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!
(1831.)

THE CHILDE'S DESTINY.

"And none did love him-not his lemans dear."-Byron,

No mistress of the hidden skill,

No wizard gaunt and grim,
Went up by night to heath or hill
To read the stars for him;
The merriest girl in all the land

Of vine-encircled France

Bestowed upon his brow and hand
Her philosophic glance:

I bind thee with a spell," said she,
"I sign thee with a sign;

No woman's love shall light on thee,
No woman's heart be thine!

"And trust me, 'tis not that thy cheek
Is colourless and cold;

Nor that thine eye is slow to speak
What only eyes have told;
For many a cheek of paler white
Hath blushed with passion's kiss,
And many an eye of lesser light

Hath caught its fire from bliss;
Yet while the rivers seek the sea,

And while the young stars shine,
No woman's love shall light on thee,-
No woman's heart be thine!

"And 'tis not that thy spirit, awed By Beauty's numbing spell,

Shrinks from the force or from the fraud Which Beauty loves so well;

For thou hast learned to watch, and wake,
And swear by earth and sky;

And thou art very bold to take
What we must still deny:

I cannot tell;-the charm was wrought

By other threads than mine;

The lips are lightly begged or bought,—
The heart may not be thine!

"Yet thine the brightest smiles shall be
That ever Beauty wore;
And confidence from two or three,
And compliments from more;

And one shall give-perchance hath given---
What only is not love,—
Friendship,-oh! such as saints in Heaven

Rain on us from above:

If she shall meet thee in the bower,
Or name thee in the shrine,

O wear the ring and guard the flower!
Her heart may not be thine!

"Go, set thy boat before the blast,
Thy breast before the gun;
The haven shall be reached at last,
The battle shall be won:

Or muse upon thy country's laws,
Or strike thy country's lute;

And patriot hands shall sound applause,
And lovely lips be mute.

Go, dig the diamond from the wave,

The treasure from the mine;

Enjoy the wreath, the gold, the grave,→
No woman's heart is thine!

"I charm thee from the agony
Which others feel or feign;
From anger, and from jealousy,

From doubt, and from disdain;
I bid thee wear the scorn of years
Upon the cheek of youth,
And curl the lip at Passion's tears,
And shake the head at truth:
While there is bliss in revelry,
Forgetfulness in wine,

Be thou from woman's love as free
As woman is from thine!"

(1825.)

JOSEPHINE.

We did not meet in courtly hall,
Where Birth and Beauty throng,
Where Luxury holds festival,
And wit awakes the song;
We met where darker spirits meet,
In the home of Sin and Shame,
Where Satan shows his cloven feet,
And hides his titled name;

And she knew she could not be, Love,

What once she might have been,

But she was kind to me, Love,

My pretty Josephine.

VOL. II-11