"Whether I ought to die or not

My doctors cannot quite determine ; It's only clear that I shall rot,

And be, like Priam, food for vermin. My debts are paid ;-but Nature's debt Almost escaped my recollection! Tom! we shall meet again; and yet

I cannot leave you my direction !"

III. THE BELLE OF THE BALL.

YEARS-years ago-ere yet my dreams
Had been of being wise and witty;
Ere I had done with writing themes,

Or yawn'd o'er this infernal Chitty;
Years, years ago, while all my joys

Were in my fowling-piece and filly;

In short, while I was yet a boy,

I fell in love with Laura Lilly.

I saw her at a country ball;

There when the sound of flute and fiddle

Gave signal sweet in that old hall,

Of hands across and down the middle,

Hers was the subtlest spell by far

Of all that sets young hearts romancing :

She was our queen, our rose, our star ;

And when she danced-oh, heaven, her dancing!

Dark was her hair, her hand was white ;

Her voice was exquisitely tender,

Her eyes were full of liquid light;

I never saw a waist so slender;

Her every look, her every smile,

Shot right and left a score of arrows;

I thought 'twas Venus from her isle,

I wondered where she'd left her sparrows.

She talk'd of politics or prayers;

Of Southey's prose, or Wordsworth's sonnets;

Of daggers or of dancing bears,

Of battles, or the last new bonnets;

By candle-light, at twelve o'clock,

To me it matter'd not a tittle,

If those bright lips had quoted Locke,

I might have thought they murmured Little.

Through sunny May, through sultry June,
I loved her with a love eternal;

I spoke her praises to the moon,

I wrote them for the Sunday Journal. My mother laughed; I soon found out That ancient ladies have no feeling; My father frown'd; but how should gout Find any happiness in kneeling?

She was the daughter of a dean,

Rich, fat, and rather apoplectic;

She had one brother just thirteen,
Whose colour was extremely hectic ;
Her grandmother, for many a year,
Had fed the parish with her bounty;
Her second cousin was a peer,

And lord-lieutenant of the county.

But titles and the three per cents,
And mortgages, and great relations,
And India bonds, and tithes and rents,

Oh! what are they to love's sensations? Black eyes, fair forehead, clustering locks, Such wealth, such honours, Cupid chooses; He cares as little for the stocks,

As Baron Rothschild for the muses.

She sketch'd; the vale, the wood, the beach, Grew lovelier from her pencil's shading;

She botanized; I envied each

Young blossom in her boudoir fading; She warbled Handel; it was grand— She made the Catalina jealous;

She touch'd the organ; I could stand

For hours and hours and blow the bellows.

She kept an album, too, at home,

Well fill'd with all an album's glories;

Paintings of butterflies and Rome,

Patterns for trimming, Persian stories

Soft songs to Julia's cockatoo,

;

Fierce odes to famine and to slaughter;

And autographs of Prince Laboo,

And recipes of elder water.

And she was flatter'd, worship'd, bored,

Her steps were watch'd, her dress was noted,

Her poodle dog was quite adored,

Her sayings were extremely quoted.

She laugh'd, and every heart was glad,
As if the taxes were abolish'd;

She frown'd, and every look was sad,
As if the opera were demolish'd.

She smil❜d on many just for fun—

I knew that there was nothing in it;