I'll set you quite an easy task

At which you are au fait;

You'll come and bring me what I ask? Répondez, s'il vous plait.

Be sure to recollect your purse,

For be it understood

Though money-matters might be worse,
They're very far from good.
So, if you have a little gold
You care to give away—
But am I growing over-bold?
Répondez, s'il vous plait.

A little-just a little-fame
You must contrive to bring,
Because I think a poet's name
Would be a pleasant thing
Perhaps, though, as I've scarcely got

A single claim to lay

To such a gift, you'd rather not?

Répondez, s'il vous plait.

Well, well, Tomorrow, you may strike
A line through what's above:

And bring me folks that I can like
And folks that I can love.

A warmer heart-a quicker brain

I'll ask for, if I may:

Tomorrow, shall I ask in vain?

Répondez, s'il vous plait.

A COCKNEY'S EVENING SONG.

FADES into twilight the last golden gleam

Thrown by the sunset on upland and stream; Glints o'er the Serpentine-tips Notting HillDies on the summit of proud Pentonville.

Day brought us trouble, but Night brings us peace; Morning brought sorrow, but Eve bids it cease.

Gaslight and Gaiety, beam for a while;

Pleasure and Paraffin, lend us a smile.

Temples of Mammon are voiceless again—
Lonely policemen inherit Mark Lane

Silent is Lothbury-quiet Cornhill

Babel of Commerce, thine echoes are still.

Far to the South-where the wanderer strays

Lost among graveyards and riverward ways,
Hardly a footfall and hardly a breath

Comes to dispute Laurence-Pountney with Death.

Westward the stream of Humanity glides ;-
'Busses are proud of their dozen insides.
Put up thy shutters, grim Care, for to-day—
Mirth and the lamplighter hurry this way.

Out on the glimmer weak Hesperus yields!
Gas for the cities and stars for the fields.
Daisies and buttercups, do as ye list;
I and my friends are for music or whist.

ROMANTIC RECOLLECTIONS.

I.

HEN I lay in a cradle and suck'd a coral,
I lov'd romance in my childish way;
And stories, with or without a moral,
Were welcome as ever the flow'rs in

May.

For love of the false I learnt my spelling,

And brav'd the

perils of

While matters of fact

were most repelling,

Romance was plea

sant as aught

could