MY AUNT. My aunt! my dear unmarried aunt! I know it hurts her, though she looks As cheerful as she can; Her waist is ampler than her life, For life is but a span. My aunt! my poor deluded aunt! Why will she train that winter curl In such a spring-like way ? How can she lay her glasses down, And say she reads as well, When, through a double convex lens, She just makes out to spell? Her father, grandpapa! forgive This erring lip its smiles, Vowed she should make the finest girl Within a hundred miles; He sent her to a stylish school; 'T was in her thirteenth June; And with her, as the rules required, "Two towels and a spoon." They braced my aunt against a board, They pinched her feet, they singed her hair, O never mortal suffered more In penance for her sins. So, when my precious aunt was done, Might follow on the track ;) "Ah!" said my grandsire, as he shook Some powder in his pan, "What could this lovely creature do Against a desperate man!" Alas! nor chariot, nor barouche, Tore from the trembling father's arms For her how happy had it been! And Heaven had spared to me To see one sad, ungathered rose THE TOADSTOOL. THERE's a thing that grows by the fainting flower, But the lily may flaunt, and the tulip stare, She does not glow in a painted vest, And she never blooms on the maiden's breast; And, when the stars in the evening skies O there is light in her lover's glance, That flies to her heart like a silver lance; And he twines his arms round her slender stem, But she turns away in her maiden shame, |