EXTRACTS FROM MY DIARY.
Monday.
Tried a new châlé gown on—pretty.
No one to see me in it—pity!
Flew in a passion with Friz, my maid;—
The Lord forgive me!—she look'd dismay'd;
But got her to sing the 100th Psalm,
While she curl'd my hair, which made me calm.
Nothing so soothes a Christian heart
As sacred music—heavenly art!
Tuesday.
At two, a visit from Mr. Magan—
A remarkably handsome, nice young man;
And, all Hibernian though he be,
As civilis'd, strange to say, as we!
I own this young man's spiritual state
Hath much engross'd my thoughts of late;
And I mean, as soon as my niece is gone,
To have some talk with him thereupon.
At present, I nought can do or say,
But that troublesome child is in the way:
Nor is there, I think, a doubt that he
Would also her absence much prefer,
As oft, while listening intent to me,
He's forc'd, from politeness, to look at her.
Heigho!—what a blessing should Mr. Magan
Turn out, after all, a “renewed” young man;
And to me should fall the task, on earth,
To assist at the dear youth's second birth.
Blest thought! and, ah, more blest the tie,
Were it heaven's high will, that he and I—
But I blush to write the nuptial word—
Should wed, as St. Paul says, “in the Lord;”
Not this world's wedlock—gross, gallant,
But pure—as when Amram married his aunt.
Our ages differ—but who would count
One's natural sinful life's amount,
Or look in the Register's vulgar page
For a regular twice-born Christian's age,
Who, blessed privilege! only then
Begins to live when he's born again.
And, counting in this way—let me see—
I myself but five years old shall be,
And dear Magan, when the' event takes place,
An actual new-born child of grace—
Should Heav'n in mercy so dispose—
A six-foot baby, in swaddling clothes.
Wednesday.
Finding myself, by some good fate,
With Mr. Magan left tête-à-tête,
Had just begun—having stirr'd the fire,
And drawn my chair near his—to inquire
What his notions were of Original Sin,
When that naughty Fanny again bounc'd in;
And all the sweet things I had got to say
Of the Flesh and the Devil were whisk'd away!
Much grieved to observe that Mr. Magan
Is actually pleased and amused with Fan!
What charms any sensible man can see
In a child so foolishly young as she—
But just eighteen, come next May-day,
With eyes, like herself, full of nought but play—
Is, I own, an exceeding puzzle to me.
