In female conduct flaw Faith still I've in the law Once Uncle went astray, Changed is the child of sin, Changed is the garb he wore, If all's as best befits All's for the best, indeed Frederick Locker. CIRCUMSTANCE THE ORANGE IT ripen'd by the river banks, Where, mask and moonlight aiding, Dons Blas and Juan play their pranks, By Moorish damsel it was pluck'd, He could not know in Pimlico, That I should reel upon that peel, And Frederick Locker. THE DEAN'S DAUGHTER. AUTUMNAL Sunshine seems to fall Whose owner wears the mystic mitre : With hues no cloudy weather weakens, To ripeness laymen never know, For deans and canons and archdeacons. Dean Willmott's was a pleasant place, A river wandered through the meadows. 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 Dean Willmott's motto was Dormivi.' Dean Willmott's mental life was spent In Arabic and architecture: The Laureate's self could not describe her: A waist so delicately slender- Was half so white and soft and tender. 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, Thro' becks that brattled o'er grasses sheen, Songbirds darted about, some inky 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: 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,' Eden A rhyme most novel, I do maintain : |