Though, as a rule, all used to end. In such kind confidential parley As may to you kind Fortune send, You long-legged Charlie, When your time comes. How years slip on! We had our crosses like our betters; Fate sometimes looked askance upon Those floral letters; And once, for three long days disdained, The dust upon the folio settled; For some-one, in the right, was pained, And some-one nettled, That sure was in the wrong, but spake Of fixed intent and purpose stony To serve King George, enlist and make Minced-meat of "Boney," Who yet survived-ten years at least. And so, when she I mean came hither, One day that need for letters ceased, She brought this with her! Here is the leaf-stained Chapter :- How The English King laid Siege to Calais; I think Gran. knows it even now, Go ask her, Alice. THE CRADLE. How steadfastly she 'd worked at it! How lovingly had drest With all her would-be-mother's wit That little rosy nest! How longingly she'd hung on it! There lay beneath its coverlet A little sleeping head. He came at last, the tiny guest, That rosy nest he never prest . . . Her coffin was his bed. RONDELS AND RONDEAUS. "CHANGE." FREEZE, freeze, O icy wind! Lucilla's cap's awry; No signal undesigned To those that read the sky. Dull drags the breakfast by: She's something on her mind;— Freeze, freeze, O icy wind! Lucilla's cap's awry! "You're tired—” “And you're unkind !" "You're cross- ""That I deny !" Perhaps you're both combined." "I'm tired of You.-Good-bye!" Freeze, freeze, O icy wind! Lucilla's cap's awry! |