The boy, it seemed, to add a force
To words found unavailing,

Had pushed a striped and spotted horse
Half through the blistered paling,
Where now it stuck, stiff-legged and straight,

While he, in exultation,

Chattered some half-articulate
Excited explanation.

Meanwhile, the girl, with upturned face,
Stood motionless, and listened;
The ill-cut frock had gained a grace,
The pale hair almost glistened;
The figure looked alert and bright,

Buoyant as though some power
Had lifted it, as rain at night
Uplifts a drooping flower.

The eyes had lost their listless way,-
The old life, tired and faded,

Had slipped down with the doll that lay
Before her feet, degraded;

She only, yearning upward, found
In those bright eyes above her
The ghost of some enchanted ground
Where even Nurse would love her.

Ah, tyrant Time! you hold the book,
We, sick and sad, begin it;
You close it fast, if we but look

Pleased for a meagre minute; You closed it now, for, out of sight,

Some warning finger beckoned; Excunt both to left and right;— Thus ended Act the Second.

ACT THE THIRD.

Or so it proved. For while I still
Believed them gone for ever,
Half raised above the window sill,

I saw the lattice quiver ;

And lo, once more appeared the head,

Flushed, while the round mouth pouted; "Give Tom a kiss," the red lips said, In style the most undoubted.

The girl came back without a thought;
Dear Muse of Mayfair, pardon,
If more restraint had not been taught
In this neglected garden;

For these your code was all too stiff,
So, seeing none dissented,
Their unfeigned faces met as if
Manners were not invented.

Then on the scene,-by happy fate,
When lip from lip had parted,
And, therefore, just two seconds late,—
A sharp-faced nurse-maid darted;
Swooped on the boy, as swoops a kite

Upon a rover chicken,

And bore him sourly off, despite
His well-directed kicking.

The girl stood silent, with a look
Too subtle to unravel,

Then, with a sudden gesture took
The torn doll from the gravel;
Hid the whole face, with one caress,
Under the garden-bonnet,
And, passing in, I saw her press
Kiss after kiss upon it.

Exeunt omnes.

End of play.

It made the dull room brighter,

The Gladiator almost gay,

And e'en "The Lancet" lighter.

AN AUTUMN IDYLL

"Sweet Themmes ! runne softly, till I end my song."

-SPENSER.

LAWRENCE.

FRANK.

JACK.

LAWRENCE.

HERE, where the beech-nuts drop among

the grasses,

Push the boat in, and throw the rope ashore. Jack, hand me out the claret and the glasses; Here let us sit. We landed here before.

FRANK.

Jack's undecided. Say, formose puer,

Bent in a dream above the 66 water wan," Shall we row higher, for the reeds are fewer, There by the pollards, where you see the swan?

JACK.

Hist! That's a pike. Look-nose against the river

Gaunt as a wolf,--the sly old privateer! Enter a gudgeon. Snap,-a gulp, a shiver ;Exit the gudgeon. Let us anchor here.

FRANK (in the grass).

Jove, what a day! Black Care upon the

crupper

Nods at his post, and slumbers in the sun; Half of Theocritus, with a touch of Tupper, Churns in my head. The frenzy has begun.

LAWRENCE.

Sing to us then. Damotas in a choker,
Much out of tune, will edify the rooks.

FRANK.

Sing you again. So musical a croaker
Surely will draw the fish upon the hooks.