Verses and Translations | Page 7

mother to my infant mind!
I loved thee better than I
loved my grammar -
I used to wonder why the Mice were blind,
And who was gardener to
Mistress Mary,
And what--I don't know still--was meant by "quite
contrary"?
"Tota contraria," an "Arundo Cami"
Has phrased it--which is possibly explicit,
Ingenious certainly--but all

the same I
Still ask, when coming on the word, 'What is it?'
There were more
things in Mrs. Gurton's eye,
Mayhap, than are dreamed of in our
philosophy.
No doubt the Editor of 'Notes and Queries'
Or 'Things not generally known' could tell
That word's real force--my
only lurking fear is
That the great Gammer "didna ken hersel":
(I've precedent, yet feel I
owe apology
For passing in this way to Scottish phraseology).
Alas, dear Madam, I must ask your pardon
For making this unwarranted digression,
Starting (I think) from
Mistress Mary's garden:-
And beg to send, with every expression
Of personal esteem, a Book
of Rhymes,
For Master G. to read at miscellaneous times.
There is a youth, who keeps a 'crumpled Horn,'
(Living next me, upon the selfsame story,)
And ever, 'twixt the
midnight and the morn,
He solaces his soul with Annie Laurie.
The tune is good; the habit
p'raps romantic;
But tending, if pursued, to drive one's neighbours
frantic.
And now,--at this unprecedented hour,
When the young Dawn is "trampling out the stars," -
I hear that
youth--with more than usual power
And pathos--struggling with the first few bars.
And I do think the

amateur cornopean
Should be put down by law--but that's perhaps
Utopian.
Who knows what "things unknown" I might have "bodied
Forth," if not checked by that absurd Too-too?
But don't I know that
when my friend has plodded
Through the first verse, the second will ensue?
Considering which,
dear Madam, I will merely
Send the aforesaid book--and am yours
most sincerely.
ODE--'ON A DISTANT PROSPECT' OF MAKING A FORTUNE.
Now the "rosy morn appearing"
Floods with light the dazzled heaven;
And the schoolboy groans on
hearing
That eternal clock strike seven:-
Now the waggoner is driving
Towards the fields his clattering wain;
Now the bluebottle, reviving,
Buzzes down his native pane.
But to me the morn is hateful:
Wearily I stretch my legs,
Dress, and settle to my plateful
Of (perhaps inferior) eggs.
Yesterday Miss Crump, by message,
Mentioned "rent," which "p'raps I'd pay;"
And I have a dismal
presage
That she'll call, herself, to-day.
Once, I breakfasted off rosewood,

Smoked through silver-mounted pipes -
Then how my patrician nose
would
Turn up at the thought of "swipes!"
Ale,--occasionally claret, -
Graced my luncheon then:- and now
I drink porter in a garret,
To be paid for heaven knows how.
When the evening shades are deepened,
And I doff my hat and gloves,
No sweet bird is there to "cheep and
Twitter twenty million loves:"
No dark-ringleted canaries
Sing to me of "hungry foam;"
No imaginary "Marys"
Call fictitious "cattle home."
Araminta, sweetest, fairest!
Solace once of every ill!
How I wonder if thou bearest
Mivins in remembrance still!
If that Friday night is banished
Yet from that retentive mind,
When the others somehow vanished,
And we two were left behind:-
When in accents low, yet thrilling,
I did all my love declare;
Mentioned that I'd not a shilling -
Hinted that we need not care:
And complacently you listened
To my somewhat long address -
(Listening, at the same time, isn't
Quite the same as saying Yes).

Once, a happy child, I carolled
O'er green lawns the whole day through,
Not unpleasingly apparelled
In a tightish suit of blue:-
What a change has now passed o'er me!
Now with what dismay I see
Every rising morn before me!
Goodness gracious, patience me!
And I'll prowl, a moodier Lara,
Through the world, as prowls the bat,
And habitually wear a
Cypress wreath around my hat:
And when Death snuffs out the taper
Of my Life, (as soon he must),
I'll send up to every paper,
"Died, T. Mivins; of disgust."
ISABEL.
Now o'er the landscape crowd the deepening shades,
And the shut lily
cradles not the bee;
The red deer couches in the forest glades,
And faint the echoes of the slumberous sea:
And ere I rest, one prayer
I'll breathe for thee,
The sweet Egeria of my lonely dreams:
Lady, forgive, that ever upon me
Thoughts of thee linger, as the soft
starbeams
Linger on Merlin's rock, or dark Sabrina's streams.
On gray Pilatus once we loved to stray,
And watch far off the
glimmering roselight break
O'er the dim mountain-peaks, ere yet one
ray
Pierced the deep bosom of the mist-clad lake.
Oh! who felt not new
life within him wake,
And his pulse quicken, and his spirit burn -

(Save one we wot of, whom the cold DID make
Feel "shooting pains
in every joint in turn,")
When first he saw the sun gild thy green
shores, Lucerne?
And years have past, and I have gazed once more
On blue lakes
glistening beneath mountains blue;
And all seemed sadder, lovelier
than before -
For all awakened memories of you.
Oh! had I had you by my side, in
lieu
Of