I heard the summons spoken
That all hear-king and clown:
You smiled-the ice was broken;
You stopped-the bill was down.
How blind we are! It never

Occurred to me to seek
If you had come for ever,
Or only for a week.

The words your voice neglected, Seemed written in your eyes; The thought your heart protected, Your cheek told, missal-wise ;I read the rubric plainly

As any Expert could;

In short, we dreamed,—insanely, As only lovers should.

I broke the tall Enone,
That then my chambers graced,
Because she seemed "too bony,"
To suit your purist taste;
And you, without vexation,

May certainly confess
Some graceful approbation,
Designed à mon adresse.

You liked me then, carina,—

You liked me then, I think; For your sake gall had been a

Mere tonic-cup to drink; For your sake, bonds were trivial, The rack, a tour-de-force; And banishment, convivial,You coming too, of course.

Then, Rose, a word in jest meant
Would throw you in a state
That no well-timed investment
Could quite alleviate;
Beyond a Paris trousseau

You prized my smile, I know;
I, yours-ah, more than Rousseau
The lip of d'Houdetot.

Then, Rose,-But why pursue it?
When Fate begins to frown
Best write the final "fuit,"

And gulp the physic down. And yet, and yet, that only,

The song should end with this :—

You left me,-left me lonely,

Rosa mutabilis !

Left me, with Time for Mentor,
(A dreary tête-à-tête !)
To pen my "Last Lament,' or
Extemporize to Fate,
In blankest verse disclosing
My bitterness of mind,—
Which is, I learn, composing
In cases of the kind.

No, Rose. Though you refuse
Culture the pang prevents;
"I am not made "-excuse me--

"Of so slight elements";

I leave to common lovers
The hemlock or the hood;
My rarer soul recovers
In dreams of public good.

me,

The Roses of this nation-
Or so I understand
From careful computation—
Exceed the gross demand;
And, therefore, in civility

To maids that can't be matched,

No man of sensibility

Should linger unattached.

1869.

So, without further fashion-
A modern Curtius,
Plunging, from pure compassion,
To aid the overplus,—

I sit down, sad—not daunted,
And, in my weeds, begin

A new card-"Tenant Wanted;
Particulars within."

TO ONE WHO BIDS ME SING

"The straw is too old to make pipes of." -DON QUIXOTE.

You

OU ask a "many-winter'd" Bard
Where hides his old vocation?
I'll give the answer is not hard-
A classic explanation.

"Immortal" though he be, he still,
Tithonus-like, grows older,

While She, his Muse of Pindus Hill,
Still bares a youthful shoulder.

Could that too-sprightly Nymph but leave Her ageless grace and beauty,

They might, betwixt them both, achieve A hymn de Senectute;