The bell-pull turned his courage into vapor,

As though 'twould cause a shower-bath to shed Its thousand shocks, to make him sigh and caper He looked askance, and did not like the scraper.

"What business have I here? (he thought) a dunce A hopeless passion thus to fan and foster,

Instead of putting out its wick at once:

She's gone

it's very evident I've lost her

And to the wanton wind I should have tossed her Pish! I will leave her with her moon, at ease, To toast and eat it, like a single Gloster, Or cram some fool with it, as good green cheese, Or make a honey-moon, if so she please.

"Yes

here I leave her; " and as thus he spoke, He plied the knocker with such needless force, It almost split the pannel of sound oak ;

And then he went as wildly through a course
Of ringing, till he made abrupt divorce
Between the bell and its dumbfounded handle ;
While up ran Betty, out of breath and hoarse,
And thrust into his face her blown-out candle,
To recognize the author of such scandal.

Who, presto! cloak, and carpet-bag to boot,
Went stumbling, rumbling, up the dark one pair,
With other noise than his whose "very foot
Had music in't as he came up the stair:"
And then with no more manners than a bear,

His hat upon his head, no matter how,
No modest tap his presence to declare,
He bolted in a room, without a bow,
And there sat Ellen, with a marble brow!

Like fond Medora, watching at her window,
Yet not of any Corsair bark in search
The jutting lodging-house of Mrs. Lindo,

"The Cheapest House in Town" of Todd and Sturch. The private house of Reverend Doctor Birch, The public-house, closed nightly at eleven,

And then that house of prayer, the parish church,
Some roofs and chimneys, and a glimpse of heaven,
Made up the whole look-out of Number Seven.

Yet something in the prospect so absorbed her,
She seemed quite drowned and dozing in a dream;
As if her own beloved full moon still orbed her,
Lulling her fancy in some lunar scheme,
With lost Lorenzo, may be, for its theme
Yet when Lorenzo touched her on the shoulder,
She started up with an abortive scream,

As if some midnight ghost, from regions colder,
Had come within his bony arms to fold her.

"Lorenzo !

99 "Ellen! ""

"Madam!"

then came "Sir!" and

They tried to speak, but hammered at each word,
As if it were a flint for great MacAdam;

Such broken English never else was heard,
For like an aspen leaf each nerve was stirred,
A chilly tremor thrilled them through and through,
Their efforts to be stiff were quite absurd,

They shook like jellies made without a due
And proper share of common joiner's glue.

"Ellen! I'm come

to bid you fare farewell;

They thus began to fight their verbal duel; "Since some more hap hap happy man must

For so they split their words like grits for gruel.
At last the Lover, as he long had planned,

Drew out that once inestimable jewel,
Her portrait, which was erst so fondly scanned,
And thrust poor Ellen's face into her hand.

"There take it, Madam

The face of one

take it back, I crave,

but I must now forget her;

Bestow it on whatever hapless slave

Your art has last enticed into your fetter

And there are your epistles there each letter! I wish no record of your vows' infractions ;

Send them to South—or Children-you had better

They will be novelties

rare benefactions

To shine in Philosophical Transactions!

"Take them pray take them - I resign them quite!
And there's the glove you gave me leave to steal
And there's the handkerchief, so pure and white,
Once sanctified by tears, when Miss O'Neill
But no -you did not cannot do not feel
A Juliet's faith, that time could only harden!
Fool that I was, in my mistaken zeal!

I should have led you by your leave and pardon -
To Bartley's Orrery, not Covent Garden!

"And here's the birth-day ringnor man nor devil Should once have torn it from my living hand; Perchance 'twill look as well on Mr. Neville; And that and that is all and now I stand Absolved of each dissevered tie and band And so farewell, till Time's eternal sickle

Shall reap our lives; in this, or foreign land Some other may be found for truth to stickle, Almost as fair, and not so false and fickle!"

And there he ceased, as truly it was time;

For of the various themes that left his mouth, One half surpassed her intellectual climb :

She knew no more than the old Hill of Howth About that "Children of a larger growth," Who notes proceedings of the F. R. S.'s;

Kit North was just as strange to her as South, Except the South the weathercock expresses; Nay, Bartley's Orrery defied her guesses.

Howbeit some notion of his jealous drift

She gathered from the simple outward fact
That her own lap contained each slighted gift;
Though quite unconscious of his cause to act
So like Othello, with his face unblacked;
"Alas!" she sobbed, "your cruel course I see
These faded charms no longer can attract;
Your fancy palls, and you would wander free,
And lay your own apostasy on me!

"I false! - unjust Lorenzo!

and to you!

O, all ye holy gospels that incline

The soul to truth, bear witness I am true!
By all that lives, of earthly or divine-
So long as this poor throbbing heart is mine
I false! — the world shall change its course as soon
True as the streamlet to the stars that shine

True as the dial to the sun at noon,

True as the tide to 'yonder blessed moon'!”

And as she spoke, she pointed through the window,
Somewhere above the houses' distant tops,
Betwixt the chimney-pots of Mrs. Lindo,
And Todd and Sturch's cheapest of all shops
For ribbons, laces, muslins, silks, and fops;

Meanwhile, as she upraised her face so Grecian,
And eyes suffused with scintillating drops,
Lorenzo looked, too, o'er the blinds Venetian,
To see the sphere so troubled with repletion.

"The Moon!" he cried, and an electric spasm

Seemed all at once his features to distort,
And fixed his mouth, a dumb and gaping chasm
His faculties benumbed and all amort

At last his voice came, of most shrilly sort,
Just like a sea-gull's wheeling round a rock

66

Speak!

The Moon!

Ellen! is your sight indeed so short! Brute! savage that I am, and block! The Moon! (O, ye Romantics, what a shock !) Why, that's the new Illuminated Clock!"

MORNING MEDITATIONS.

LET Taylor preach, upon a morning breezy,
How well to rise while nights and larks are flying;
For my part, getting up seems not so easy

By half as lying.

What if the lark does carol in the sky,
Soaring beyond the sight to find him out
Wherefore am I to rise at such a fly?
I'm not a trout.

Talk not to me of bees and such-like hums,
The smell of sweet herbs at the morning prime;
Only lie long enough, and bed becomes

A bed of time,