THE LOVE-LETTER "If Love can look with all-prophetic eye,❞— (Ah, if he could, how many would be single!) "If truly spirit unto spirit cry," (The ears of some most terribly must tingle!) "Then I have dreamed you will not turn your face." This next, I think, is more than commonplace. 'Why should we speak, if Love, interpreting, Forestall the speech with favour found before? Why should we plead ?-it were an idle thing, If Love himself be Love's ambassador!" Blot, as I live! Shall we erase it? No ;'Twill show we write currente calamo. "My fate, my fortune, I commit to you," (In point of fact, the latter's not extensive); "Without you I am poor indeed," (strike through, "Tis true but crude-'twould make her apprehensive); "My life is yours-I lay it at your feet," "Give me the right to stand within the shrine, Where never yet my faltering feet intruded; Give me the right to call you wholly mine," (That is, Consols and Three-per-Cents included); "To guard your rest from every care that cankers,― To keep your life, banker's). - (and balance at your "Compel me not to long for your reply; Suspense makes havoc with the mind-(and muscles); "Winged Hope takes flight,"-(which means that I must fly, Default of funds, to Paris or to Brussels); "I cannot wait! My own, my queen-PRISCILLA! Write by return." And now for a Manilla! "Miss Blank," at "Blank." Jemima, let it go; And I, meanwhile, will idle with "Sir Walter "; Stay, let me keep the first rough copy, though— "Twill serve again. There's but the name to alter; And Love, that starves, must knock at every portal, In forma pauperis. We are but mortal! THE MISOGYNIST THE MISOGYNIST “Il était un jeune homme d'un bien beau passé.” WH HEN first he sought our haunts, he wore His brow with thought was "sicklied o’er,” We rarely saw him smile; And, e'en when none was looking on, His air was always woe-begone. He kept, I think, his bosom bare His solitary topics were Esthetics, Fate, and Soul;Although at times, but not for long, He bowed his Intellect to song. He served, he said, a Muse of Tears: A fine funereal air of biers, And objects cypress-wreathed ;- In these light moods, I call to mind, To some dread sorrow undefined,- He railed at women's faith as Cant; His lot, he oft would gravely urge, We dreamed it true. We never knew We, bound with him in common care, Resolved to Thought and Diet spare We, truly, in no common sense, But soon, and yet, though soon, too late, We, sorrowing, sighed to find A gradual softness enervate That all superior mind, THE MISOGYNIST Until,-in full assembly met, The verse that we severe had known, A fond effeminate monotone Of eyebrows, lips, and hair; Nay worse. He, once sublime to chaff, If we but named a photograph We found him simpering o'er; Then worse again. He tried to dress; He trimmed his tragic mane; Announced at length (to our distress) He had not "lived in vain ”;— Thenceforth his one prevailing mood Became a base beatitude. And O Jean Paul, and Fate, and Soul! His very hat had changed its brim ; Our course was clear,—WE BANISHED HIM! |