What though the EIGHTH COMMANDMENT rose to mind,

It only served a moment's qualm to move; For thefts like this it could not be designedThe Eighth Commandment WAS NOT MADE FOR LOVE!

Here, when she took the macaroons from me, She wiped her mouth to clear the crumbs so sweet!

Dear napkin! Yes; she wiped her lips on thee!
Lips sweeter than the macaroons she eat.

And when she took that pinch of Moccabaw,
That made my love so delicately sneeze,
Thee to her Roman nose applied I saw,

And thou art doubly dear for things like these.

No washerwoman's filthy hand shall e'er,

SWEET POCKET

HANDKERCHIEF! thy worth

For thou hast touch'd the rubies of my fair,
And I will kiss thee o'er and o'er again.
Robert Southey.

TO FANNY

NEVER mind how the pedagogue proses,
You want not antiquity's stamp,

The lips that's so scented by roses
Oh! never must smell of the lamp.

Old Chloe, whose withering kisses/
Have long set the loves at defiance,
Now done with the science of blisses,
May fly to the blisses of Science!

*

Young Sappho, for want of employments,
Alone o'er her Ovid may melt,
Condemn'd but to read of enjoyments,
Which wiser Corinna had felt.

But for you to be buried in books—
Oh, Fanny! they're pitiful sages;
Who could not, in one of your looks
Read more than in millions of pages!

Astronomy finds in your eye

Better light than she studies above, And music must borrow your sigh As the melody dearest to love.

In ethics 'tis you that can check

In a minute their doubts and their quarrels; Oh! show but that mole on your neck,

And 'twill soon put an end to their morals.

Your arithmetic only can trip

When to kiss and to count you endeavour; But eloquence glows on your lips

When you swear that you'll love me for ever

Thus you see what a brilliant alliance
Of arts is assembled in you—
A course of more exquisite science
Man never need wish to go through.

And oh! if a fellow like me

May confer a diploma of hearts, With my lips thus I seal your degree, My divine little Mistress of Arts!

Thomas Moore.

PADDY'S METAMORPHOSIS

ABOUT fifty years since, in the days of our daddies, That plan was commenced which the wise now applaud,

Of skipping off Ireland's most turbulent Paddies, As good raw materials for settlers, abroad.

Some West Indian Island, whose name I forget, Was the region then chosen for this scheme so romantic ;

And such the success the first colony met,

That a second, soon after, set sail o'er the Atlantic.

Behold them now safe on the long-look'd for shore, Sailing in between banks that the Shannon might

greet,

And thinking of friends whom, but two years before,

They had sorrow'd to lose, but would soon again meet.

And hark! from the shore a glad welcome there

came

Arrah, Paddy from Cork, is it you, my sweet boy?' While Pat stood astounded to hear his own name Thus hailed by black devils, who caper'd for joy! Can it possibly be?-half amazement half doubt, Pat listens again-rubs his eyes and looks steady; Then heaves a deep sigh, and in horror yells out, "Good Lord! only think-black and curly already!'

Deceived by that well-mimick'd brogue in his ears, Pat read his own doom in these wool-headed

figures,

And thought, what a climate, in less than two years

To turn a whole cargo of Pats into niggers!

MORAL

'Tis thus, but alas! by a marvel more true Than is told in this rival of Ovid's best stories, Your Whigs, when in office a short year or two, By a lusus natura, all turn into Tories.

And thus, when I hear them strong measures advise,

I

Ere the seats that they sit on have time to get steady,

.f.

say, while I listen, with tears in my eyes, Good Lord!-only think,-black and, curly already!'

Thomas Moore.

WORK

WHO first invented Work, and bound the free
And holiday-rejoicing spirit down

To the ever-haunting importunity

Of business in the green fields, and the townTo plough, loom, anvil, spade-and oh! most sad,

To that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood? Who but the Being unblest, alien from good,

C

Sabbathless Satan! he who his unglad
Task ever plies 'mid rotary burnings,

That round and round incalculably reel—

For wrath divine hath made him like a wheelIn that red realm from which are no returnings: Where toiling, and turmoiling, ever and aye, He, and his thoughts, keep pensive working-day. Charles Lamb.

THE JILTED NYMPH

I'm jilted, forsaken, outwitted;

Yet think not I'll whimper or brawl—
The lass is alone to be pitied

Who ne'er has been courted at all:
Never by great or small

Woo'd or jilted at all;

Oh, how unhappy's the lass

Who has never been courted at all!

My brother call'd out the dear faithless,
In fits I was ready to fall,

Till I found a policeman who, scathless,
Swore them both to the peace at Guildhall;
Seized them, seconds and all-

Pistols, powder and ball;

I wish'd him to die, my devoted,
But not in a duel to sprawl.

What though at my heart he has tilted,

What though I have met with a fall?

Better be courted and jilted,

Than never be courted at all.