"Alas! some happy, happy day

In church I hoped to stand,
And like a muff of sable skin
Receive your lily hand;

But sternly with that piebald match
My fate untimely clashes-
For now, like Pompe-double-i,

I'm sleeping in my ashes!

"And now farewell!-a last farewell!
I'm wanted down below,

And have but time enough to add
One word before I go,—
In mourning crape and bombazine
Ne'er spend your precious pelf-
Don't go in black for me,—for I
Can do it for myself.

"Henceforth within my grave I rest,
But Death who there inherits,
Allow'd my spirit leave to come,
You seem'd so out of spirits;
But do not sigh, and do not cry,
By grief too much engross'd-
Nor, for a ghost of colour, turn
The colour of a ghost!

'Again farewell, my Phœbe dear! Once more a last adieu!

For I must make myself as scarce

As swans of sable hue."

From black to grey, from grey to nought,

The shape began to fade,

And, like an egg, though not so white,

The Ghost was newly laid!

TO MR. WRENCH AT THE ENGLISH OPERA HOUSE.1

H very pleasant Mr. Wrench,

The first, upon the pit's first bench,
I've scrambled to my place,

To hail thee on these summer boards,

With joy, even critic-craft affords,

And watch thy welcome face!

Ere thou art come, how I rejoice
To hear thy free and easy voice,
Lounging about the slips;

And then thy figure comes and owns
The voice as careless as the tones
That saunter from thy lips.

Oh come and cast a quiet glance,
To glad a nameless friend, askance
The lamps' ascending glare;
Better it is than bended knees,

Heart-squeezing, and profound congés-
That old familiar air.

Even in the street, in that apt face,
Full of gay gravity, I trace

The soul of native whim;

A constant, never-failing store

Of quiet mirth, that ne'er runs o'er,
But aye is near the brim.

Quoth I, "There goes a happy wight,
Inimical to spleen and spite,

And careless of all care;

Who oils the ruffled waves of strife,

And makes the work-day suit of life
Of very easy wear.

Lord! if he had some people's ills

To cope-their hungry bonds and bills,
How faintly they would tease;

Things that have cost both tears and sighs

! The Adelphi.

Their foes, as motelings in his eyes-
Their duns, his summer fleas!

The stage, I guess, is not thy school-
Thou dost not antic like the fool
That wept behind his mask;
Thy playing is thy play-a sport-
A revel, as perform'd at Court,
And not a trade-a task!

Gay Freeman, art thou hired for him?
No-'tis thy humour and thy whim
To be that easy guest;
Whereas whoever plays for pelf,
(Like Bennett) only gives him-self,
Or her-like Mrs. West!

Nay, thou-to look beyond the stage,
Thy life is but another page
Continued of the play;

The same companionable sprite—
Thy whim and pleasantry by night

Are with thee in the day!

LOVE, WITH A WITNESS.

E has shav'd off his whiskers and blacken'd his

brows,

Wears a patch and a wig of false hair,

But it's him-Oh it's him!-we exchanged lovers' vows,

When I lived up in Cavendish Square.

He had beautiful eyes, and his lips were the same,
And his voice was as soft as a flute-

Like a Lord or a Marquis he look'd when he came,
To make love in his master's best suit.

If I lived for a thousand long years from my birth,
I shall never forget what he told;

How he lov'd me beyond the rich women of earth,
With their jewels and silver and gold?

When he kiss'd me and bade me adieu with a sigh,
By the light of the sweetest of moons,

Oh how little I dreamt I was bidding good-bye
To my Missis's tea-pot and spoons!

LINES BY A SCHOOL-BOY.

HEN I was first a scholar, I went to Dr. Monk,
And elephant-like I had, sir, a cake put in my trunk;
The Rev. Doctor Monk, sir, was very grave and prim,
He stood full six foot high, sir, and we all looked up
to him.

They didn't pinch and starve us, as here they do at York,
For every boy was ask'd, sir, to bring a knife and fork.
And then I had a chum too, to fag and all of that,
I made him sum up my sums too, and eat up all my fat.

For goodness we had prizes, and birch for doing ili,
But none of the Birch that visits the bottom of Cornhill.

And we'd half a dozen ushers to teach us Latin and Greek,
And all we'd got in our heads, sir, was combed out once a week.

And then we had a shop, too, for lollipops and squibs,
Where I often had a lick, sir, at Buonaparty's ribs !
Oh! if I was at Clapham, at my old school again,
In the rod I could fancy honey, and sugar in the cane.

ADDRESS TO MARIA DARLINGTON

"It was Maria!

ON HER RETURN TO THE STAGE.

And better fate did Maria deserve than to have her banns forbid

She had, since that, she told me, strayed as far as Rome, and walked round St. Peter's once-and returned back-."

See the whole story in Sterne and the newspapers.

HOU art come back again to the stage

Quite as blooming as when thou didst leave

it;

And 'tis well for this fortunate age

That thou didst not, by going off, grieve it! It is pleasant to see thee again—

Right pleasant to see thee, by Herclé, Unmolested by pea-colour'd Hayne! And free from that thou-and-thee Berkeley!

Thy sweet foot, my Foote, is as light
(Not my Foote—I speak by correction)
As the snow on some mountain at night,
Or the snow that has long on thy neck shone.
The Pit is in raptures to free thee,

The Boxes impatient to greet thee,

The Galleries quite clam'rous to see thee,
And thy scenic relations to meet thee!

Ah, where was thy sacred retreat?
Maria! ah, where hast thou been,
With thy two little wandering Feet,
Far away from all peace and pea-green!
Far away from Fitzhardinge the bold,
Far away from himself and his lot!

I envy the place thou hast stroll'd,

If a stroller thou art-which thou'rt not!

Sterne met thee, poor wandering thing,
Methinks, at the close of the day—
When thy Billy had just slipp'd his string,
And thy little dog quite gone astray-
He bade thee to sorrow no more-
He wish'd thee to lull thy distress
In his bosom-he couldn't do more,
And a Christian could hardly do less!

Ah, me! for thy small plaintive pipe
I fear we must look at thine eye-

That eye-forced so often to wipe
That the handkerchief never got dry!
Oh sure 'tis a barbarous deed

To give pain to the feminine mind—
But the wooer that left thee to bleed

Was a creature more killing than kind!