In Ethics--'tis you that can check,

In a minute, their doubts and their quarrels; Oh! show but that mole on your neck,

And 'twill soon put an end to their morals.

Your Arithmetic only can trip

When to kiss and to count you endeavor;

But eloquence glows on your lip

When you swear that you'll love me for ever.

Thus you see what a brilliant alliance
Of arts is assembled in you,—

A course of more exquisite science
Man never need wish to pursue.

And, oh!-if a Fellow like me

May confer a diploma of hearts, With my lip thus I seal your degree, My divine little Mistress of Arts!

Thomas Moore [1779-1852]

"I'D BE A BUTTERFLY"

I'd be a Butterfly born in a bower,

Where roses and lilies and violets meet;

Roving for ever from flower to flower,

And kissing all buds that are pretty and sweet! I'd never languish for wealth, or for power,

I'd never sigh to see slaves at my feet:

I'd be a Butterfly born in a bower,

Kissing all buds that are pretty and sweet.

O could I pilfer the wand of a fairy,

I'd have a pair of those beautiful wings;

Their summer days' ramble is sportive and airy, They sleep in a rose when the nightingale sings. Those who have wealth must be watchful and wary; Power, alas! naught but misery brings!

I'd be a Butterfly, sportive and airy,

Rocked in a rose when the nightingale sings!

"I'm Not a Single Man"

1713

What, though you tell me each gay little rover
Shrinks from the breath of the first autumn day:
Surely 'tis better when summer is over

To die when all fair things are fading away.
Some in life's winter may toil to discover
Means of procuring a weary delay-
I'd be a butterfly; living, a rover,

Dying when fair things are fading away!

Thomas Haynes Bayly [1797-1839]

"I'M NOT A SINGLE MAN "

LINES WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY'S ALBUM

A PRETTY task, Miss S- to ask
A Benedictine pen,

That cannot quite at freedom write

Like those of other men.

No lover's plaint my Muse must paint
To fill this page's span,

But be correct and recollect
I'm not a single man.

Pray only think, for pen and ink

How hard to get along,

That may not turn on words that burn,

Or Love, the life of song!

Nine Muses, if I chooses, I

May woo all in a clan;

But one Miss S- I daren't address

I'm not a single man.

Scribblers unwed, with little head,

May eke it out with heart,

And in their lays it often plays

A rare first-fiddle part.

They make a kiss to rhyme with bliss,

But if I so began,

I have my fears about my ears—

I'm not a single man.

Upon your cheek I may not speak,
Nor on your lip be warm,

I must be wise about your eyes,
And formal with your form;
Of all that sort of thing, in short,
On T. H. Bayly's plan,

I must not twine a single line-
I'm not a single man.

A watchman's part compels my heart
To keep you off its beat,

And I might dare as soon to swear
At you, as at your feet.

I can't expire in passion's fire

As other poets can

My life (she's by) won't let me die

I'm not a single man.

Shut out from love, denied a dove,
Forbidden bow and dart;
Without a groan to call my own,
With neither hand nor heart;
To Hymen vowed, and not allowed
To flirt e'en with your fan,

Here end, as just a friend, I must

I'm not a single man.

ΤΟ

Thomas Hood [1799-1845]

WE met but in one giddy dance,

Good-night joined hands with greeting; And twenty thousand things may chance Before our second meeting;

For oh! I have been often told

That all the world grows older, And hearts and hopes to-day so cold, To-morrow must be colder.

'If I have never touched the string

Beneath your chamber, dear one,

And never said one civil thing

When you were by to hear one,

The Vicar

If I have made no rhymes about

Those looks which conquer Stoics, And heard those angel tones, without One fit of fair heroics,—

Yet do not, though the world's cold school
Some bitter truths has taught me,
Oh, do not deem me quite the fool

Which wiser friends have thought me!
There is one charm I still could feel,
If no one laughed at feeling;
One dream my lute could still reveal,-
If it were worth revealing.

But Folly little cares what name
Of friend or foe she handles,
When merriment directs the game,
And midnight dims the candles;
I know that Folly's breath is weak
And would not stir a feather;
But yet I would not have her speak
Your name and mine together.

Oh no! this life is dark and bright,
Half rapture and half sorrow;

My heart is very full to-night,

My cup shall be to-morrow!

But they shall never know from me,
On any one condition,

Whose health made bright my Burgundy,
Whose beauty was my vision!

1715

Winthrop Mackworth Praed [1802-1839]

THE VICAR

SOME years ago, ere Time and Taste
Had turned our parish topsy-turvy,
When Darnel Park was Darnel Waste,
And roads as little known as scurvy,

The man who lost his way between
St. Mary's Hill and Sandy Thicket,
Was always shown across the Green,
And guided to the Parson's wicket.

Back flew the bolt of lissom lath;

Fair Margaret, in her tidy kirtle, Led the lorn traveller up the path

Through clean-clipt rows of box and myrtle; And Don and Sancho, Tramp and Tray, Upon the parlor steps collected,

Wagged all their tails, and seemed to say, "Our master knows you; you're expected!"

Up rose the Reverend Doctor Brown,

Up rose the Doctor's “winsome marrow"; The lady laid her knitting down,

Her husband clasped his ponderous Barrow; Whate'er the stranger's caste or creed, Pundit or papist, saint or sinner,

He found a stable for his steed,

And welcome for himself, and dinner.

If, when he reached his journey's end,
And warmed himself in court or college,
He had not gained an honest friend, *

And twenty curious scraps of knowledge;— If he departed as he came,

With no new light on love or liquor,— Good sooth, the traveller was to blame, And not the Vicarage, nor the Vicar.

His talk was like a stream which runs
With rapid change from rocks to roses;
It slipped from politics to puns;

It passed from Mahomet to Moses;
Beginning with the laws which keep
The planets in their radiant courses,
And ending with some precept deep

For dressing eels or shoeing horses.