I cannot boast that I enjoy
The stage-illusion still;

I'm growing far too old a boy

To laugh or cry at will.

But I can cast a critic's eye

On mimic kings and queens,

And nothing ever makes me sigh

To get behind the scenes.

Ah! shallow boastings—false regrets !

The world is but a stage

Where Man, poor player, struts and frets

From infancy to age;

And then leaps blindly, in a breath,

The space that intervenes

Between our stage-career and Death,

Who lurks behind the scenes!

"WITH MUSICAL SOCIETY."

LOOK'D for lodgings, long ago,

Away from London's fogs and fusses;

A rustic Paradise, you know,

Within a walk of trains or 'busses.

I made my choice, and settled down
In such a lovely situation !-
About a dozen miles from town,

And very near a railway-station.

Within my pastoral retreat

No creditor, no care intruded;

My happiness was quite complete

(The "comforts of a home" included).

I found the landlord most polite,

His wife, if possible, politer ;Their two accomplish'd daughters quite Electrified the present writer.

A nicer girl than Fanny Lisle
To sing a die-away duet with,
(Say something in the Verdi style,)
Upon my life I never met with.
And yet I waver'd in my choice;
For I believe I'm right in saying
That nothing equall'd Fanny's voice,
Unless it was Maria's playing.

If music be the food of Love,

That was the house for Cupid's diet; Those two melodious girls, by Jove, Were never for an instant quiet.

I own that Fanny's voice was sweet, I own Maria's touch was pearly; But music's not at all a treat

For those who get it late and early.

66 WITH MUSICAL SOCIETY."

The charms that soothe a savage breast
Have got a vice versâ fashion

Of putting folks who have the best
Of tempers in an awful passion :
And, when it reach'd a certain stage,
I must confess I couldn't stand it.

I positively swore with rage

And stamp'd and scowl'd like any bandit.

I paid my rent on quarter-day ;
Pack'd up my luggage in a hurry,
And, quick as lightning, fled away

To other lodgings down in Surrey.

I'm fairly warn’d—and not in vain ;

For one resolve that I have made is

Not to be domiciled again

21

THINGS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.

IN the twilight of November's

Afternoons I like to sit,

Finding fancies in the embers

Long before my lamp is lit ;
Calling Memory up and linking
Bygone day to distant scene;
Then, with feet on fender, thinking

Of the things that might have been.

Cradles, wedding-rings, and hatchments
Glow alternate in the fire.

Early loves and late attachments

Blaze a second-and expire.

With a moderate persistence

One may soon contrive to glean

Matters for a mock existence

From the things that might have been.