Sweet to roam beneath a shady cliff, of course with some young lady, Lalage, Neæra, Haidee, or Elaine, or Mary Ann: Love, you dear delusive dream, you! Very sweet your victims deem you, When, heard only by the seamew, they talk all the stuff one can. Sweet to haste, a licensed lover, to Miss Pinkerton the glover, Having managed to discover what is dear Neæra’s “size”: P’raps to touch that wrist so slender, as your tiny gift you tender, And to read you’re no offender, in those laughing hazel eyes. Then to hear her call you “Harry,” when she makes you fetch and carry— O young men about to marry, what a blessed thing it is! To be photograph’d—together—cased in pretty Russia leather— Hear her gravely doubting whether they have spoilt your honest phiz! Then to bring your plighted fair one first a ring—a rich and rare one— Next a bracelet, if she’ll wear one, and a heap of things beside; And serenely bending o’er her, to inquire if it would bore her To say when her own adorer may aspire to call her bride! Then, the days of courtship over, with your WIFE to start for Dover Or Dieppe—and live in clover evermore, whate’er befalls: For I’ve read in many a novel that, unless they’ve souls that grovel, Folks _prefer_ in fact a hovel to your dreary marble halls: To sit, happy married lovers; Phillis trifling with a plover’s Egg, while Corydon uncovers with a grace the Sally Lunn, Or dissects the lucky pheasant—that, I think, were passing pleasant; As I sit alone at present, dreaming darkly of a Dun. THE PALACE. THEY come, they come, with fife and drum, And gleaming pikes and glancing banners: Though the eyes flash, the lips are dumb; To talk in rank would not be manners. Onward they stride, as Britons can; The ladies following in the Van. Who, who be these that tramp in threes Through sumptuous Piccadilly, through The roaring Strand, and stand at ease At last ’neath shadowy Waterloo? Some gallant Guild, I ween, are they; Taking their annual holiday. To catch the destin’d train—to pay Their willing fares, and plunge within it— Is, as in old Romaunt they say, With them the work of half-a-minute. Then off they’re whirl’d, with songs and shouting, To cedared Sydenham for their outing. I mark’d them light, with faces bright As pansies or a new coin’d florin, And up the sunless stair take flight, Close-pack’d as rabbits in a warren. Honour the Brave, who in that stress Still trod not upon Beauty’s dress! Kerchief in hand I saw them stand; In every kerchief lurk’d a lunch; When they unfurl’d them, it was grand To watch bronzed men and maidens crunch The sounding celery-stick, or ram The knife into the blushing ham.