She kept an album, too, at home, Well fill'd with all an album's glories; Paintings of butterflies and Rome, Patterns for trimming, Persian stories; Fierce odes to famine and to slaughter; And she was flatter'd, worshipp'd, bored, Her steps were watch'd, her dress was noted, Her poodle dog was quite adored, Her sayings were extremely quoted. She smil'd 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 moulded; She wrote a charming hand, and oh! Alas for human happiness! Alas for human sorrow! While sages prate and courts debate, The same stars set and shine; And the world as it rolled through Twenty-Eight, Must roll through Twenty-Nine. Some King will come, in Heaven's good time, To the tomb his father came to; Some Thief will wade through blood and crime Some suffering land will rend in twain And gather the links of the broken chain And much where we were in Twenty-Eight, O'Connell will toil to raise the Rent, And thought of bayonets and swords And jokes will be cut in the House of Lords, And writers of weight will speculate On the Cabinet's design; And just what it did in Twenty-Eight It will do in Twenty-Nine. And the Goddess of Love will keep her smiles, And the God of Cups his orgies; And there'll be riots in St. Giles, Alas! they married in Twenty-Eight, My uncle will swathe his gouty limbs, My aunt, Miss Dobbs, will play longer hymns, My cousin in Parliament will prove How utterly ruined Trade is: My patron will sate his pride from plate, His nose was red in Twenty-Eight, And oh! I shall find how, day by day, And seldom troubled with the spleen, I shall buckle my skate, and leap my gate, And the woman I worshipped in Twenty-Eight MY PARTNER. AT Cheltenham, where one drinks one's fill I danced, last year, my first quadrille, Her cheek with summer's rose might vie, I spoke of novels:- "Vivian Grey" And "Frankenstein" alarming; I vowed the last new thing of Hook's And Laura said "I dote on books, I talked of music's gorgeous fane, Hoped Ronzo would come back again, I wished the chorus singers dumb, I told her tales of other lands; VOL XVII.& I painted bright Italian skies, I laughed at Lisbon's love of mass, I broached whate'er had gone its rounds, What made Sir Luke lay down his hounds, Why Julia walked upon the heath, 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? I mouthed a deal |