"Dames most delicate, amorous ! Damosels blithe as the belted bees! Hearken awhile to the prayer of us,— Beggars that come from the over-seas! Nothing we ask of the things that please; Weary are we, and worn, and gray; Lo, for we clutch and we clasp your knees,— Give us-ah! give us-but Yesterday!" "Damosels-Dames, be piteous!" (But the dames rode fast by the roadway trees.) "Hear us, O Knights magnanimous !" (But the knights pricked on in their panoplies.) Nothing they gat or of hope or ease, But only to beat on the breast and say :— "Life we drank to the dregs and lees; Give us―ah! give us-but Yesterday!" Envoy. YOUTH, take heed to the prayer of these! Many there be by the dusty way, Many that cry to the rocks and seas "Give us-ah! give us-but Yesterday! ✓ A CHAPTER OF FROISSART. (GRANDPAPA LOQUITUR.) You don't know Froissart now, young folks. Of high-spiced crime, with "slang" for jokes, And startling titles; But, in my time, when still some few Loved "old Montaigne," and praised Pope's Homer (Nay, thought to style him "poet" too, Were scarce misnomer), Sir John was less ignored. Indeed, I can re-call how Some-one present (Who spoils her grand-son, Frank !) would read, And find him pleasant; For, by this copy,-hangs a Tale. Long since, in an old house in Surrey, In a dim-lighted, whip-hung hall, 'Neath Hogarth's "Midnight Conversation," It stood; and oft 'twixt spring and fall, With fond elation, I turned the brown old leaves. For there All through one hopeful happy summer, At such a page (I well knew where), Some secret comer, Whom I can picture, 'Trix, like you, (Though scarcely such a colt unbroken,) Would sometimes place for private view A certain token ; A rose-leaf meaning "Garden Wall," An ivy-leaf for "Orchard Corner," A thorn to say "Don't come at all," Unwelcome warner !- Not that, in truth, our friends gainsaid; |