Still Beauty must be stealing hearts,
And Knavery stealing purses;
Still cooks must live by making tarts,
And wits by making verses:
While sages prate, and courts debate,
The same stars set and shine;
And the world, as it rolled through Twentyeight,
Must roll through Twenty-nine.
Some king will come, in Heaven's good time,
To the tomb his father came to ;
Some thief will wade through blood and crime
To a crown he has no claim to;
Some suffering land will rend in twain
The manacles that bound her,
And gather the links of the broken chain
To fasten them proudly round her :
The grand and great will love and hate,
And combat, and combine;
And much where we were in Twenty-eight
We shall be in Twenty-nine.
O'Connell will toil to raise the rent,
And Kenyon to sink the nation,
And Sheil will abuse the Parliament,
And Peel the Association;
And the thought of bayonets and swords
Will make ex-chancellors merry,
And jokes will be cut in the House of Lords,
And throats in the County Kerry;
And writers of weight will speculate
On the Cabinet's design;
And just what it did in Twenty-eight
It will do in Twenty-nine.
John Thomas Mugg, on the lonely hill,
Will do a deed of mystery;
The Morning Chronicle will fill
Five columns with the history.
The jury will be all surprise,
The prisoner quite collected,
And Justice Park will wipe his eyes
And be very much affected;
And folks will relate poor Corder's fate
As they hurry home to dine,
Comparing the hangings of Twenty-eight
With the hangings of Twenty-nine.
And the goddess of love will keep her smiles,
And the god of cups his orgies,
And there'll be riots in St. Giles',
And weddings in St. George's.
And mendicants will sup like kings,
And lords will swear like lacqueys,
And black eyes oft will lead to rings,
And rings will lead to black eyes;
And pretty Kate will scold her mate
In a dialect all divine;
Alas! they married in Twenty-eight,-
They will part in Twenty-nine!
And oh! I shall find how, day by day,
All thoughts and things look older;
How the laugh of pleasure grows less gay,
And the heart of friendship colder;
But still I shall be what I have been,
Sworn foe to Lady Reason,
And seldom troubled with the spleen,
And fond of talking treason:
I shall buckle my skate, and leap my gate,
And throw-and write-my line;
And the woman I worshipped in Twenty-eight
I shall worship in Twenty-nine !
"Comment! cest lui? que je le regarde encore! C'est que Vraiment il est bien changé; n'est-ce pas, mon papa ?" -Les Premier Amours.
YOU'LL come to our Ball;-since we parted,
I've thought of you more than I'll say ;
Indeed, I was half broken-hearted
For a week, when they took you away.
Fond fancy brought back to my slumbers
Our walks on the Ness and the Den,
And echoed the musical numbers
Which you used to sing to me then.
I know the romance, since it's over,
'Twere idle, or worse, to recall ;
I know you're a terrible rover;
But Clarence, you'll come to our Ball!
It's only a year, since, at College,
You put on your cap and your gown;
But, Clarence, you're grown out of knowledge,
And changed from the spur to the crown:
The voice that was best when it faltered
Is fuller and firmer in tone,
And the smile that should never have altered-
Dear Clarence-it is not your own:
Your cravat was badly selected;
Your coat don't become you at all;
And why is your hair so neglected?
You must have it curled for our Ball.
I've often been out upon Haldon
To look for a covey with pup;
I've often been over to Shaldon,
To see how your boat is laid up:
In spite of the terrors of Aunty,
I've ridden the filly you broke;
And I've studied your sweet little Dante
In the shade of your favourite oak:
When I sat in July to Sir Lawrence,
I sat in your love of a shawl;
And I'll wear what you brought me from Florence, Perhaps, if you'll come to our Ball.
You'll find us all changed since you vanished; We've set up a National School;
And waltzing is utterly banished,
And Ellen has married a fool;
The Major is going to travel,
Miss Hyacinth threatens a rout,
The walk is laid down with fresh gravel,
Papa is laid up with the gout;
And Jane has gone on with her easels,
And Anne has gone off with Sir Paul;
And Fanny is sick with the measles,—
And I'll tell you the rest at the Bal!.
You'll meet all your Beauties; the Lily
And the Fairy of Willowbrook Farm,
And Lucy, who made me so silly
At Dawlish, by taking your arm;
Miss Manners, who always abused you
For talking so much about Hock,
And her sister, who often amused you
By raving of rebels and Rock;
And something which surely would answer,
An heiress quite fresh from Bengal ;
So though you were seldom a dancer,
Yon'll dance, just for once, at our Bali.
But out on the World! from the flowers
It shuts out the sunshine of truth:
It blights the green leaves in the bowers,
It makes an old age of our youth;
And the flow of our feeling, once in it,
Like a streamlet beginning to freeze,
Though it cannot turn ice in a minute,
Grows harder by sudden degrees:
Time treads o'er the graves of affection;
Sweet honey is turned into gall;
Perhaps you have no recollection
That ever you danced at our Ball!
You once could be pleased with our ballads,--
To-day you have critical ears;
You once could be charmed with our salads-
Alas! you've been dining with Peers;
You trifled and flirted with many,-
You've forgotten the when and the how ;
There was one you liked better than any,-
Perhaps you've forgotten her now.
But of those you remember most newly,
Of those who delight or enthrall,
None loves you a quarter so truly
As some you will find at our Ball.
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