you care Not a whit for rest or hush; But the leaves, the lyric gush, And the wing-power, and the rush Of the air. So I dare not woo you, Sweet, For a day, Lest I love you in a flash, As I may; Did I tell you tender things, You would shake your sudden wings; You would start from him who sings, AUSTIN DOBSON. BEAUTY CLARE. ALF Lucrece, half Messalina, Surely Nature must have meant you I think not. The moral door-step, When your victims you ensnare -Lead them on with hopes-deceive themThen turn coldly round, and leave them, Beauty Clare! You've a husband, and you like him Very fairly does it strike him That at home a married pair Does not want a tenor-chorus, Ever, to his wife, canorous, Beauty Clare? Some new slave I note each season, (Moths around the taper's flare!) In your box, I see them dangling, Triumphs of successful angling, Trophies ranged behind your chair; When at kettle-drums presiding, Smiles to each, in equal share, Beauty Clare! At each ball you fill a hundred Girls, when you approach, with one dread,(What enchanting wreaths you wear!) -That the men will dance no longer, Drawn by an attraction stronger, Beauty Clare, What perfection in your waltzing! But, your sentimental ditty Over, you are then the witty Beauty Clare, Men of every age and station With a rapt admiring stare; As though words that from your mouth fall Sweet as grapes were, on a south wall, Beauty Clare. How you light the smouldering embers -Beauty Clare. At your country-seat in Salop, With you, on your chestnut mare! Beauty Clare! ? Who at croquet can come near you Beauty Clare! All-accomplish'd little creature! Fatally-endow'd by Nature,— Were your inward soul laid bare, What should we discover under That seductive mask, I wonder, Beauty Clare ? Should we find a heart, revealing Saving you in the Law's letter— From the lot of many a better, Beauty Clare? Yet-who knows? Good might have won youHave not those rare gifts undone you? Had it not been better, ne'er To have had gifts rain'd so thickly, Vanity-corrupted, quickly, Beauty Clare Had you once a little sister? Did when at night you you, kiss'd her, Ever breathe an inward pray'r, That, in all things, God would make her Beauty Clare? For the thought of a Hereafter -Beauty Clare! When the day shall overtake you How with you, then, will it fare? Locks grown thin, and roses faded, |