I don't defend them.

'Twas a serious act,

No doubt too much determined by the senses ; (Alas! when these affinities attract,

We lose the future in the present tenses!)
Besides, the least establishment's a fact
Involving nice adjustment of expenses;
Moreover, too, reflection should reveal
That not remote contingent-la famille.

Yet these, maybe, were happy in their lot.
Milton has said (and surely Milton knows)
That, after all, philosophy is "not,—

Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose; And some, no doubt, for Love's sake have forgot Much that is needful in this world of prose :Perchance 'twas so with these. But who shall say? Time has long since swept them and theirs away.

CAR

Until the day CARDENIO married.

What then? the Nymph no doubt was young?

She was but yet-she had a tongue!

Most women have, you seem to say.

I grant it—in a different way.

'Twas not that organ half-divine,

With which, Dear Friend, your spouse or mine, What time we seek our nightly pillows,

Rebukes our easy peccadilloes:

"Twas not so tuneful, so composing; "Twas louder and less often dozing; At Ombre, Basset, Loo, Quadrille, You heard it resonant and shrill; You heard it rising, rising yet Beyond SELINDA's parroquet;

You heard it rival and outdo
The chair-men and the link-boy too;
In short, wherever lungs perform,
Like MARLBOROUGH, it rode the storm.

So uncontrolled it came to be CARDENIO feared his chère amie (Like ECHO by Cephissus shore) Would turn to voice and nothing more.

That ('tis conceded) must be cured Which can't by practice be endured. CARDENIO, though he loved the maid, Grew daily more and more afraid; And since advice could not prevail (Reproof but seemed to fan the gale), A prudent man, he cast about To find some fitting nostrum out. What need to say that priceless drug Had not in any mine been dug ? What need to say no skilful leech Could check that plethora of speech? Suffice it, that one lucky day CARDENIO tried-another way.

A Hermit (there were hermits then; The most accessible of men!) Near Vauxhall's sacred shade resided; In him, at length, our friend confided. (Simples, for show, he used to sell; But cast Nativities as well.)

Consulted, he looked wondrous wise; Then undertook the enterprise.

THE WATER-CURE

What that might be, the Muse must spare:
To tell the truth, she was not there.
She scorns to patch what she ignores
With Similes and Metaphors;

And so, in short, to change the scene,
She slips a fortnight in between.

Behold our pair then (quite by chance!) In Vauxhall's garden of romance,— That paradise of nymphs and grottoes, Of fans, and fiddles, and ridottoes! What wonder if, the lamps reviewed, The song encored, the maze pursued, No further feat could seem more pat Than seek the Hermit after that? Who then more keen her fate to see Than this, the new LEUCONOË, On fire to learn the lore forbidden In Babylonian numbers hidden? Forthwith they took the darkling road TO ALBUMAZAR his abode.

Arriving, they beheld the sage
Intent on hieroglyphic page,
In high Armenian cap arrayed,

And girt with engines of his trade;

(As Skeletons, and Spheres, and Cubes;

As Amulets and Optic Tubes;)

With dusky depths behind revealing

Strange shapes that dangled from the ceiling; While more to palsy the beholder

A Black Cat sat upon his shoulder.

The Hermit eyed the Lady o'er As one whose face he'd seen before; And then, with agitated looks,

He fell to fumbling at his books.

CARDENIO felt his spouse was frightened,
Her grasp upon his arm had tightened;
Judge then her horror and her dread
When "Vox Stellarum" shook his head;
Then darkly spake in phrase forlorn
Of Taurus and of Capricorn;

Of stars averse, and stars ascendant,
And stars entirely independent;

In fact, it seemed that all the Heavens
Were set at sixes and at sevens,
Portending, in her case, some fate
Too fearful to prognosticate.

Meanwhile the Dame was well-nigh dead. "But is there naught," CARDENIO said, "No sign or token, Sage, to show From whence, or what, this dismal woe?"

The Sage, with circle and with plane,
Betook him to his charts again.
"It vaguely seems to threaten Speech:
No more (he said) the signs can teach."

But still CARDENIO tried once more:
"Is there no potion in your store,
No charm by Chaldee mage concerted
By which this doom can be averted?"