Her every look, her every smile, Shot right and left a score of arrows; I thought 'twas Venus from her isle, And wondered where she'd left her sparrows. She talked,-of politics or prayers,— Of Southey's prose or Wordsworth's sonnets,Of danglers-or of dancing bears, Of battles, or the last new bonnets, If those bright lips had quoted Locke, I might have thought they murmured Little. Through sunny May, through sultry June, I spoke her praises to the moon, I wrote them to the Sunday Journal: She was the daughter of a Dean, And Lord Lieutenant of the county. But titles, and the three per cents, And mortgages, and great relations, And India bonds, and tithes, and rents, Oh what are they to love's sensations? Black eyes, fair forehead, clustering locksSuch wealth, such honours, Cupid chooses; He cares as little for the stocks As Baron Rothschild for the Muses. She sketched; the vale, the wood, the beach, Young blossom in her boudoir fading : She touched the organ; I could stand For hours and hours to blow the bellows. She kept an album, too, at home, Well filled with all an album's glories; Paintings of butterflies, and Rome, Patterns for trimmings, Persian stories; Soft songs to Julia's cockatoo, Fierce odes to Famine and to Slaughter, And autographs of Prince Leboo, And recipes for elder water. And she was flattered, worshipped, bored; Her poodle dog was quite adored, Her sayings were extremely quoted; She smiled 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; How sweetly all her notes were folded! And "Fly not yet "-upon the river Some hope of dying broken-hearted, A miniature, a lock of hair, ; The usual vows,—and then we parted. Our meeting was all mirth and laughter : There had been many other lodgers; IV. MY PARTNER. "There is, perhaps, no subject of more universal interest in the whole range of natural knowledge, than that of the increasing fluctuations which take place in the atmosphere in which we are immersed." -British Almanac. AT Cheltenham, where one drinks one's fill Of folly and cold water, 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 that last new thing of Hook's And Laura said, "I doat on books, I talked of Music's gorgeous fane; I wished the chorus-singers dumb, What cared she for Medea's pride, "Alas! my beauteous listener sighed, "We must have rain to-morrow!" I told her tales of other lands; Of poisonous lakes and barren sands, And Laura asked me-where the glass I broached whate'er had gone its rounds, And Anne her falser lover; My shuddering partner cried, "O Ciel ! Was she a Blue ?—I put my trust A boudoir-pedant? I discussed A Cockney-Muse? I mouthed a deal A saint? I praised the pious zeal |