SONG FOR THE FOURTEENTH OF FEB

RUARY.

BY A GENERAL LOVER.

"Mille gravem telis, exhaustâ pene pharetra."

APOLLO has peeped through the shutter,
And wakened the witty and fair;
The boarding-school belle's in a flutter,
The two-penny post's in despair;
The breath of the morning is flinging
A magic on blossom, on spray,
And cockneys and sparrows are singing
In chorus on Valentine's Day.

Away with ye, dreams of disaster,
Away with ye, visions of law,
Of cases I never shall master,

Of pleadings I never shall draw!
Away with ye, parchments and papers,
Red tapes, unread volumes, away!
It gives a fond lover the vapours
To see you on Valentine's Day.

I'll sit in my night-cap, like Hayley,

I'll sit with my arms crossed like Spain,

Till joys, which are vanishing daily,

Come back in their lustre again:

Oh! shall I look over the waters,

Or shall I look over the way,

For the brightest and best of Earth's daughters, To rhyme to, on Valentine's Day?

Shall I crown with my worship, for fame's sake,
Some goddess whom Fashion has starred,
Make puns on Miss Love and her namesake,
Or pray for a pas with Brocard?

Shall I flirt, in romantic idea,

With Chester's adorable clay,

Or whisper in transport, "Si mea*
Cum Vestris"-on Valentine's Day?

Shall I kneel to a Sylvia or Celia,
Whom no one e'er saw, or may see,

A fancy-drawn Laura Amelia,

An ad libit. Anna Marie ?

Shall I court an initial with stars to it,
Go mad for a G. or a J.,

Get Bishop to put a few bars to it,
And print it on Valentine's Day?

I think not of Laura the witty;
For, oh! she is married at York!
I sigh not for Rose of the City,
For, oh! she is buried at Cork!

"Si mea cum vestris valuissent vota!"-Ovid, Met

A dèle has a braver and better

To say what I never could say;
Louise cannot construe a letter
Of English, on Valentine's Day.

So perish the leaves in the arbour!
The tree is all bare in the blast;
Like a wreck that is drifting to harbour,
I come to thee, Lady, at last:
Where art thou, so lovely and lonely?
Though idle the lute and the lay,
The lute and the lay are thine only,
My fairest, on Valentine's Day.

For thee I have opened my Blackstone, For thee I have shut up myself; Exchanged my long curls for a Caxton, And laid my short whist on the shelf, For thee I have sold my old sherry,

For thee I have burned my new play: And I grow philosophical,—very! Except upon Valentine's Day!

(FEBRUARY 14, 1826.)

APRIL FOOLS.

-"passim

Palantes error certo de tramite pellit;

Ille sinistrorsum, hic dextrorsum abit."-Hor.

THIS day, beyond all contradiction, This day is all thine own, Queen Fiction! And thou art building castles boundless Of groundless joys, and griefs as groundless; Assuring beauties that the border

Of their new dress is out of order;

And schoolboys that their shoes want tying;
And babies that their dolls are dying.

Lend me, lend me some disguise;
I will tell prodigious lies;

All who care for what I say
Shall be April fools to-day.

First, I relate how all the nation

Is ruined by Emancipation;

How honest men are sadly thwarted;
How beads and fagots are imported;
How every parish church looks thinner;
How Peel has asked the Pope to dinner;
And how the Duke, who fought the duel,
Keeps good King George on water-gruel.

Thus I waken doubts and fears
In the Commons and the Peers;
If they care for what I say,
They are April fools to-day.

Next I announce to hall and hovel
Lord Asterisk's unwritten novel.
It's full of wit, and full of fashion,
And full of taste, and full of passion ;
It tells some very curious histories,
Elucidates some charming mysteries,
And mingles sketches of society
With precepts of the soundest piety.
Thus I babbled to the host
Who adore the "Morning Post;"
If they care for what I say,
They are April fools to-day.

Then to the artist of my raiment

I hint his bankers have stopped payment;

And just suggest to Lady Locket

That somebody has picked her pocket;

And scare Sir Thomas from the city

By murmuring, in a tone of pity,

That I am sure I saw my Lady

Drive through the Park with Captain Grady.
Off my troubled victims go,

Very pale and very low;
If they care for what I say,
They are April fools to-day.