I'm busy, now, with state affairs; I ask the price of rail-road shares, I save a fortune in perfumes ;- I may be yet, what others are, The flattered star of Bench or Bar, Come shower or sunshine, hope or fear, My heart and lute are broken here ;— Lady, the mist is on my sight, The chill is on my brow; My day is night, my bloom is blight; TIME'S SONG. O'ER the level plains, where mountains greet me as I go, War his weary watch was keeping,-I have crushed his spear; Grief within her bower was weeping,—I have dried her tear; Pleasure caught a minute's hold,—then I hurried by, Power had won a throne of glory: where is now his fame ? Genius said, "I live in story:" who hath heard his name? Love beneath a myrtle bough whispered "Why so fast?" And the roses on his brow withered as I past. I have heard the heifer lowing o'er the wild wave's bed; I have seen the billow flowing where the cattle fed ; Where began my wandering? Memory will not say Where will rest my weary wings? Science turns away! STANZAS. Look down within the glassy stream So-couldst thou read my heart--thou'dst see, A faithful image, sweet, of thee, Mirrored for ever there! The breeze that curls that summer-tide (Type of the rude world's din), May, with its envious ripple, hide The Naiad form within: But sunshine brings the nymph again,— On my heart's glass thine image then GOOD NIGHT TO THE SEASON. "So runs the world away."-Hamlet. GOOD night to the Season !-'Tis over! Except my good uncle and spouse; Good night to the Season !-the lobbies, Their changes, and rumours of change, Which startled the rustic Sir Bobbies, And made all the Bishops look strange; The breaches, and battles, and blunders, Performed by the Commons and Peers; The Marquis's eloquent blunders, The Baronet's eloquent ears; Denouncings of Papists and treasons, Good night to the Season!-the buildings The paintings, and plasterings, and gildings The hell, where the fiend in his glory Good night to the Season !-the dances, The pleasures which Fashion makes duties, Good night to the Season !-the rages The Lady Matilda's new pages, Miss Fennel's macaw, which at Boodle's As hot and as black as a coal, In bearskins and grease, from the Pole. Good night to the Season !-the Toso, The lovely one out of her drilling, Good night to the Season !-the splendour A bottle of perfume, a girdle, A lithographed Riego, full grown, Whom bigotry drew on a hurdle That artists might draw him on stone; A small panorama of Seville, A trap for demolishing flies, A caricature of the Devil, And a look from Miss Sheridan's eyes. |