Now, after listing to such laudings rare,
'Twas very natural indeed to go—
What if she did postpone one little pray'r-
To ask her mirror "if it was not so?"
'Twas a large mirror, none the worse for wear,
Reflecting her at once from top to toe :

And there she gazed upon that glossy track
That show'd her front face though it "gave her back."

And long her lovely eyes were held in thrall,

By that dear page where first the woman reads:

That Julio was no flatt'rer, none at all,

She told herself—and then she told her beads; Meanwhile, the nerves insensibly let fall

Two curtains fairer than the lily breeds; For sleep had crept and kiss'd her unawares, Just at the half-way milestone of her pray'rs.

Then like a drooping rose so bended she,
Till her bow'd head upon her hand reposed;
But still she plainly saw, or seem'd to see,
That fair reflection, tho' her eyes were closed,
A beauty bright as it was wont to be,

A portrait Fancy painted while she dozed: 'Tis very natural, some people say,

To dream of what we dwell on in the day.

Still shone her face-yet not, alas! the same,
But 'gan some dreary touches to assume,

And sadder thoughts, with sadder changes came—
Her eyes resign'd their light, her lips their bloom,
Her teeth fell out, her tresses did the same,

Her cheeks were tinged with bile, her eyes with rheum:
There was a throbbing at her heart within,
For, oh! there was a shooting in her chin.

And lo! upon her sad desponding brow,
The cruel trenches of besieging age,
With seams, but most unseemly, 'gan to show
Her place was booking for the seventh stage;

And where her raven tresses used to flow,

Some locks that Time had left her in his rage, And some mock ringlets, made her forehead shady, A compound (like our Psalms) of Tête and Braidy.

Then for her shape-alas! how Saturn wrecks,

And bends, and corkscrews all the frame about, Doubles the hams, and crooks the straightest necks, Draws in the nape, and pushes forth the snout, Makes backs and stomachs concave or convex: Witness those pensioners call'd In and Out,

Who all day watching first and second rater,

Quaintly unbend themselves—but grow no straighter.

So Time with fair Bianca dealt, and made

Her shape a bow, that once was like an arrow; His iron hand upon her spine he laid,

And twisted all awry her "winsome marrow."

In truth it was a change!—she had obey'd
The holy Pope before her chest grew narrow,
But spectacles and palsy seem'd to make her
Something between a Glassite and a Quaker.

Her grief and gall meanwhile were quite extreme,
And she had ample reason for her trouble;
For what sad maiden can endure to seem

Set in for singleness, though growing double?
The fancy madden'd her; but now the dream,
Grown thin by getting bigger, like a bubble,
Burst, but still left some fragments of its size,
That like the soapsuds, smarted in her eyes.

And here just here- as she began to heed
The real world, her clock chimed out its score;
A clock it was of the Venetian breed,

That cried the hour from one to twenty-four;
The works moreover standing in some need

Of workmanship, it struck some dozen more; A warning voice that clench'd Bianca's fears, Such strokes referring doubtless to her years.

At fifteen chimes she was but half a nun,

By twenty she had quite renounced the veil ; She thought of Julio just at twenty-one,

And thirty made her very sad and pale,

To paint that ruin where her charms would run;
At forty all the maid began to fail,

And thought no higher, as the late dream cross'd her,

Of single blessedness, than single Gloster.

And so Bianca changed; the next sweet even,
With Julio in a black Venetian bark,
Row'd slow and stealthily-the hour, eleven,
Just sounding from the tower of old St. Mark;
She sate with eyes turn'd quietly to heav'n,
Perchance rejoicing in the grateful dark

That veil'd her blushing cheek,-for Julio brought her,
Of course, to break the ice upon the water.

But what a puzzle is one's serious mind
To open ;-oysters, when the ice is thick,

Are not so difficult and disinclined;
And Julio felt the declaration stick
About his throat in a most awful kind;

However, he contrived by bits to pick
His trouble forth,-much like a rotten cork
Groped from a long-neck'd bottle with a fork.

But love is still the quickest of all readers;
And Julio spent besides those signs profuse,
That English telegraphs and foreign pleaders,
In help of language are so apt to use :-
Arms, shoulders, fingers, all were interceders,
Nods, shrugs, and bends,―Bianca could not choose
But soften to his suit with more facility,

He told his story with so much agility.

"Be thou my park, and I will be thy dear,"
(So he began at last to speak or quote ;)
"Be thou my bark, and I thy gondolier,"
(For passion takes this figurative note ;)

"Be thou my light, and I thy chandelier; Be thou my dove, and I will be thy cote; My lily be, and I will be thy river;

Be thou my life—and I will be thy liver."

This, with more tender logic of the kind,

He pour'd into her small and shell-like ear, That timidly against his lips inclined;

Meanwhile her eyes glanced on the silver sphere That even now began to steal behind

A dewy vapour, which was lingering near, Wherein the dull moon crept all dim and pale, Just like a virgin putting on the veil :—

Bidding adieu to all her sparks-the stars,

That erst had woo'd and worshipp'd in her train, Saturn and Hesperus, and gallant Mars

Never to flirt with heavenly eyes again. Meanwhile, remindful of the convent bars, Bianca did not watch these signs in vain, But turn'd to Julio at the dark eclipse, With words, like verbal kisses, on her lips.

He took the hint full speedily, and back'd

By love, and night, and the occasion's meetness, Bestow'd a something on her cheek that smack'd

(Though quite in silence) of ambrosial sweetness; That made her think all other kisses lack'd

Till then, but what she knew not, of completeness: Being used but sisterly salutes to feel, Insipid things-like sandwiches of veal.

He took her hand, and soon she felt him wring
The pretty fingers all instead of one ;

Anon his stealthy arm began to cling

About her waist that had been clasp'd by none:

Their dear confessions I forbear to sing,

Since cold description would but be outrun;
For bliss and Irish watches have the power,
In twenty minutes, to lose half an hour!

ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ.

A WANDERER, Wilson, from my native land,
Remote, O Rae, from godliness and thee,
Where rolls between us the eternal sea,
Besides some furlongs of a foreign sand,—
Beyond the broadest Scotch of London Wall;
Beyond the loudest Saint that has a call;
Across the wavy waste between us stretch'd,
A friendly missive warns me of a stricture,
Wherein my likeness you have darkly etch'd,
And though I have not seen the shadow sketch'd,
Thus I remark prophetic on the picture.

I guess the features:-in a line to paint
Their moral ugliness, I'm not a saint.
Not one of those self-constituted saints,
Quacks-not physicians—in the cure of souls,
Censors who sniff out mortal taints,

And call the devil over his own coals

Those pseudo Privy Councillors of God,

Who write down judgments with a pen hard-nibb'd
Ushers of Beelzebub's Black Rod,

Commending sinners, not to ice thick-ribb'd,
But endless flames, to scorch them up like flax-
Yet sure of heaven themselves, as if they'd cribb'd
Th' impression of St. Peter's keys in wax!

Of such a character no single trace
Exists, I know, in my fictitious face;
There wants a certain cast about the eye;
A certain lifting of the nose's tip;

A certain curling of the nether lip,

In scorn of all that is, beneath the sky;

In brief it is an aspect deleterious,

A face decidedly not serious,

A face profane, that would not do at all

To make a face at Exeter Hall,—

That Hall where bigots rant, and cant, and pray,
And laud each other face to face,