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In female conduct flaw
Sadder I never saw,

Faith still I've in the law
Of compensation.

Once Uncle went astray,
Smoked, joked and swore away,
Sworn by he's now, by a
Large congregation.

Changed is the child of sin,
Now he's (he once was thin)
Grave, with a double chin,-
Blest be his fat form!

Changed is the garb he wore,
Preacher was never more
Prized than is Uncle for
Pulpit or platform.

If all's as best befits
Mortals of slender wits,
Then beg this muff and its
Fair owner pardon:

All's for the best, indeed
Such is my simple creed;
Still I must go and weed
Hard in my garden.

Frederick Locker.

CIRCUMSTANCE

THE ORANGE

IT ripen'd by the river banks,

Where, mask and moonlight aiding,

Dons Blas and Juan play their pranks,
Dark Donnas serenading.

By Moorish damsel it was pluck'd,
Beneath the golden day there;
By swain 'twas then in London suck'd,
Who flung the peel away there.

He could not know in Pimlico,
As little she in Seville,

That I should reel upon that peel,
wish them at the devil.

And

Frederick Locker.

THE DEAN'S DAUGHTER.

AUTUMNAL Sunshine seems to fall
With riper beauty, mellower, brighter,
On every favoured garden wall

Whose owner wears the mystic mitre :
And apricots and peaches grow,

With hues no cloudy weather weakens, To ripeness laymen never know,

For deans and canons and archdeacons.

Dean Willmott's was a pleasant place,
Close under the cathedral shadows;
Old elm-trees lent it antique grace;

A river wandered through the meadows.
Well-ordered vines and fruit-trees filled

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The terrace walk; no branch had gone astray Since monks, in horticulture skilled,

Had planned those gardens for their monast❜ry.

Calm, silent, sunny: whispereth

No tone about that sleepy Deanery, Save when the mighty organ's breath

Came husht through endless aisles of greenery. No eastern breezes swung in air

The great elm-boughs, or crisped the ivy: The powers of nature seemed aware

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Dean Willmott's motto was Dormivi.'

Dean Willmott's mental life was spent

In Arabic and architecture:
On both of these most eloquent
It was a treat to hear him lecture.
His dinners were exceeding fine,
His quiet jests extremely witty:
He kept the very best port wine
In that superb cathedral city."
But O the daughter of the Dean!

The Laureate's self could not describe her:
So sweet a creature ne'er was seen
Beside Eurotas, Xanthus, Tiber.
So light a foot, a lip so red,

A waist so delicately slender-
Not Cypris, fresh from Ocean's bed,

Was half so white and soft and tender.
Heigho! the daughter of the Dean!
Beneath those elm-trees apostolic,
While autumn sunlight danced between,
We two had many a merry frolic.
Sweet Sybil Willmott! long ago
To your young heart was love a visitor :
And often have I wished to know
How you could marry a solicitor.

Mortimer Collins.

LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION 1

In moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter (And heaven it knoweth what that may mean; Meaning, however, is no great matter),

Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween;

Thro' God's own heather we wonn'd together,
I and my Willie (O love my love):
I need hardly remark it was glorious weather,
And flitterbats wavered alow, above:
Boats were curtseying, rising, bowing
(Boats in that climate are so polite),
And sands were a ribbon of green endowing,
And O the sundazzle on bark and bight!
Thro' the rare red heather we danced together,
(O love my Willie!) and smelt for flowers:
I must mention again it was gorgeous weather,
Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours:
By rises that flush'd with their purple favours,

Thro' becks that brattled o'er grasses sheen,
We walked and waded, we two young shavers,
Thanking our stars we were both so green.
We journeyed in parallels, I and Willie,
In fortunate parallels! Butterflies,
Hid in weltering shadows of daffodilly
Or marjoram, kept making peacock eyes:

Songbirds darted about, some inky
As coal, some snowy (I ween) as curds;
1 A parody of Miss Ingelow's poem, 'Divided.'

1

Or rosy

as pinks, or as roses pinkyThey reck of no eerie To-come, those birds!

But they skim over bents which the millstream washes,

Or hang in the lift 'neath a white cloud's hem; They need no parasols, no goloshes;

And good Mrs Trimmer she feedeth them.

Then we thrid God's cowslips (as erst His heather)

That endowed the wan grass with their golden blooms;

And snapt (it was perfectly charming weather)— Our fingers at Fate and her goddess-glooms:

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And Willie 'gan sing (O, his notes were fluty: Wafts fluttered them out to the white wing'd sea)

Something made up of rhymes that have done much duty,

Rhymes (better to put it) of ancientry.'

Bowers of flowers encountered showers

In William's carol-(O love my Willie!) Then he bade sorrow borrow from blithe tomorrow

I quite forget what-say a daffodilly:

A nest in a hollow, with buds to follow,'
I think occurred next in his nimble strain ;
And clay that was 'kneaden' of course in

Eden

A rhyme most novel, I do maintain :

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