MARIAN LEE. BY MARY HOWITT. Nor a care hath Marian Lee, Like the summer-billows wild, And with glee, o'er cliff and main, Sings an answer back again, Which by man and boy is heard, Like the carol of a bird! L Look!-she sitteth laughing there, THE BELLE OF THE BALL-ROOM. AN EVERY-DAY CHARACTER. 66 BY THE AUTHOR OF LILLIAN." Il faut juger des femmes depuis la chaussure jusqu'a la coiffure exclusivement, à peu près comme on mesure le poisson entre queue et tête. La Bruyere. I. YEARS, years ago,- ―ere yet my dreams Or yawned o'er this infernal Chitty; II. I saw her at the Country-Ball: There, when the sounds 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 set young hearts romancing; She was our queen, our rose, our star; And then she danced,-Oh heaven, her dancing! III. Dark was her hair; her hand was white; 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 't was Venus from her isle, And wondered where she'd left her sparrows. IV. She talked-of politics, or prayers; Of Southey's prose, or Wordsworth's sonnets; Of danglers, or of dancing bears, Of battles, or the last new bonnets: By candlelight, at twelve o'clock, To me it mattered not a tittle; If those bright lips had quoted Locke, I might have thought they murmured Little. V. Through sunny May, through sultry June, I spoke her praises to the moon, I wrote them to the Sunday Journal : My mother laughed;—I soon found out That ancient ladies have no feeling: My father frowned;—but how should gout See any happiness in kneeling? VI. She was the daughter of a Dean, Had fed the parish with her bounty; And Lord Lieutenant of the county. VII. But titles, and the three per cents., As Baron Rothschild for the Muses. VIII. 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 Catalini jealous; She touched the organ; -I could stand For hours and hours to blow the bellows. |