Must I shut up my eyes when I ride in the Park? What harm am I speaking, you stupid Old Nurse? I'm sure papa's newspaper tells us much worse, He's a clergyman, too, are you stricter than he? Il n'est jamais de mal en bon compagnie. I knew who it was, and I said so, that's all ; Il n'est jamais de mal en bon compagnie. 66 My grandmother would not-" O, would not, indeed? Just read Horace Walpole- Yes, Sir, I do read. Besides, what's my grandmother's buckram to me? Il n'est jamais de mal en bon compagnie. "I said it before that old roué, Lord Gadde;" That's a story, he'd gone: and what harm if I had? He has known me for years-from a baby of three. Il n'est jamais de mal en bon compagnie. You go to your Club (and this makes me so wild), There you smoke, and you slander man, woman, and child; But I'm not to know there's such people as she- It's all my own fault; the Academy, Sir, Well, there, I'm quite sorry; now, stop looking haughty, Or must I kneel down on my knees, and say, "naughty?” There! Get me a peach, and I wish you'd agree Il n'est jamais de mal en bon compagnie. CHARLES SHIRLEY BROOKS. AN EPITAPH. LOVELY young lady I mourn in my rhymes: She was pleasant, good-natured, and civil sometimes. Her figure was good: she had very fine eyes, And her talk was a mixture of foolish and wise. Her adorers were many, and one of them said, "She waltzed rather well! it's a pity she's dead!" GEORGE JOHN CAYLEY. 康 MADAME LA MARQUISE. HE folds of her wine-dark violet dress As she sits in the air of her loveliness, Half of her exquisite face in the shade, Which o'er it the screen in her soft hand flings; Through the gloom glows her hair in its odorous braid; In the firelight are sparkling her rings. As she leans, the slow smile half shut up in her eyes Beams the sleepy, long, silk-soft lashes beneath : Through her crimson lips, stirred by her faint replies, Breaks one gleam of her pearl-white teeth. As she leans, where your eye, by her beauty subdued, Droops-from under warm fringes of broidery white, The slightest of feet, silken slippered, protrude As I bend o'er her bosom to tell her the news, The faint scent of her hair, the approach of her cheek, The vague warmth of her breath, all my senses suffuse With herself; and I tremble to speak. So she sits in the curtained luxurious light Of that room with its porcelain, and pictures, and flowers, When the dark day's half done, and the snow flutters white Past the windows in feathery showers. All without is so cold,-'neath the low, leaden sky! Down the bald, empty street, like a ghost, the gendarme Stalks surly; a distant carriage hums by ;— But she drives after noon;-then's the time to behold her, With her fair face, half hid, like a ripe peeping rose, 'Neath the veil,-o'er the velvets and furs which enfold her, Leaning back with a queenly repose. As she glides up the sunlight, you'd say she was made To loll back in a carriage all day with a smile; And at dusk, on a sofa, to lean in the shade Of soft lamps, and be woo'd for a while. Could we find out her heart through that velvet and lace? Can it beat without ruffling her sumptuous dress? She will show us her shoulder, her bosom, her face; But what the heart's like, we must guess. With live women and men to be found in the world (Live with sorrow and sin-live with pain and with passion)— Who could live with a doll, though its locks should be curled, And its petticoats trimmed in the fashion? 'Tis so fair! Would my bite, if I bit it draw blood? ROBERT, LORD LYTTON. From their bodies when deceased, Sometimes enter in a beast, Or a bird. I have watched you long, Avice, Watched you so, I have found your secret out; And I know That the restless ribboned things Where your slope of shoulder springs, Are but undeveloped wings When That will grow. It is stirred you enter in a room, With the wayward, flashing flight Of a bird; And you speak—and bring with you Leaf and sun-ray, bud and blue, And the wind-breath and the dew All the sound was as the "sweet" |