Chapter I: PLAY’D with you ’mid cowslips blowing

When I was six and you were four:
When garlands weaving, flower balls throwing,
Were pleasures soon to please no more.
Thro’ groves and meads, o’er grass and heather,
With little playmates, to and fro,
We wander’d hand in hand together;
But that was sixty years ago.

You grew a lovely roseate maiden,
And still our early love was strong;
Still with no care our days were laden,
They glided joyously along;
And I did love you very dearly—
How dearly, words want power to show;
I thought your heart was touched as nearly;
But that was fifty years ago.

Then other lovers came around you,
Your beauty grew from year to year,
And many a splendid circle found you
The centre of its glittering sphere.
I saw you then, first vows forsaking,
On rank and wealth your hand bestow;
O, then, I thought my heart was breaking,—
But that was forty years ago.

And I lived on to wed another:
No cause she gave me to repine;
And when I heard you were a mother,
I did not wish the children mine.
My own young flock, in fair progression,
Made up a pleasant Christmas row:
My joy in them was past expression;—
But that was thirty years ago.

You grew a matron plump and comely,
You dwelt in fashion’s brightest blaze;
My earthly lot was far more homely;
But I too had my festal days.
No merrier eyes have ever glistened
Around the hearth-stone’s wintry glow,
Than when my youngest child was christen’d:—
But that was twenty years ago.

Time passed. My eldest girl was married
And I now am a grandsire grey;
One pet of four years old I’ve carried
Among the wild-flower’d meads to play.
In our old fields of childish pleasure,
Where now, as then, the cowslips blow,
She fills her basket’s ample measure,—
And that is not ten years ago.

But tho’ first love’s impassion’d blindness
Has pass’d away in colder light,
I still have thought of you with kindness,
And shall do, till our last good-night.
The ever rolling silent hours
Will bring a time we shall not know,
When our young days of gathering flowers
Will be an hundred years ago.
_Thomas L. Peacock._

CLUBS

IF any man loves comfort and has little cash to buy it, he
Should get into a crowded club—a most select society,—
While solitude and mutton-cutlets serve _infelix uxor_, he
May have his club, like Hercules, and revel there in luxury.

Yes, clubs knock taverns on the head. E’en Hatchett’s can’t
demolish ’em;
Joy grieves to see their magnitude, and Long longs to abolish ’em.
The Inns are out. Hotels for single men scarce keep alive on it,
While none but houses that are in the family way thrive on it.

There’s first the Athenæum Club; so wise, there’s not a man of it
That has not sense enough for six—in fact, that is the plan of it.
The very waiters answer you with eloquence Socratical,
And always place the knives and forks in order mathematical.

Then opposite the mental club you’ll find the regimental one—
A meeting made of men of war, and yet a very gentle one.
If uniform good living please your palate, here’s excess of it.
Especially at private dinners, when they make a mess of it.

E’en Isis has a house in town and Cam abandons her city;
The master now hangs out at the United University.
In common room she gave a rout (a novel freak to hit upon),
Where Masters gave the Mistresses of Arts no chairs to sit upon.

The Union Club is quite superb; its best apartment daily is
The lounge of lawyers, doctors, merchants, beaux, _cum multis
aliis_.
At half-past six the joint concern for eighteen pence is given you,
Half-pints of port are sent in ketchup-bottles to enliven you.

The Travellers are in Pall Mall, and smoke cigars so cosily,
And dream they climb the highest Alps or rove the plains of Moselai.
The world for them has nothing new, they have explored all parts
of it,
And now they are club-footed, and they sit and look at charts of it.

The Orientals, homeward-bound, now seek their club much sallower,
And while they eat green fat they find their own fat growing
yellower.
Their soup is made more savoury, till bile to shadows dwindles ’em,
And neither Moore nor Savory with seidlitz draughts rekindles ’em.

Then there are clubs where persons parliamentary preponderate,
And clubs for men upon the turf (I wonder they ar’n’t under it);
Clubs where the winning ways of sharper folks pervert the use of
clubs,
Where knaves will make subscribers cry, “Egad! this is the deuce
of clubs!”

For country squires the only club in London now is Boodle’s, sirs,
The Crockford Club for playful men, the Alfred Club for noodles,
sirs:
These are the stages which all men propose to play their parts upon,
For Clubs are what the Londoners have clearly set their hearts upon.
_Theodore Hook._

TO ANNE

HOW many kisses do I ask?
Now you set me to my task.
First, sweet Anne, will you tell me
How many waves are in the sea?
How many stars are in the sky?
How many lovers you make sigh?
How many sands are on the shore?
I shall want just one kiss more.
_William Maxwell._

SONG

DOST thou idly ask to hear
At what gentle seasons
Nymphs relent, when lovers near
Press the tenderest reasons?
Ah, they give their faith too oft
To the careless wooer;
Maidens’ hearts are always soft—
Would that men’s were truer!

Woo the fair one, when around
Early birds are singing;
When, o’er all the fragrant ground,
Early herbs are springing:
When the brookside, bank, and grove,
All with blossoms laden,
Shine with beauty, breathe of love,—
Woo the timid maiden.

Woo her when, with rosy blush,
Summer eve is sinking;
When, on rills that softly gush,
Stars are softly winking;
When, through boughs that knit the bower,
Moonlight gleams are stealing;
Woo her, till the gentle hour
Wakes a gentler feeling.

Woo her, when autumnal dyes
Tinge the woody mountain;
When the dropping foliage lies
In the weedy fountain;
Let the scene that tells how fast
Youth is passing over,
Warn her, ere her bloom is past,
To secure her lover.

Woo her when the north winds call
At the lattice nightly;
When within the cheerful hall
Blaze the fagots brightly;
While the wintry tempest round
Sweeps the landscape hoary,
Sweeter in her ears shall sound
Love’s delightful story.
_William Cullen Bryant._

WHAT IS LONDON’S LAST NEW LION?

WHAT is London’s last new lion? Pray, inform me if you can;
Is’t a woman of Kamschatka or an Otaheite man?
For my _conversazione_ you must send me something new,
Don’t forget me! Oh I sigh for the _eclat_ of a _debut_!

I am sick of all the “minstrels,” all the “brothers” this and that,
Who sing sweetly at the parties, while the ladies laugh and chat;
And the man who play’d upon his chin is _passé_, I suppose
So try and find a gentleman who plays upon his nose.

Send half-a-dozen authors, for they help to fill a rout,
I fear I’ve worn the literary lionesses out!
Send something biographical, I think that fashion spreads,
But do not send a poet, till you find one with two heads.

The town has grown fastidious, we do not care a straw
For the whiskers of a bandit, or the tail of a bashaw!
And travellers are out of date, I mean to cut them soon,
Unless you send me some one who has travelled to the moon.

Oh, if you send a singer, he must sing without a throat!
Oh, if you send a player, he must harp upon one note!
I must have something marvellous, the marvel makes the man;
What is London’s last new lion? Pray, inform me if you can.
_Thomas Haynes Bayly._

I’D BE A BUTTERFLY

I’D be a Butterfly born in a bower,
Where roses and lilies and violets meet;
Roving for ever from flower to flower,
And kissing all buds that are pretty and sweet!
I’d never languish for wealth, or for power,
I’d never sigh to see slaves at my feet;
I’d be a Butterfly born in a bower,
Kissing all buds that are pretty and sweet.

O could I pilfer the wand of a fairy,
I’d have a pair of those beautiful wings;
Their summer days’ ramble is sportive and airy,
They sleep in a rose when the nightingale sings.
Those who have wealth must be watchful and wary;
Power, alas! nought but misery brings!
I’d be a Butterfly, sportive and airy,
Rock’d in a rose when the nightingale sings!

What, though you tell me each gay little rover
Shrinks from the breath of the first autumn day:
Surely ’tis better when summer is over
To die when all fair things are fading away.
Some in life’s winter may toil to discover
Means of procuring a weary delay—
I’d be a Butterfly; living, a rover,
Dying when fair things are fading away!
_Thomas Haynes Bayly._

“I MUST COME OUT NEXT SPRING”