensorious eye Grows gracious over certain pages, It may be, thicker than the Sage's — Mere wish of mine the pleasure do you, As gay as Praed, — should answer to you. But, though the common voice proclaims Confined to giving nothings names, And dreams a "local habitation"; When neither marble, brass, nor vellum, That haunt the poet's cerebellum. |