None love you a quarter so truly
As some you will find at our Ball.

They tell me you've many who flatter,
Because of your wit and your song;
They tell me (and what does it matter?)
You like to be praised by the throng :
They tell me you're shadowed with laurel,
They tell me you're loved by a Blue;
They tell me you're sadly immoral

Dear Clarence, that cannot be true!

But to me you are still what I found you

Before you grew clever and tall;

And you'll think of the spell that once bound you:

And you'll come, won't you come? to our Ball?

MY PARTNER.

"There is, perhaps, no subject of more universal interest in the whole range of natural knowledge, than that of the unceasing fluctuations which take place in the atmosphere in which we are immersed."

AT Cheltenham, where one drinks one's fill

Of folly and cold water,

I danced, last year, my first quadrille,
With old Sir Geoffrey's daughter.

Her cheek with summer's rose might vie,
When summer's rose is newest;
Her eyes were blue as autumn's sky,
When autumn's sky is bluest;

And well my heart might deem her one
Of life's most precious flowers,

For half her thoughts were of its sun,
And half were of its showers.

I spoke of novels :-" Vivian Grey

Was positively charming,

And "Almack's" infinitely gay,

And "Frankenstein" alarming;

I said "De Vere" was chastely told, Thought well of "Herbert Lacy," Called Mr. Banim's sketches "bold,” And Lady Morgan's "racy;"

I vowed the last new thing of Hook's
Was vastly entertaining;

And Laura said "I dote on books,
Because it's always raining!"

I talked of music's gorgeous fane,

I raved about Rossini,

Hoped Ronzo would come back again,

And criticised Pacini ;

I wished the chorus singers dumb,
The trumpets more pacific,
And eulogised Brocard's a plomb,

And voted Paul " terrific."
What cared she for Medea's pride

Or Desdemona's sorrow?

"Alas!" my beauteous listener sighed,

"We must have storms to-morrow!

I told her tales of other lands;

Of ever-boiling fountains,

Of poisonous lakes, and barren sands,
Vast forests, trackless mountains ;

I painted bright Italian skies,

I lauded Persian roses,

Coined similes for Spanish eyes,

And jests for Indian noses;

I laughed at Lisbon's love of mass,
And Vienna's dread of treason;

And Laura asked me where the glass,
Stood at Madrid last season.

I broached whate'er had gone its rounds, The week before, of scandal;

What made Sir Luke lay down his hounds, And Jane take up her Handel;

Why Julia walked upon the heath,

With the pale moon above her;

Where Flora lost her false front teeth,

And Anne her false lover;

How Lord de B. and Mrs. L.

Had crossed the sea together;

My shuddering partner cried-"Oh, Ceil! How could they in such weather?

Was she a blue?-I put my trust

In strata, petals, gases;
A boudoir-pedant ?—I discussed

The toga and the fasces;

A cockney-muse?—I mouthed a deal

Of folly from Endymion ;

A saint?-I praised the pious zeal
Of Messrs. Way and Simeon ;

A politician ?-It was vain

To quote the morning paper; The horrid phantoms come again, Rain, hail, and snow, and vapour.

Flat flattery was my only chance,
I acted deep devotion,

Found magic in her every glance,
Grace in her every motion ;

I wasted all a stripling's lore,

Prayer, passion, folly, feeling;

And wildly looked upon the floor,
And wildly on the ceiling;

I envied gloves upon her arm,
And shawls upon her shoulder;