And still I say, in a playful way—
"Why, you 're a lucky dog!"

But oh, it is the heaviest bore,
Of all the bores I know,

To have a friend who's lost his heart

A short time ago,

I really wish he 'd do like me
When I was young and strong;
I formed a passion every week,
But never kept it long.
But he has not the sportive mood
That always rescued me,

And so I would all women could

Be banished o'er the sea,

For 't is the most egregious bore,

Of all the bores I know,

To have a friend who's lost his heart
A short time ago.

DIDST thou not praise me, Gaultier, at the ball,
Ripe lips, trim boddice, and a waist so small,
With clipsome lightness, dwindling ever less,
Beneath the robe of pea-y greeniness?
Dost thou remember, when with stately prance,
Our heads went crosswise in the country dance;
How soft, warm fingers, tipp'd like buds of balm,
Trembled within the squeezing of thy palm;

And how a cheek grew flush'd and peachy-wise,
At the frank lifting of thy cordial eyes?

Ah, me! that night there was one gentle thing,
Who, like a dove, with its scarce-feather'd wing,
Flutter'd at the approach of thy quaint swaggering!

There's wont to be, at conscious times like these,
An affectation of a bright-eyed ease,—
A crispy-cheekiness, if so I dare

Describe the swaling of a jaunty air;

And thus, when swirling from the waltz's wheel,
You craved my hand to grace the next quadrille,
That smiling voice, although it made me start,
Boil'd in the meek o'erlifting of my heart;
And, picking at my flowers, I said with free
And usual tone, "Oh, yes, sir, certainly!"

Like one that swoons, 'twixt sweet amaze and fear,
I heard the music burning in my ear,
And felt I cared not, so thou wert with me,

If Gurth or Wamba were our vis-à-vis.

So, when a tall Knight Templar ringing came,
And took his place against us with his dame,
I neither turn'd away, nor bashful shrunk
From the stern survey of the soldier-monk,
Though rather more than full three-quarters drunk ;

But threading through the figure, first in rule,
I paused to see thee plunge into La Poule.

Ah, what a sight was that? Not prurient Mars,
Pointing his toe through ten celestial bars-
Not young Apollo, beamily array'd

In tripsome guise for Juno's masquerade-
Not smartest Hermes, with his pinion girth,
Jerking with freaks and snatches down to earth,
Look'd half so bold, so beautiful, and strong,

As thou, when pranking thro' the glittering throng!
How the calm'd ladies look'd with eyes of love
On thy trim velvet doublet laced above;
The hem of gold, that like a wavy river,

Flowed down into thy back with glancing shiver!
So bare was thy fine throat, and curls of black
So lightsomely dropp'd in thy lordly back,

So crisply swaled the feather in thy bonnet,
So glanced thy thigh, and spanning palm upon it,
That my weak soul took instant flight to thee,
Lost in the fondest gush of that sweet witchery!

But when the dance was o'er, and arm in arm,
(The full heart beating 'gainst the elbow warm,)
We pass'd into the great refreshment hall,

Where the heap'd cheese-cakes and the comfits small

Lay, like a hive of sunbeams, brought to burn
Around the margin of the negus urn;

When my poor quivering hand you finger'd twice,
And, with enquiring accents, whisper'd, "Ice,
Water, or cream?" I could no more dissemble,
But dropp'd upon the couch all in a tremble.

A swimming faintness misted o'er my brain,

The corks seem'd starting from the brisk champagne, The custards fell untouch'd upon the floor,

Thine eyes met mine. That night we danced no more!