Though, as a rule, all used to end In such kind confidential parley As may to you kind Fortune send, You long-legged Charlie, When your time comes. How years slip on! We had our crosses like our betters; Fate sometimes looked askance upon Those floral letters; And once, for three long days disdained, The dust upon the folio settled; For some-one, in the right, was pained, And some-one nettled, That sure was in the wrong, but spake Of fixed intent and purpose stony To serve King George, enlist and make Minced-meat of "Boney," Who yet survived--ten years at least. And so, when she I mean came hither, One day that need for letters ceased, She brought this with her! Here is the leaf-stained Chapter:--_How The English King laid Siege to Calais_; I think Gran. knows it even now,-- Go ask her, Alice. TO THE MAMMOTH-TORTOISE OF THE MASCARENE ISLANDS. "_Tuque, Testudo, resonare septem_ _Callida nervis._" Hor. iii. 11. Monster Chelonian, you suggest To some, no doubt, the calm,-- The torpid ease of islets drest In fan-like fern and palm; To some your cumbrous ways, perchance, Darwinian dreams recall; And some your Rip-van-Winkle glance, And ancient youth appal; So widely varied views dispose: But not so mine,--for me Your vasty vault but simply shows A LYRE immense, _per se_, A LYRE to which the Muse might chant A truly "Orphic tale," Could she but find that public want, A Bard--of equal scale! Oh, for a Bard of awful words, And lungs serenely strong, To sweep from your sonorous chords Niagaras of song, Till, dinned by that tremendous strain, The grovelling world aghast, Should leave its paltry greed of gain, And mend its ways ... at last! A ROMAN "ROUND-ROBIN." ("HIS FRIENDS" TO QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS.) "_Haec decies repetita_ [non] _placebit_."--Ars Poetica. Flaccus, you write us charming songs: No bard we know possesses In such perfection what belongs To brief and bright addresses; No man can say that Life is short With mien so little fretful; No man to Virtue's paths exhort In phrases less regretful; Or touch, with more serene distress, On Fortune's ways erratic; And then delightfully digress From Alp to Adriatic: All this is well, no doubt, and tends Barbarian minds to soften; But, HORACE--we, we are your friends-- Why tell us this so often? Why feign to spread a cheerful feast, And then thrust in our faces These barren scraps (to say the least) Of Stoic common-places?