Verses and Translations | Page 6

they twain fare,
The gent, and the son of the
stout porter,
Who fled like an arrow, nor turned a hair,
Through all the mire and muck:
"A ticket, a ticket, sir clerk, I pray:

For by two of the clock must I needs away."
"That may hardly be,"
the clerk did say,
"For indeed--the clocks have struck."
VOICES OF THE NIGHT.
"The tender Grace of a day that is past."
The dew is on the roses,
The owl hath spread her wing;
And vocal are the noses
Of peasant and of king:
"Nature" (in short) "reposes;"
But I do no such thing.
Pent in my lonesome study

Here I must sit and muse;
Sit till the morn grows ruddy,
Till, rising with the dews,
"Jeameses" remove the muddy
Spots from their masters' shoes.
Yet are sweet faces flinging
Their witchery o'er me here:
I hear sweet voices singing
A song as soft, as clear,
As (previously to stinging)
A gnat sings round one's ear.
Does Grace draw young Apollos
In blue mustachios still?
Does Emma tell the swallows
How she will pipe and trill,
When, some fine day, she follows
Those birds to the window-sill?
And oh! has Albert faded
From Grace's memory yet?
Albert, whose "brow was shaded
By locks of glossiest jet,"
Whom almost any lady'd
Have given her eyes to get?
Does not her conscience smite her
For one who hourly pines,
Thinking her bright eyes brighter
Than any star that shines -
I mean of course the writer
Of these pathetic lines?

Who knows? As quoth Sir Walter,
"Time rolls his ceaseless course:
"The Grace of yore" may alter -
And then, I've one resource:
I'll invest in a bran-new halter,
And I'll perish without remorse.
LINES SUGGESTED BY THE FOURTEENTH OF FEBRUARY.
Ere the morn the East has crimsoned,
When the stars are twinkling there,
(As they did in Watts's Hymns,
and
Made him wonder what they were:)
When the forest-nymphs are
beading
Fern and flower with silvery dew -
My infallible proceeding
Is to wake, and think of you.
When the hunter's ringing bugle
Sounds farewell to field and copse,
And I sit before my frugal
Meal of gravy-soup and chops:
When (as Gray remarks) "the moping
Owl doth to the moon complain,"
And the hour suggests eloping -
Fly my thoughts to you again.
May my dreams be granted never?
Must I aye endure affliction
Rarely realised, if ever,
In our wildest works of fiction?
Madly Romeo loved his Juliet;

Copperfield began to pine
When he hadn't been to school yet -
But their loves were cold to mine.
Give me hope, the least, the dimmest,
Ere I drain the poisoned cup:
Tell me I may tell the chymist
Not to make that arsenic up!
Else, this heart shall soon cease
throbbing;
And when, musing o'er my bones,
Travellers ask, "Who killed Cock
Robin?"
They'll be told, "Miss Sarah J-s."
A, B, C.
A is an Angel of blushing eighteen:
B is the Ball where the Angel
was seen:
C is her Chaperone, who cheated at cards:
D is the
Deuxtemps, with Frank of the Guards:
E is the Eye which those dark
lashes cover:
F is the Fan it peeped wickedly over:
G is the Glove
of superlative kid:
H is the Hand which it spitefully hid:
I is the Ice
which spent nature demanded:
J is the Juvenile who hurried to hand it:

K is the Kerchief, a rare work of art:
L is the Lace which composed
the chief part.
M is the old Maid who watch'd the girls dance:
N is
the Nose she turned up at each glance:
O is the Olga (just then in its
prime):
P is the Partner who wouldn't keep time:
Q 's a Quadrille,
put instead of the Lancers:
R the Remonstrances made by the dancers:

S is the Supper, where all went in pairs:
T is the Twaddle they
talked on the stairs:
U is the Uncle who 'thought we'd be going':
V
is the Voice which his niece replied 'No' in:
W is the Waiter, who sat
up till eight:
X is his Exit, not rigidly straight:
Y is a Yawning fit
caused by the Ball:
Z stands for Zero, or nothing at all.
TO MRS. GOODCHILD.
The night-wind's shriek is pitiless and hollow,

The boding bat flits by on sullen wing,
And I sit desolate, like that
"one swallow"
Who found (with horror) that he'd not brought spring: Lonely as he
who erst with venturous thumb
Drew from its pie-y lair the solitary
plum.
And to my gaze the phantoms of the Past,
The cherished fictions of my boyhood, rise:
I see Red Ridinghood
observe, aghast,
The fixed expression of her grandam's eyes;
I hear the fiendish
chattering and chuckling
Which those misguided fowls raised at the
Ugly Duckling.
The House that Jack built--and the Malt that lay
Within the House--the Rat that ate the Malt -
The Cat, that in that
sanguinary way
Punished the poor thing for its venial fault -
The Worrier-Dog--the
Cow with Crumpled horn -
And then--ah yes! and then--the Maiden
all forlorn!
O Mrs. Gurton--(may I call thee Gammer?)
Thou more than