A CHAPTER OF FROISSART

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;

But then Romance required dissembling, (Ann Radcliffe taught us that!) which bred Some genuine trembling;

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;
or 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.

MONSTER Chelonian, you suggest

To some, no doubt, the calm,—

The torpid ease of islets drest

In fan-like fern and palm;

To some your cumbrous ways, perchance,
Darwinian dreams recall;

And some your Rip-van-Winkle glance,
And ancient youth appal;

So widely varied views dispose:
But not so mine, for me
Your vasty vault but simply shows
A LYRE immense, per se,

A LYRE to which the Muse might chant A truly "Orphic tale,"

Could she but find that public want,

A Bard-of equal scale!

Oh, for a Bard of awful words,
And lungs serenely strong,

To sweep from your sonorous chords
Niagaras of song,

Till, dinned by that tremendous strain, The grovelling world aghast,

Should leave its paltry greed of gain, And mend its ways . . . at last!

"Hæc decies repetita [non] placebit."-ARS POETICA.

FLACCUS, you write us charming songs:

No bard we know possesses

In such perfection what belongs
To brief and bright addresses;

No man can say that Life is short
With mien so little fretful;
No man to Virtue's paths exhort
In phrases less regretful;

Or touch, with more serene distress,
On Fortune's ways erratic;

And then delightfully digress
From Alp to Adriatic:

All this is well, no doubt, and tends

Barbarian minds to soften ;

But, HORACE-we, we are your friends-
Why tell us this so often?