At thirty boards, 'twixt now and then, | I fear no more the tempest rude, My knife and fork shall play; But better wine and better men I shall not meet in May. And though, good friend, with whom I dine, Your honest head is gray, And, like this grizzled head of mine, Has seen its last of May; Yet, with a heart that's ever kind, A gentle spirit gay, You've spring perennial in your mind, And round you make a May! On dreary heath no more I pine, But left my cheerless solitude, To deck the breast of Caroline. Alas our days are brief at best, Nor long I fear will mine endure, Though shelter'd here upon a breast So gentle and so pure. It draws the fragrance from my leaves, It robs me of my sweetest breath, And every time it falls and heaves, It warns me of my coming death. But one I know would glad forego All joys of life to be as I; An hour to rest on that sweet breast, And then, contented, die! I've seen her in my dreams— riding | Hark! a cry of triumph shrill up and down : And heard the ogre laugh fell into his snare, At the little tender creature wept and tore her hair! as she who Through the wilderness resounds, As, with twenty bleeding wounds, Sinks the warrior, fighting still. Now they heap the fatal pyre, And the torch of death they light: But ever when it seemed her need Ah! 'tis hard to die of fire! Who will shield the captive knight? Who avert the murderous blade? Quick she stands before the knight, Dauntlessly aside she flings Lifted axe and thirsty knife; Still 'tis told by Indian fires, LOVE-SONGS MADE EASY. WHAT MAKES MY HEART TO | My chance of all promotion's gone, THRILL AND GLOW? THE MAYFAIR LOVE-SONG. WINTER and summer, night and morn, I languish at this table dark; My office window has a corn er looks into St. James's Park. I hear the foot-guards' bugle-horn, Their tramp upon parade I mark; I am a gentleman forlorn, I am a Foreign-Office Clerk. My toils, my pleasures, every one, My notes of hand are burnt, perhaps? My IO U's are extant still. My elder brother's stout and well. What is it makes my blood to run? What makes my heart to glow and swell? I know my chief's distrust and hate; Right Honorable Edmund Burke ! I know it is, he hates me so. What is it makes my blood to run, And all my heart to swell and glow? Why, why is all so bright and gay? There is no change, there is no cause; My office-time I found to-day Disgusting as it ever was. At three, I went and tried the Clubs, And yawned and saunter'd to and fro; And now my heart jumps up and throbs, And all my soul is in a glow. At half-past four I had the cab; I drove as hard as I could go. The London sky was dirty drab, And dirty brown the London snow. And as I rattled in a cant er down by dear old Bolton Row, A something made my heart to pant, And caused my cheek to flush and glow. What could it be that made me find Old Jawkins pleasant at the Club? Why was it that I laughed and grinned At whist, although I lost the rub? What was it made me drink like mad Thirteen small glasses of Curaço? That made my inmost heart so glad, And every fibre thrill and glow? YONDER to the kiosk, beside the creek, Quick for it soothes my heart to hear the Bulbul speak. Ferry me quickly to the Asian shores, Behold, the boughs seem quivering with delight, The stars themselves more bright, As mid the waving branches out of sight The Lover of the Rose sits singing through the night. |