Yet Love was blind: for so he lost his way, And so we found him when the day was done, Within a wood where happy lovers stray, There he had wandered weeping and alone. Then wondering much, we thought to ask his name, But Love replied: “Ah, surely ye should know!” And as he spake, beneath his wings of flame We saw Love’s arrows and his glittering bow, “For you,” he cried, “the way is strewn with flowers, You’ve found the path that I shall never find.” Then looking up we saw Love’s eyes in ours, And then we knew why men do call him blind. Therefore we know that Love is much maligned, By all who call him deaf, and dumb, and blind. From _The Naturalist_. A SONG OF PROVERBS. I know that truth’s stranger than fiction, And I fancy I don’t stand alone, If I cling to an old predilection, For killing two birds with one stone; I never shed tears that are bitter Over milk that I know to be spilt, And whenever gold happens to glitter I make up my mind that its gilt; Yet the riddle of life grows no clearer, And still broken-hearted I yearn For the season that never draws nearer-- When a worm may take courage and turn. And if for a moment I wander Into themes more profound and abstruse, To note that the sauce for a gander Is also the sauce for the goose; That one man is free to steal horses, While another is punished by fate, Who shuns all such virtuous courses, And dares to look over a gate,-- It is but for the sake of forgetting What gives me far greater concern, It is but with a view of abetting A worm in its efforts to turn. I could live and not care in the slightest To know when a dog had his day, And though the sun shone at its brightest, I could let other people make hay. I could perish without ascertaining Why pearls should be cast before swine, I could die without ever complaining That one stitch will never save nine; And though I once had the ambition A candle at both ends to burn, The old craving might go to perdition If I knew that a worm had its turn. These little pieces were admirably rendered by Mr. Alfred Reed and his company, and they won instant success. I can see Mr. Clement Scott’s delighted face just under my box on the first night of _The United Pair_ and hear his burst of laughter at the concluding line of the “Song of the China Collectors.” But the one of the three comediettas upon which Joe spent the most pleasant care was _The Friar_--a little thirteenth century fancy of his own invention and for which he wrote the following verses, giving charming expression to the pique of a high-born damsel towards her proud lover and the sorrow of the shepherd swain who becomes the favourite of an hour. THE LADY ISOBEL’S SONG.