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"o ego non felix, quam tu fugis, ut pavet acres
agna lupos, capreaeque leones."--HOR.


Said a Sovereign to a Note,
In the pocket of his coat,
Where they met in a neat purse of leather,...

Of various scraps and fragments built,
Borrowed alike from fools and wits,
Dick's mind was like a patchwork quilt,
Made up of new, old, motley bits--
Where, if the Co. called in their shares,...

'Twas a new feeling--something more
Than we had dared to own before.
Which then we hid not;
We saw it in each other's eye,
And wished, in every half-breathed sigh,
To speak, but did not.
...

"vox clamantis in deserto."



Said Malthus one day to a clown
Lying stretched on the beach in the sun,--
"What's the number of souls in this town?"--...

Do not say that life is waning,
Or that hope's sweet day is set;
While I've thee and love remaining,
Life is in the horizon yet.

Do not think those charms are flying,
Tho' thy roses fade and fall;...

Dost thou remember that place so lonely,
A place for lovers and lovers only,
Where first I told thee all my secret sighs?
When, as the moonbeam that trembled o'er thee...

Dreaming for ever, vainly dreaming,
Life to the last, pursues its flight;
Day hath its visions fairly beaming,
But false as those of night.
The one illusion, the other real,...

In slumber, I prithee how is it
That souls are oft taking the air,
And paying each other a visit,
While bodies are heaven knows where?

Last night, 'tis in vain to deny it,...

Drink of this cup;--you'll find there's a spell in
Its every drop 'gainst the ills of mortality;
Talk of the cordial that sparkled for Helen!
Her cup was a fiction, but this is reality....

Drink to her, who long,
Hath waked the poet's sigh.
The girl, who gave to song
What gold could never buy.
Oh! woman's heart was made
For minstrel hands alone;
By other fingers played,...

How sweet the answer Echo makes
To music at night,
When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes,
And far away, o'er lawns and lakes,
Goes answering light.

Yet Love hath echoes truer far,...

Sic juvat perire.


When wearied wretches sink to sleep,
How heavenly soft their slumbers lie!
How sweet is death to those who weep,
To those who weep and long to die!
...

Though sorrow long has worn my heart;
Though every day I've, counted o'er
Hath brought a new and, quickening smart
To wounds that rankled fresh before;

Though in my earliest life bereft...

monstrum nulla virtute redemptum.


Come, riddle-me-ree, come, riddle-me-ree,
And tell me what my name may be.
I am nearly one hundred and thirty years old,...

What news to-day?--"Oh! worse and worse--
"Mac[1] is the Prince's Privy Purse!"--
The Prince's Purse! no, no, you fool,
You mean the Prince's Ridicule.

Said his Highness to Ned,[1] with that grim face of his,
"Why refuse us the Veto, dear Catholic Neddy?"
"Because, Sir," said Ned, looking full in his phiz,
"You're forbidding enough, in all conscience, already!"

"I want the Court Guide," said my lady, "to look
"If the House, Seymour Place, be at 30. or 20."--
"We've lost the Court Guide, Ma'am, but here's the Red Book....

"I never gave a kiss (says Prue),
"To naughty man, for I abhor it."
She will not give a kiss, 'tis true;
She'll take one though, and thank you for it.

Last night, as lonely o'er my fire I sat,
Thinking of cues, starts, exits, and--all that,
And wondering much what little knavish sprite
Had put it first in women's heads to write:--...

Dear Lyndhurst,--you'll pardon my making thus free,--
But form is all fudge 'twixt such "comrogues" as we,
Who, whate'er the smooth views we, in public, may drive at,...