And I am eight-and-twenty now

The world's cold chain has bound me ;

And darker shades are on my brow,
And sadder scenes around me:

In Parliament I fill my seat,

With many other noodles;

And lay my head in Germyn-street,
And sip my hock at Doodle's.

But often when the cares of life
Have set my temples aching,

When visions haunt me of a wife,

When duns await my waking,

When lady Jane is in a pet,

Or Hobby in a hurry,

When Captain Hazard wins a bet,
Or Beaulieu spoils a curry :

For hours and hours, I think and talk Of each remember'd hobby;

I long to lounge in Poet's Walk

To shiver in the lobby;

I wish that I could run away

From house and court, and levee,

Where bearded men appear to-day,
Just Eton boys, grown heavy;

That I could bask in childhood's sun,
And dance o'er childhood's roses;

And find huge wealth in one pound one,
Vast wit and broken noses;

And pray Sir Giles at Datchet Lane,

And call the milk-maids Houris;

That I could be a boy again

A happy boy at Drury's!

TO A LADY.

WHAT are you, lady ?-nought is here
To tell us of your name or story;
To claim the gazer's smile or tear,
To dub you whig, or daub you tory.
It is beyond a poet's skill,

To form the slightest notion, whether
We e'er shall walk through one quadrille,
Or look upon one moon together.

You're very pretty!-all the world

Are talking of your bright brow's splendour,

And of your locks, so softly curled,

And of your hands, so white and slender:

Some think you're blooming in Bengal ;

Some say you're blowing in the city;

Some know you're nobody at all;
I only feel, you're very pretty.

But bless my heart! it's very wrong:

You're making all our belles ferocious;

Anne "

never saw a chin so long;"

And Laura thinks your dress "atrocious;"

And Lady Jane, who now and then

Is taken for the village steeple,

Is sure you can't be four feet ten,
And "wonders at the taste of people."

Soon pass the praises of a face;

Swift fades the very best vermilion ; Fame rides a most prodigious pace; Oblivion follows on the pillion;

And all, who, in these sultry rooms,

To-day have stared, and pushed, and fainted,

Will soon forget your pearls and plumes,
As if they never had been painted.

You'll be forgotten-as old debts

By persons who are used to borrow;

Forgotten-as the sun that sets,

When shines a new one on the morrow;

Forgotten-like the luscious peach,

That blessed the school-boy last September ;

Forgotten-like a maiden speech,

Which all men praise, but none remember.

Yet, ere you sink into the stream,

That whelms alike, sage, saint, and martyr,

And soldier's sword, and minstrel's theme,

And Canning's wit, and Gatton's charter, Here of the fortunes of your youth

My fancy weaves her dim conjectures,
Which have, perhaps, as much of truth
As Passion's vows, or Cobbett's lectures.

Was't in the north or in the south,

That summer-breezes rocked your cradle ?

And had you in your baby mouth

A wooden or a silver ladle ?

And was your first, unconscious sleep,

By Brownie banned, or blessed by fairy? And did you wake to laugh or weep ?

And were you christened Maud or Mary ?

And was your father called " your grace?"
And did he bet at Ascot races ?
And did he chatter common-place?

And did he fill a score of places?