And are you fond of lanes and brooks—
A votary of the sylvan Muses?
Or do you con the little books

Which Baron Brougham and Vaux diffuses?

Or do you love to knit and sew—

The fashionable world's Arachne ? Or do you canter down the Row Upon a very long-tailed hackney?

And do you love your brother James?
And do you pet his mares and setters?
And have your friends romantic names?
And do
you write them long long letters ?
And are you-since the world began

All women are a little spiteful?

And don't you dote on Malibran ?

And don't you think Tom Moore delightful ?

I see they've brought you flowers to-day;
Delicious food for eyes and noses;

But carelessly you turn away

From all the pinks, and all the roses;

Say, is that fond look sent in search

Of one whose look as fondly answers? And is he, fairest, in the Church?

Or is he ain't he-in the Lancers ?

And is your love a motley page

Of black and white, half joy, half sorrow? Are you to wait till you're of age?

Or are you to be his to-morrow?

Or do they bid you, in their scorn,
Your pure and sinless flame to smother?

Is he so very meanly born?

Or are you married to another?

Whate'er you are, at last, adieu!

I think it is your bounden duty To let the rhymes I coin for

you

Be prized by all who prize your beauty.
From you I seek nor gold nor fame;
From you I fear no cruel strictures;

I wish some girls that I could name
Were half as silent as their pictures!

THE COUNTY BALL

Busy people, great and small,
Awkward dancers, short and tall,
Ladies, fighting which shall call,
Loungers, pertly quizzing all. - ANON.

THIS is a night of pleasure! Care,
I shake thee from me! do not dare
To stir from out thy murky cell,
Where in their dark recesses dwell
Thy kindred gnomes, who love to nip
The rose on Beauty's cheek and lip,
Until beneath their venomed breath
Life wears the pallid hue of death.
Avaunt! I shake thee from me, Care!
The gay, the youthful, and the fair,
From Lodge, and Court, and House, and Hall,
Are hurrying to the County Ball.
Avaunt! I tread on haunted ground;
And giddy Pleasure draws around,
To shield us from thine envious spite,
Her magic circle! nought to-night

Over that guarded barrier flies
But laughing lips and smiling eyes;
My look shall gaze around me free,
And like my look my line shall be;
While fancy leaps in every vein,
While love is life, and thought is pain,

I will not rule that look and line
By any word or will of thine.

The Moon hath risen. Still and pale
Thou movest in thy silver veil,
Queen of the night! the filmy shroud
Of

many a mild transparent cloud

Hides, yet adorns thee; meet disguise To shield thy blush from mortal eyes. Full many a maid hath loved to gaze Upon thy melancholy rays;

And many a fond despairing youth
Hath breathed to thee his tale of truth;
And many a luckless rhyming wight

Hath looked upon thy tender light,
And spilt his precious ink upon it,

In ode, or elegy, or sonnet.
Alas! at this inspiring hour,
I feel not, I, thy boasted power,
Nor seek to gain thine approbation
By vow, or prayer, or invocation;
I ask not what the vapours are
That veil thee like a white cymar,
Nor do I care a single straw
For all the stars I ever saw!

I fly from thee, I fly from these,
To bow to earthly goddesses,

Whose forms in mortal beauty shine,
As fair, but not so cold, as thine.

But this is foolish! Stars and Moon,
You look quite beautiful in June;
But when a bard sits down to sing,
Your beauty is a dangerous thing;
To muse upon your placid beam
One wanders sadly from one's theme,

And when weak poets go astray,

“The stars are more in fault than they."