LUCY'S BIRTHDAY. SEVENTEEN rose-buds in a ring, Types of youth and love and hope! With fond care, and guarded so, Scarce you've heard of storms without, Frosts that bite, or winds that blow ! Kindly has your life begun, And we pray that heaven may send To our floweret a warm sun, This snug little chamber is cramm'd in all nooks With worthless old knicknacks and silly old books, And foolish old odds and foolish old ends, Crack'd bargains from brokers, cheap keepsakes from friends. Old armour, prints, pictures, pipes, china, (all crack'd,) Old rickety tables, and chairs broken-backed; A twopenny treasury, wondrous to see; What matter? 'tis pleasant to you, friend, and me. No better divan need the Sultan require, Than the creaking old sofa that basks by the fire; That praying-rug came from a Turcoman's camp; Long, long through the hours, and the night, and the chimes, Here we talk of old books, and old friends, and old times; As we sit in a fog made of rich Latakie This chamber is pleasant to you, friend, and me. But of all the cheap treasures that garnish my nest, 'Tis a bandy-legg'd, high-shoulder'd, worm-eaten seat, If chairs have but feeling, in holding such charms, I wish'd myself turn'd to a cane-bottom'd chair. It was but a moment she sat in this place, She'd a scarf on her neck, and a smile on her face ! A smile on her face, and a rose in her hair, And she sat there, and bloom'd in my cane-bottom'd chair. And so I have valued my chair ever since, The queen of my heart and my cane-bottom'd chair. When the candles burn low, and the company's gone, She comes from the past and revisits my room; PISCATOR AND PISCATRIX. LINES WRITTEN TO AN ALBUM PRINT. As on this pictured page I look, I know them both, the boy and girl; My lord the County's page is. A pleasant place for such a pair! It is too hot to pace the keep; His noonday dinner over : The postern-warder is asleep (Perhaps they've bribed him not to peep): And so from out the gate they creep, And cross the fields of clover. |