Short Poems

Delicate white fringe-bush blossom,
Drooping among pale leaves
In the deepest wood,
Why do you hide your secret?
You are the ghost of a lilac
Revisiting the world.

Off gauntlets, Boys! show naked palms!
Left foot in front! come nearer still!
The Order takes you to her arms
And holds you with a will.
Off gauntlets! hand in hand combine!
Left foot in front! you know the sign!
Low breath, — no cowan must divine,
The word we give you!

Troubling the Water thus, in vain,
With such a Skin , as Fonts would stain ,
The Gipsie , seeks to wash away
Orig'nal Dirt , and Adam's Clay ;
Would she a likelier Course pursue,
She must put off, the' old Woman too.

TO THE CHARTER OAK, (HARTFORD) ON BEING REFUSED
PERMISSION, WITH OTHERS, TO APPROACH THE TREE, SEPT . 19,
1839.

A clever de'il, in Eden's yard,
Kept the forbidden tree;
But who, approach to thee debar'd,
Can say as much of thee?

T RANSLATION OF AN Impromptu BY S T . A ULAIRE AT 95, THE D UTCHESS OF M AINE HAVING CALLED HIM A POLLO .

W ERE I Apollo , my enchanting friend,
You should be Thetis , and the day should end.

WHO SENT ME TWO KISSES BY THE POST .

W HAT — as many as two honey'd kisses from thee?
From the goddess of youth! and both destin'd for me?
But can age by those lips with such peril be nurs'd?
Keep your second at home — let me die — of the first!

ON A VERY PIOUS YOUNG GENTLEWOMAN WHO WORE PAINT .

I F Lucretia wears paint ,
She may well be a Saint;
Life and blood must be in her
Before she is a Sinner .

T HOUGH British accents your attention fire,
You cannot learn so fast as we admire.
Scholars like you but slowly can improve,
For who would teach you but the verb — I love!

Burke , who at Hastings rail'd from sun to sun,
A Regal Pension by a Pamphlet won.
But what of Hastings? — Burke he overthrew;
But held his tongue — and had a Pension too!

ON HEARING THAT ARCHBISHOP MOORE WAS IN A REGULAR FIT OF THE GOUT .

N O more it shall be thought a jest,
That pious Christians live the best .
Ye Infidels! no longer doubt!
For an Archbishop has the Gout!
That he 's a Saint — his honours tell,
His Gout — that he has liv'd so well .