How the laugh of Pleasure grows less gay,
And the heart of Friendship colder;
But still I shall be what I have been,

Sworn foe to Lady Reason,

And seldom troubled with the spleen,
And fond of talking treason;

I shall buckle my skate, and leap my gate,
And throw and write my line:

And the woman I worshiped in Twenty-Eight
I shall worship in Twenty-Nine.

S

THE VICAR

OME years ago, ere time and taste

Had turned our parish topsy-turvy, When Darnel Park was Darnel Waste, And roads as little known as scurvy, The man who lost his way, between

St. Mary's Hill and Sandy Thicket, Was always shown across the green,

And guided to the parson's wicket.

Back flew the bolt of lissom lath;

Fair Margaret, in her tidy kirtle,

Led the lorn traveler up the path,

Through clean-clipt rows of box and myrtle; And Don and Sancho, Tramp and Tray, Upon the parlor steps collected,

Wagged all their tails, and seemed to say, "Our master knows you - you're expected."

Uprose the Reverend Dr. Brown,

Uprose the doctor's winsome marrow;

The lady laid her knitting down,

Her husband clasped his ponderous Barrow: Whate'er the stranger's caste or creed,

Pundit or Papist, saint or sinner,

He found a stable for his steed,

And welcome for himself, and dinner.

If, when he reached his journey's end,
And warmed himself in court or college,
He had not gained an honest friend

And twenty curious scraps of knowledge,

If he departed as he came,

With no new light on love or liquor,Good sooth, the traveler was to blame, And not the vicarage, nor the vicar.

His talk was like a stream, which runs
With rapid change from rocks to roses:
It slipped from politics to puns,

It passed from Mahomet to Moses;
Beginning with the laws which keep

The planets in their radiant courses, And ending with some precept deep

For dressing eels, or shoeing horses.

He was a shrewd and sound divine,
Of loud Dissent the mortal terror:
And when, by dint of page and line,
He 'stablished truth, or startled error,
The Baptist found him far too deep;

The Deist sighed with saving sorrow;
And the lean Levite went to sleep,

And dreamed of tasting pork to-morrow.

His sermon never said or showed

That earth is foul, that heaven is gracious,

Without refreshment on the road

From Jerome or from Athanasius;

And sure a righteous zeal inspired

The hand and head that penned and planned them,

For all who understood admired,

And some who did not understand them.

He wrote, too, in a quiet way,

Small treatises and smaller verses,

And sage remarks on chalk and clay,

And hints to noble lords-and nurses;

True histories of last year's ghost,

Lines to a ringlet, or a turban, And trifles for the Morning Post,

And nothings for Sylvanus Urban.

He did not think all mischief fair,

Although he had a knack of joking;

He did not make himself a bear,

Although he had a taste for smoking;

And when religious sects ran mad,

He held, in spite of all his learning, That if a man's belief is bad,

It will not be improved by burning.

And he was kind, and loved to sit

In the low hut or garnished cottage, And praise the farmer's homely wit,

And share the widow's homelier pottage; At his approach complaint grew mild;

And when his hand unbarred the shutter, The clammy lips of fever smiled

The welcome which they could not utter.

He always had a tale for me

Of Julius Cæsar, or of Venus;

From him I learnt the Rule of Three,
Cat's-cradle, leap-frog, and Quæ genus;

I used to singe his powdered wig,

To steal the staff he put such trust in, And make the puppy dance a jig

When he began to quote Augustine.

Alack the change! In vain I look.

For haunts in which my boyhood trifled,—

The level lawn, the trickling brook,

The trees I climbed, the beds I rifled:

The church is larger than before;

You reach it by a carriage entry;

It holds three hundred people more,
And pews are fitted up for gentry.

Sit in the vicar's seat: you'll hear

The doctrine of a gentle Johnian, Whose hand is white, whose tone is clear, Whose phrase is very Ciceronian. Where is the old man laid?-look down,

And construe on the slab before you,

"Hic jacet GVLIELMVS BROWN,

Vir nullâ non donandus lauru.»

YEAR

THE BELLE OF THE BALL

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

Or yawned 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-O 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,

And wondered where she'd left her sparrows.

She talked 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 mattered not a tittle,

If these 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 frowned; - 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 color 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 honors, Cupid chooses; He cares as little for the stocks

As Baron Rothschild for the Muses.

She sketched-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 touched the organ-I could stand

For hours and hours and blow the bellows.

And she was flattered, worshiped, bored;

Her steps were watched, her dress was noted,

Her poodle dog was quite adored,

Her sayings were extremely quoted.

She laughed and every heart was glad
As if the taxes were abolished;
She frowned- and every look was sad
As if the opera were demolished.

She smiled on many just for fun

I knew that there was nothing in it;

I was the first, the only one,

Her heart had thought of for a minute

I knew it, for she told me so,

In phrase which was divinely molded; She wrote a charming hand, and oh!

How sweetly all her notes were folded!