Chapter I: MUST come out next Spring, Mamma,

I must come out next Spring;
To keep me with my Governess
Would be a cruel thing:
Whene’er I see my sisters dress’d
In leno and in lace,—
Miss Twig’s apartment seems to be
A miserable place.
I must come out next Spring, Mamma,
I must come out next Spring;
To keep me with my Governess
Would be a cruel thing.

I’m very sick of Grosv’nor Square,
The path within the rails;
I’m weary of Telemachus,
And such outlandish tales:
I hate my French, my vile Chambaud;
In tears I’ve turn’d his leaves;
Oh! let me Frenchify my hair,
And take to Gigot sleeves.
I must come out next Spring, Mamma,
I must come out next Spring;
To keep me with my Governess
Would be a cruel thing.

I know quite well what I should say
To partners at a ball;
I’ve got a pretty speech or two,
And they would serve for all.
If an Hussar, I’d praise his horse,
And win a smile from him;
And if a Naval man, I’d lisp,
“Pray, Captain, do you swim?”
I must come out next Spring, Mamma,
I must come out next Spring;
To keep me with my Governess
Would be a cruel thing.
_Thomas Haynes Bayly._

“WHY DON’T THE MEN PROPOSE?”

WHY don’t the men propose, mamma?
Why don’t the men propose?
Each seems just coming to the point,
And then away he goes!
It is no fault of yours, mamma,
That everybody knows;
You fête the finest men in town,
Yet, oh, they won’t propose!

I’m sure I’ve done my best, mamma,
To make a proper match;
For coronets and eldest sons
I’m ever on the watch:
I’ve hopes when some _distingué_ beau
A glance upon me throws;
But though he’ll dance, and smile, and flirt,
Alas, he won’t propose!

I’ve tried to win by languishing,
And dressing like a blue;
I’ve bought big books, and talk’d of them,
As if I read them through!
With hair cropp’d like a man, I’ve felt
The heads of all the beaux;
But Spurzheim could not touch their hearts,
And oh, they won’t propose!

I threw aside the books, and thought
That ignorance was bliss;
I felt convinced that men preferr’d
A simple sort of Miss;
And so I lisp’d out naught beyond
Plain “yeses” or plain “noes,”
And wore a sweet unmeaning smile;
Yet, oh, they won’t propose!

Last night, at Lady Ramble’s rout,
I heard Sir Harry Gale
Exclaim, “Now, I propose again——”
I started, turning pale;
I really thought my time was come,
I blush’d like any rose;
But, oh! I found ’twas only at
_Ecarté_ he’d propose!

And what is to be done, mamma?
Oh, what is to be done?
I really have no time to lose,
For I am thirty-one.
At balls, I am too often left
Where spinsters sit in rows;
Why won’t the men propose, mamma?
Why won’t the men propose?
_Thomas Haynes Bayly._

ASK AND HAVE

“OH, ’tis time I should talk to your mother,
Sweet Mary,” says I;
“Oh, don’t talk to my mother,” says Mary,
Beginning to cry:
“For my mother says men are deceivers,
And never, I know, will consent;
She says girls in a hurry who marry,
At leisure repent.”

“Then, suppose I would talk to your father,
Sweet Mary,” says I;
“Oh, don’t talk to my father,” says Mary,
Beginning to cry:
“For my father he loves me so dearly,
He’ll never consent I should go—
If you talk to my father,” says Mary,
“He’ll surely say, ‘No.’”

“Then how shall I get you, my jewel?
Sweet Mary,” says I;
“If your father and mother’s so cruel,
Most surely I’ll die!”
“Oh, never say die, dear,” says Mary;
“A way now to save you I see;
Since my parents are both so contrary—
You’d better ask me!”
_Samuel Lover._

LINES IN A YOUNG LADY’S ALBUM

A PRETTY task, Miss S——, to ask
A Benedictine pen,
That cannot quite at freedom write
Like those of other men.
No lover’s plaint my Muse must paint
To fill this page’s span,
But be correct and recollect
I’m not a single man.

Pray only think for pen and ink
How hard to get along,
That may not turn on words that burn,
Or Love, the life of song!
Nine Muses, if I chooses, I
May woo all in a clan,
But one Miss S—— I daren’t address—
I’m not a single man.

Scribblers unwed, with little head
May eke it out with heart,
And in their lays it often plays
A rare first-fiddle part:
They make a kiss to rhyme with bliss,
But if I so began,
I have my fears about my ears—
I’m not a single man.

Upon your cheek I may not speak,
Nor on your lip be warm,
I must be wise about your eyes,
And formal with your form;
Of all that sort of thing, in short,
On T. H. Bayly’s plan,
I must not twine a single line—
I’m not a single man.

A watchman’s part compels my heart
To keep you off its beat,
And I might dare as soon to swear
At you as at your feet.
I can’t expire in passion’s fire,
As other poets can—
My wife (she’s by) won’t let me die—
I’m not a single man.

Shut out from love, denied a dove,
Forbidden bow and dart,
Without a groan to call my own,
With neither hand nor heart,
To Hymen vowed, and not allowed
To flirt e’en with your fan,
Here end, as just a friend, I must—
I’m not a single man.
_Thomas Hood._

THE TIME OF ROSES

IT was not in the winter
Our loving lot was cast;
It was the time of roses,—
We plucked them as we passed.

That churlish season never frowned
On earthly lovers yet:
Oh, no! the world was newly crowned
With flowers when first we met!

’Twas twilight, and I bade you go,
But still you held me fast;
It was the time of roses,—
We plucked them as we passed.

What else could peer thy glowing cheek,
That tears began to stud?
And when I asked the like of Love,
You snatched a damask bud;

And oped it to the dainty core,
Still glowing to the last.
It was the time of roses,—
We plucked them as we passed.
_Thomas Hood._

LOVE

O LOVE! What art thou, Love? the ace of hearts,
Trumping Earth’s kings and Queens, and all its suits;
A player masquerading many parts
In life’s odd carnival;—A boy that shoots,
From ladies’ eyes, such mortal woundy darts;
A gardener, pulling heart’s-ease up by the roots;
The Puck of Passion—partly false—part real—
A marriageable maiden’s “beau-ideal.”

O Love, what art thou, Love? a wicked thing,
Making green misses spoil their work at school;
A melancholy man, cross-gartering?
Grave ripe-faced wisdom made an April fool?
A youngster tilting at a wedding-ring?
A sinner, sitting on a cuttie stool?
A Ferdinand de Something in a hovel,
Helping Matilda Rose to make a novel?

O Love! what art thou, Love? one that is bad
With palpitations of the heart—like mine—
A poor bewildered maid, making so sad
A necklace of her garters—fell design!
A poet gone unreasonably mad,
Ending his sonnets with a hempen line?
O Love!—but whither now? forgive me, pray;
I’m not the first that Love hath led astray.
_Thomas Hood._

TO HELEN

IF wandering in a wizard’s car
Through yon blue ether, I were able
To fashion of a little star
A taper for my Helen’s table;—

“What then?” she asks me with a laugh—
Why, then, with all heaven’s lustre glowing,
It would not gild her path with half
The light her love o’er mine is throwing.
_Winthrop Mackworth Praed._

THE BELLE OF THE BALL-ROOM

YEARS—years ago,—ere yet my dreams
Had been of being wise or witty,—
Ere I had done with writing themes,
Or yawn’d o’er this infernal Chitty;—
Years—years ago,—while all my joy
Was in my fowling-piece and filly,—
In short, while I was yet a boy,
I fell in love with Laura Lilly.

I saw her at the County Ball:
There, where the sounds of flute and fiddle,
Gave signal sweet, in that old hall,
Of hands across and down the middle,
Hers was the subtlest spell by far
Of all that set young hearts romancing,
She was our queen, our rose, our star;
And then she danced—O Heaven, her dancing!

Dark was her hair, her hand was white;
Her voice was exquisitely tender;
Her eyes were full of liquid light;
I never saw a waist so slender!
Her every look, her every smile
Shot right and left a score of arrows;
I thought ’twas Venus from her Isle,
And wonder’d where she’d left her sparrows.

She talk’d,—of politics or prayers,—
Or Southey’s prose, or Wordsworth’s sonnets,—
Of danglers—or of dancing bears,
Of battles—or the last new bonnets,
By candlelight, at twelve o’clock,
To me it matter’d not a tittle;
If those bright lips had quoted Locke,
I might have thought they murmur’d Little.
Through sunny May, through sultry June,
I loved her with a love eternal;
I spoke her praises to the moon,
I wrote them to the Sunday Journal:
My mother laugh’d; I soon found out
That ancient ladies have no feeling:
My father frown’d; but how should gout
See any happiness in kneeling?

She was the daughter of a Dean,
Rich, fat, and rather apoplectic;
She had one brother, just thirteen,
Whose color was extremely hectic;
Her grandmother for many a year
Had fed the parish with her bounty;
Her second cousin was a peer,
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 locks—
Such wealth, such honors, Cupid chooses,
He cares as little for the Stocks,
As Baron Rothschild for the Muses.

She sketch’d; the vale, the wood, the beach,
Grew lovelier from her pencil’s shading:
She botanized; I envied each
Young blossom in her boudoir fading:
She warbled Handel; it was grand;
She made the Catalani jealous:
She touch’d the organ; I could stand
For hours and hours to blow the bellows.

She kept an album, too, at home,
Well fill’d 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 flatter’d, worshipp’d, bored;
Her steps were watched, her dress was noted;
Her poodle dog was quite adored,
Her sayings were extremely quoted;
She laugh’d, and every heart was glad,
As if the taxes were abolish’d;
She frown’d, and every look was sad,
As if the Opera were demolish’d.

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;
She wrote a charming hand,—and oh!
How sweetly all her notes were folded!

Our love was like most other loves;—
A little glow, a little shiver,
A rose-bud, and a pair of gloves,
And “Fly not yet”—upon the river;
Some jealousy of some one’s heir,
Some hopes of dying broken-hearted,
A miniature, a lock of hair,
The usual vows,—and then we parted.

We parted; months and years roll’d by;
We met again four summers after:
Our parting was all sob and sigh;
Our meeting was all mirth and laughter:
For in my heart’s most secret cell
There had been many other lodgers;
And she was not the ball-room’s Belle,
But only—Mrs. Something Rogers!
_Winthrop Mackworth Praed._

AMY’S CRUELTY

FAIR Amy of the terraced House!
Assist me to discover
Why you, who would not hurt a mouse,
Can torture so a lover?

You give your coffee to the cat,
You stroke the dog for coming,
And all your face grows kinder at
The little brown bee’s humming.

But when he haunts your door—the town
Marks coming and marks going—
You seem to have stitched your eyelids down
To that long piece of sewing!

You never give a look, not you,
Nor drop him a “Good-morning,”
To keep his long day warm and blue,
So fretted by your scorning.

She shook her head—“The mouse and bee
For crumb or flower will linger;
The dog is happy at my knee,
The cat purrs at my finger.

“But he—to him, the least thing given
Means great things at a distance:
He wants my world, my sun, my heaven,
Soul, body, whole existence.

“They say love gives as well as takes;
But I’m a simple maiden,—
My mother’s first smile when she wakes
I still have smiled and prayed in.

“I only know my mother’s love,
Which gives all and asks nothing;
And this new loving sets the groove
Too much the way of loathing.

“Unless he gives me all in ’change,
I forfeit all things by him;
The risk is terrible and strange;
I tremble, doubt—deny him.

“His sweetest friend, or hardest foe,
Best angel or worst devil,
I either hate—or love him so,
I can’t be merely civil!

“Such love’s a cowslip-ball to fling,
A moment’s pretty pastime;
I give—all me, if anything,
The first time, and the last time.

“Dear neighbour of the trellised house!
A man should murmur never,
Though treated worse than dog or mouse,
Till doted on for ever.”
_Elizabeth Barrett Browning._

BEWARE!