Collected poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

To and fro in the City I go,
Tired of the ceaseless ebb and flow,
Sick of the crowded mart;
Tired of the din and rattle of wheels,
Sick of the dust as one who feels
The dust is over his heart.

And again and again, as the sunlight wanes,
I think of the lights in the leafy lanes,
With the bits of blue between;
And when about Rimmel's the perfumes play,
I smell no vapours of “Ess Bouquet,”
But violets hid in the green;
And I love—how I love—the plants that fill
The pots on my dust-dry window-sill,—
A sensitive sickly crop,—
But a flower that charms me more, I think,
Than cowslip, or crocus, or rose, or pink,
Blooms—in a milliner's shop.

Hazel eyes that wickedly peep,
Flash, abash, and suddenly sleep
Under the lids drawn in;

382

Ripple of hair that rioteth out,
Mouth with a half-born smile and a pout,
And a baby breadth of chin;
Hands that light as the lighting bird,
On the bloom-bent bough, and the bough is stirred
With a delicate ecstasy;
Fingers tipped with a roseate flush,
Flicking and flirting a feathery brush
Over the papery bonnetry;—
Till the gauzy rose begins to glow,
And the gauzy hyacinths break and blow,
And the dusty grape grows red;
And the flaunting grasses seem to say,
“Do we look like ornaments—tell us, we pray—
Fit for a lady's head?”
And the butterfly wakes to a wiry life,
Like an elderly gentleman taking a wife,
Knowing he must be gay,
And all the bonnets nid-noddle about,
Like chattering chaperons set at a rout,
Quarrelling over their play.

How can I otherwise choose than look
At the beautiful face like a beautiful book
And learn a tiny part?
So I feel somehow that every day
Some flake of the dust is brushed away
That had settled over my heart.

383

INCOGNITA

Just for a space that I met her—
Just for a day in the train!
It began when she feared it would wet her,
That tiniest spurtle of rain:
So we tucked a great rug in the sashes,
And carefully padded the pane;
And I sorrow in sackloth and ashes,
Longing to do it again!

Then it grew when she begged me to reach her
A dressing-case under the seat;
She was “really so tiny a creature,
That she needed a stool for her feet!”
Which was promptly arranged to her order
With a care that was even minute,
And a glimpse—of an open-work border,
And a glance—of the fairyest boot.

Then it drooped, and revived at some hovels—
“Were they houses for men or for pigs?”
Then it shifted to muscular novels,
With a little digression on prigs:
She thought “Wives and Daughters” “so jolly”
“Had I read it?” She knew when I had,
Like the rest, I should dote upon “Molly”;
And “poor Mrs. Gaskell—how sad!”

384

“Like Browning?” “But so-so.” His proof lay
Too deep for her frivolous mood,
That preferred your mere metrical soufflé
To the stronger poetical food;
Yet at times he was good—“as a tonic”:
Was Tennyson writing just now?
And was this new poet Byronic
And clever, and naughty, or how?

Then we trifled with concerts and croquêt,
Then she daintily dusted her face;
Then she sprinkled herself with “Ess Bouquet,’
Fished out from the foregoing case;
And we chattered of Gassier and Grisi,
And voted Aunt Sally a bore;
Discussed if the tight rope were easy,
Or Chopin much harder than Spohr.

And oh! the odd things that she quoted,
With the prettiest possible look,
And the price of two buns that she noted
In the prettiest possible book;
While her talk like a musical rillet
Flashed on with the hours that flew;
And the carriage, her smile seemed to fill it
With just enough summer—for Two.

Till at last in her corner, peeping
From a nest of rugs and of furs,
With the white shut eyelids sleeping
On those dangerous looks of hers,

385

She seemed like a snow-drop breaking,
Not wholly alive nor dead,
But with one blind impulse making
To the sounds of the spring overhead;

And I watched in the lamplight's swerving
The shade of the down-dropt lid,
And the lip-line's delicate curving,
Where a slumbering smile lay hid,
Till I longed that, rather than sever,
The train should shriek into space,
And carry us onward—for ever,—
Me and that beautiful face.

But she suddenly woke in a fidget,
With fears she was “nearly at home,”
And talk of a certain Aunt Bridget,
Whom I mentally wished—well, at Rome;
Got out at the very next station,
Looking back with a merry Bon Soir;
Adding, too, to my utter vexation,
A surplus, unkind Au Revoir.

So left me to muse on her graces,
To doze and to muse, till I dreamed
That we sailed through the sunniest places
In a glorified galley, it seemed;
But the cabin was made of a carriage,
And the ocean was Eau-de-Cologne,
And we split on a rock labelled Marriage,
And I woke,—as cold as a stone.

386

And that's how I lost her—a jewel,
Incognita—one in a crowd,
Not prudent enough to be cruel,
Not worldly enough to be proud.
It was just a shut lid and its lashes,
Just a few hours in a train,
And I sorrow in sackcloth and ashes,
Longing to see her again.

387

DORA VERSUS ROSE

The Case is proceeding.”

From the tragic-est novels at Mudie's—
At least, on a practical plan—
To the tales of mere Hodges and Judys,
One love is enough for a man.
But no case that I ever yet met is
Like mine: I am equally fond
Of Rose, who a charming brunette is,
And Dora, a blonde.

Each rivals the other in powers—
Each waltzes, each warbles, each paints—
Miss Rose, chiefly tumble-down towers;
Miss Do., perpendicular saints.
In short, to distinguish is folly;
'Twixt the pair I am come to the pass
Of Macheath, between Lucy and Polly,—
Or Buridan's ass.

If it happens that Rosa I've singled
For a soft celebration in rhyme,
Then the ringlets of Dora get mingled
Somehow with the tune and the time;

388

Or I painfully pen me a sonnet
To an eyebrow intended for Do.'s,
And behold I am writing upon it
The legend “To Rose.’

Or I try to draw Dora (my blotter
Is all overscrawled with her head),
If I fancy at last that I've got her,
It turns to her rival instead;
Or I find myself placidly adding
To the rapturous tresses of Rose
Miss Dora's bud-mouth, and her madding,
Ineffable nose.

Was there ever so sad a dilemma?
For Rose I would perish (pro tem.);
For Dora I'd willingly stem a—
(Whatever might offer to stem);
But to make the invidious election,—
To declare that on either one's side
I've a scruple,—a grain, more affection,
I cannot decide.

And, as either so hopelessly nice is,
My sole and my final resource
Is to wait some indefinite crisis,—
Some feat of molecular force,
To solve me this riddle conducive
By no means to peace or repose,
Since the issue can scarce be inclusive
Of Dora and Rose.

389

(Afterthought.)

But, perhaps, if a third (say a Norah),
Not quite so delightful as Rose,—
Not wholly so charming as Dora,—
Should appear, is it wrong to suppose,—
As the claims of the others are equal,—
And flight—in the main—is the best,—
That I might . . . But no matter,—the sequel
Is easily guessed.

390

AD ROSAM

“Mitte sectari, Rosa quo locorum
Sera moretur.”
—Hor. 1. 38.

I had a vacant dwelling—
Where situated, I,
As naught can serve the telling,
Decline to specify;—
Enough 'twas neither haunted,
Entailed, nor out of date;
I put up “Tenant Wanted,”
And left the rest to Fate.

Then, Rose, you passed the window,—
I see you passing yet,—
Ah, what could I within do,
When, Rose, our glances met!
You snared me, Rose, with ribbons,
Your rose-mouth made me thrall,
Brief—briefer far than Gibbon's,
Was my “Decline and Fall.”

I heard the summons spoken
That all hear—king and clown:
You smiled—the ice was broken;
You stopped—the bill was down.

391

How blind we are! It never
Occurred to me to seek
If you had come for ever,
Or only for a week.

The words your voice neglected,
Seemed written in your eyes;
The thought your heart protected,
Your cheek told, missal-wise;—
I read the rubric plainly
As any Expert could;
In short, we dreamed,—insanely,
As only lovers should.

I broke the tall Œnone,
That then my chambers graced,
Because she seemed “too bony,”
To suit your purist taste;
And you, without vexation,
May certainly confess
Some graceful approbation,
Designed à mon adresse.

You liked me then, carina,—
You liked me then, I think;
For your sake gall had been a
Mere tonic-cup to drink;
For your sake, bonds were trivial,
The rack, a tour-de-force;
And banishment, convivial,—
You coming too, of course.

392

Then, Rose, a word in jest meant
Would throw you in a state
That no well-timed investment
Could quite alleviate;
Beyond a Paris trousseau
You prized my smile, I know;
I, yours—ah, more than Rousseau
The lip of d'Houdetot.

Then, Rose,—But why pursue it?
When Fate begins to frown
Best write the final “fuit,”
And gulp the physic down.
And yet,—and yet, that only,
The song should end with this:—
You left me,—left me lonely,
Rosa mutabilis!

Left me, with Time for Mentor,
(A dreary tête-à-tête!)
To pen my “Last Lament,” or
Extemporize to Fate,
In blankest verse disclosing
My bitterness of mind,—
Which is, I learn, composing
In cases of the kind.

No, Rose. Though you refuse me,
Culture the pang prevents;
“I am not made”—excuse me—
“Of so slight elements;”

393

I leave to common lovers
The hemlock or the hood;
My rarer soul recovers
In dreams of public good.

The Roses of this nation—
Or so I understand
From careful computation—
Exceed the gross demand;
And, therefore, in civility
To maids that can't be matched,
No man of sensibility
Should linger unattached.

So, without further fashion—
A modern Curtius,
Plunging, from pure compassion,
To aid the overplus,—
I sit down, sad—not daunted,
And, in my weeds, begin
A new card—“Tenant Wanted,
Particulars within.”

394

OUTWARD BOUND

(HORACE, III. 7)

“Quid fles, Asterie, quem tibi candidi
Primo restituent vere Favonii . . .
Gygen?”

Come, Laura, patience. Time and Spring
Your absent Arthur back shall bring,
Enriched with many an Indian thing
Once more to woo you;
Him neither wind nor wave can check,
Who, cramped beneath the “Simla's” deck,
Still constant, though with stiffened neck,
Makes verses to you.

Would it were wave and wind alone!
The terrors of the torrid zone,
The indiscriminate cyclone,
A man might parry;
But only faith, or “triple brass,”
Can help the “outward-bound” to pass
Safe through that eastward-faring class
Who sail to marry.

For him fond mothers, stout and fair
Ascend the tortuous cabin stair
Only to hold around his chair
Insidious sessions;

395

For him the eyes of daughters droop
Across the plate of handed soup,
Suggesting seats upon the poop,
And soft confessions.

Nor are these all his pains, nor most.
Romancing captains cease to boast—
Loud majors leave their whist—to roast
The youthful griffin;
All, all with pleased persistence show
His fate,—“remote, unfriended, slow,”—
His “melancholy” bungalow,—
His lonely tiffin.

In vain. Let doubts assail the weak;
Unmoved and calm as “Adam's Peak,”
Your “blameless Arthur” hears them speak
Of woes that wait him;
Naught can subdue his soul secure;
“Arthur will come again,” be sure,
Though matron shrewd and maid mature
Conspire to mate him.

But, Laura, on your side, forbear
To greet with too impressed an air
A certain youth with chestnut hair,—
A youth unstable;
Albeit none more skilled can guide
The frail canoe on Thamis tide,
Or, trimmer-footed, lighter glide
Through “Guards” or “Mabel.”

396

Be warned in time. Without a trace
Of acquiescence on your face,
Hear, in the waltz's breathing-space,
His airy patter;
Avoid the confidential nook;
If, when you sing, you find his look
Grow tender, close your music-book,
And end the matter.

397

IN THE ROYAL ACADEMY

Hugh (on furlough). Helen (his cousin)
Helen.
They have not come! And ten is past,—
Unless, by chance, my watch is fast;
—Aunt Mabel surely told us “ten.”

Hugh.
I doubt if she can do it, then.
In fact, their train . .

Helen.
That is,—you knew
How could you be so treacherous, Hugh?

Hugh.
Nay;—it is scarcely mine, the crime,
One can't account for railway-time!
Where shall we sit? Not here, I vote;—
At least, there's nothing here of note.

398

Helen.
Then here we'll stay, please. Once for all,
I bar all artists,—great and small!
From now until we go in June
I shall hear nothing but this tune:—
Whether I like Long's “Vashti,” or
Like Leslie's “Naughty Kitty” more;
With all that critics, right or wrong,
Have said of Leslie and of Long . . .
No. If you value my esteem,
I beg you'll take another theme;
Paint me some pictures, if you will,
But spare me these, for good and ill . . . .

Hugh.
“Paint you some pictures!” Come, that's kind
You know I'm nearly colour-blind.

Helen.
Paint then, in words. You did before;
Scenes at—where was it? Dustypoor?
You know . .

Hugh
(with an inspiration).
I'll try.

Helen.
But mind they're pretty,
Not “hog hunts.” . . . .

399

Hugh.
You shall be Committee,
And say if they are “out” or “in.”

Helen.
I shall reject them all. Begin.

Hugh.
Here is the first. An antique Hall
(Like Chanticlere) with panelled wall.
A boy, or rather lad. A girl,
Laughing with all her rows of pearl
Before a portrait in a ruff.
He meanwhile watches . . . .

Helen.
That's enough,
It wants “verve, “brio,” “breadth, “design,” . .
Besides, it's English. I decline.

Hugh.
This is the next. 'Tis finer far:
A foaming torrent (say Braemar).
A pony grazing by a boulder,
Then the same pair, a little older,
Left by some lucky chance together.
He begs her for a sprig of heather . . . .

400

Helen.
—“Which she accords with smile seraphic.”
I know it,—it was in the “Graphic.”
Declined.

Hugh.
Once more, and I forego
All hopes of hanging, high or low:
Behold the hero of the scene,
In bungalow and palankeen . . . .

Helen.
What!—all at once! But that's absurd;—
Unless he's Sir Boyle Roche's bird!

Hugh.
Permit me—'Tis a Panorama,
In which the person of the drama,
Mid orientals dusk and tawny,
Mid warriors drinking brandy pawnee,
Mid scorpions, dowagers, and griffins,
In morning rides, at noonday tiffins,
In every kind of place and weather,
Is solaced . . . . by a sprig of heather. (More seriously.)

He puts that faded scrap before
The “Rajah,” or the “Koh-i-noor” . . . .
He would not barter it for all
Benares, or the Taj-Mahal . .

401

It guides,—directs his every act,
And word, and thought—In short—in fact—
I mean . . . . (Opening his locket.)

Look, Helen, that's the heather!
(Too late! Here come both Aunts together.)

Helen.
What heather, Sir? (After a pause.)

And why . . . . “too late?”
—Aunt Dora, how you've made us wait!
Don't you agree that it's a pity
Portraits are hung by the Committee?

402

THE LAST DESPATCH

Hurrah! the Season's past at last;
At length we've “done” our pleasure
Dear “Pater,” if you only knew
How much I've longed for home and you,—
Our own green lawn and leisure!

And then the pets! One half forgets
The dear dumb friends—in Babel.
I hope my special fish is fed;—
I long to see poor Nigra's head
Pushed at me from the stable!

I long to see the cob and “Rob,”—
Old Bevis and the Collie;
And won't we read in “Traveller's Rest”!
Home readings after all are best;—
None else seem half so “jolly!”

One misses your dear kindly store
Of fancies quaint and funny;
One misses, too, your kind bon-mot;—
The Mayfair wit I mostly know
Has more of gall than honey!

403

How tired one grows of “calls and balls”!
This “toujours perdrix” wearies;
I'm longing, quite, for “Notes on Knox”;
(Apropos, I've the loveliest box
For holding Notes and Queries!)

A change of place would suit my case.
You'll take me?—on probation?
As “Lady-help,” then, let it be;
I feel (as Lavender shall see),
That Jams are my vocation!

How's Lavender? My love to her.
Does Briggs still flirt with Flowers?—
Has Hawthorn stubbed the common clear?—
You'll let me give some picnics, Dear,
And ask the Vanes and Towers?

I met Belle Vane. “He's” still in Spain!
Sir John won't let them marry.
Aunt drove the boys to Brompton Rink;
And Charley,—changing Charley,—think,
Is now au mieux with Carry!

And no. You know what “No” I mean—
There's no one yet at present:
The Benedick I have in view
Must be a something wholly new,—
One's father's far too pleasant.

404

So hey, I say, for home and you!
Good-bye to Piccadilly;
Balls, beaux, and Bolton-row, adieu!
Expect me, Dear, at half-past two;
Till then,—your Own Fond—Milly

405

“PREMIERS AMOURS”

Old Loves and old dreams,—
“Requiescant in pace.”
How strange now it seems,—
“Old” Loves and “old” dreams!
Yet we once wrote you reams,
Maude, Alice, and Gracie!
Old Loves and old dreams,—
“Requiescant in pace.”

When I called at the “Hollies” to-day,
In the room with the cedar-wood presses,
Aunt Deb. was just folding away
What she calls her “memorial dresses.”

She'd the frock that she wore at fifteen,—
Short-waisted, of course—my abhorrence;
She'd “the loveliest”—something in “een”
That she wears in her portrait by Lawrence;

She'd the “jelick” she used—“as a Greek,”(!)
She'd the habit she got her bad fall in;
She had e'en the blue moiré antique
That she opened Squire Grasshopper's ball in:—

New and old they were all of them there:—
Sleek velvet and bombazine stately,—
She had hung them each over a chair
To the “paniers” she's taken to lately

406

(Which she showed me, I think, by mistake).
And I conned o'er the forms and the fashions,
Till the faded old shapes seemed to wake
All the ghosts of my passed-away “passions”;—

From the days of love's youthfullest dream,
When the height of my shooting idea
Was to burn, like a young Polypheme,
For a somewhat mature Galatea.

There was Lucy, who “tiffed” with her first,
And who threw me as soon as her third came;
There was Norah, whose cut was the worst,
For she told me to wait till my “berd” came;

Pale Blanche, who subsisted on salts;
Blonde Bertha, who doted on Schiller;
Poor Amy, who taught me to waltz;
Plain Ann, that I wooed for the “siller”;—

All danced round my head in a ring,
Like “The Zephyrs” that somebody painted,
All shapes of the feminine thing—
Shy, scornful, seductive, and sainted,—

To my Wife, in the days she was young . . .
“How, Sir,” says that lady, disgusted,
“Do you dare to include Me among
Your loves that have faded and rusted?”

407

“Not at all!”—I benignly retort.
(I was just the least bit in a temper!)
“Those, alas! were the fugitive sort,
But you are my—eadem semper!”

Full stop,—and a Sermon. Yet think,—
There was surely good ground for a quarrel,—
She had checked me when just on the brink
Of—I feel—a remarkable Moral.

408

THE SCREEN IN THE LUMBER ROOM

Yes, here it is, behind the box,
That puzzle wrought so neatly—
That paradise of paradox—
We once knew so completely;
You see it? 'Tis the same, I swear,
Which stood, that chill September,
Beside your Aunt Lavinia's chair
The year when . . You remember?

Look, Laura, look! You must recall
This florid “Fairy's Bower,”
This wonderful Swiss waterfall,
And this old “Leaning Tower”;
And here's the “Maiden of Cashmere,”
And here is Bewick's “Starling,”
And here the dandy cuirassier
You thought was “such a Darling!”

Your poor dear Aunt! you know her way
She used to say this figure
Reminded her of Count D'Orsay
“In all his youthful vigour”;

409

And here's the “cot beside the hill”
We chose for habitation,
The day that . . But I doubt if still
You'd like the situation!

Too damp—by far! She little knew,
Your guileless Aunt Lavinia,
Those evenings when she slumbered through
“The Prince of Abyssinia,”
That there were two beside her chair
Who both had quite decided
To see things in a rosier air
Than Rasselas provided!

Ah! men wore stocks in Britain's land,
And maids short waists and tippets,
When this old-fashioned screen was planned
From hoarded scraps and snippets;
But more—far more, I think—to me
Than those who first designed it,
Is this—in Eighteen Seventy-Three
I kissed you first behind it.

410

DAISY'S VALENTINES

All night through Daisy's sleep, it seems,
Have ceaseless “rat-tats” thundered;
All night through Daisy's rosy dreams
Have devious Postmen blundered,
Delivering letters round her bed,—
Mysterious missives, sealed with red,
And franked of course with due Queen's head,—
While Daisy lay and wondered.

But now, when chirping birds begin,
And Day puts off the Quaker,—
When Cook renews her morning din,
And rates the cheerful baker,—
She dreams her dream no dream at all,
For, just as pigeons come at call,
Winged letters flutter down, and fall
Around her head, and wake her.

Yes, there they are! With quirk and twist,
And fraudful arts directed;
(Save Grandpapa's dear stiff old “fist,”
Through all disguise detected;)
But which is his,—her young Lothair's,—
Who wooed her on the school-room stairs
With three sweet cakes, and two ripe pears,
In one neat pile collected?

411

'Tis there, be sure. Though truth to speak
(If truth may be permitted),
I doubt that young “gift-bearing Greek”
Is scarce for fealty fitted;
For has he not (I grieve to say)
To two loves more, on this same day,
In just this same emblazoned way,
His transient vows transmitted?

He may be true. Yet, Daisy dear,
That even youth grows colder
You'll find is no new thing, I fear;
And when you're somewhat older,
You'll read of one Dardanian boy
Who “wooed with gifts” a maiden coy,—
Then took the morning train to Troy,
In spite of all he'd told her.

But wait. Your time will come. And then,
Obliging Fates, please send her
The bravest thing you have in men,
Sound-hearted, strong, and tender;—
The kind of man, dear Fates, you know,
That feels how shyly Daisies grow,
And what soft things they are, and so
Will spare to spoil or mend her.

412

IN TOWN

“The blue fly sung in the pane.” —Tennyson.

Toiling in Town now is “horrid,”
(There is that woman again!)—
June in the zenith is torrid,
Thought gets dry in the brain.

There is that woman again:
“Strawberries! fourpence a pottle!”
Thought gets dry in the brain;
Ink gets dry in the bottle.

“Strawberries! fourpence a pottle!”
Oh for the green of a lane!—
Ink gets dry in the bottle;
“Buzz” goes a fly in the pane!

Oh for the green of a lane,
Where one might lie and be lazy!
“Buzz” goes a fly in the pane;
Bluebottles drive me crazy!

Where one might lie and be lazy,
Careless of Town and all in it!—
Bluebottles drive me crazy:
I shall go mad in a minute!

413

Careless of Town and all in it,
With some one to soothe and to still you;—
I shall go mad in a minute;
Bluebottle, then I shall kill you!

With some one to soothe and to still you,
As only one's feminine kin do,—
Bluebottle, then I shall kill you:
There now! I've broken the window!

As only one's feminine kin do,—
Some muslin-clad Mabel or May!—
There now! I've broken the window!
Bluebottle's off and away!

Some muslin-clad Mabel or May,
To dash one with eau de Cologne;—
Bluebottle's off and away;
And why should I stay here alone!

To dash one with eau de Cologne,
All over one's eminent forehead;—
And why should I stay here alone!
Toiling in Town now is “horrid.”

414

A SONNET IN DIALOGUE

Frank
(on the Lawn).
Come to the Terrace, May,—the sun is low.

May
(in the House).
Thanks, I prefer my Browning here instead.

Frank.
There are two peaches by the strawberry bed.

May.
They will be riper if we let them grow.

Frank.
Then the Park-aloe is in bloom, you know.

May.
Also, her Majesty Queen Anne is dead.

Frank.
But surely, May, your pony must be fed.

415

May.
And was, and is. I fed him hours ago.
'Tis useless, Frank, you see I shall not stir.

Frank.
Still, I had something you would like to hear

May.
No doubt some new frivolity of men.

Frank.
Nay,—'tis a thing the gentler sex deplores
Chiefly, I think . . .

May
(coming to the window).
What is this secret, then?

Frank
(mysteriously).
There are no eyes more beautiful than yours!

416

GROWING GRAY

“On a l'âge de son cœur.” —A. d'Houdetot.

A little more toward the light;—
Me miserable! Here's one that's white,
And one that's turning;
Adieu to song and “salad days”;
My Muse, let's go at once to Jay's,
And order mourning.

We must reform our rhymes, my Dear,—
Renounce the gay for the severe,—
Be grave, not witty;
We have no more the right to find
That Pyrrha's hair is neatly twined,—
That Chloe's pretty.

Young Love's for us a farce that's played;
Light canzonet and serenade
No more may tempt us;
Gray hairs but ill accord with dreams;
From aught but sour didactic themes
Our years exempt us.

Indeed! you really fancy so?
You think for one white streak we grow
At once satiric?

417

A fiddlestick! Each hair's a string
To which our ancient Muse shall sing
A younger lyric.

The heart's still sound. Shall “cakes and ale”
Grow rare to youth because we rail
At schoolboy dishes?
Perish the thought! 'Tis ours to chant
When neither Time nor Tide can grant
Belief with wishes.

University of Virginia Library

VERS DE SOCIÉTÉ

A CITY FLOWER These verses—as far as I can remember—were my first contribution to a magazine. They appeared in Temple Bar for December 1864, being welcomed with extreme cordiality by the editor, Edmund Yates.