Then, when they caught my watching face, And, like some sombre thing beguiled ACT THE SECOND. Yes they were gone, the stage was bare,― Half vexed, I knew not wherefore, 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, Had lifted it, as rain at night The eyes had lost their listless way,- She only, yearning upward, found Ah, tyrant Time! you hold the book, Thus ended Act the Second. ACT THE THIRD. Or so it proved. For while I still 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; For these your code was all too stiff, Manners were not invented. Then on the scene,-by happy fate, And bore him sourly off, despite His well-directed kicking. The girl stood silent, with a look Then, with a sudden gesture took And, passing in, I saw her press 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." LAWRENCE. SPENSER. 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; FRANK. Jack's undecided. Say, formose puer, Shall we row higher, for the reeds are fewer, 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. |