"As it was, from her palankeen She laughed--'You're a week too late!'" (Quoth the little blue mandarin.) "That is why, in a mist of spleen I mourn on this Nankin Plate. Ah me, but it might have been!" Quoth the little blue mandarin. THE OLD SEDAN-CHAIR "What's not destroyed by Time's devouring Hand? Where's Troy,--and where's the May-Pole in the Strand?" --BRAMSTON'S 'ART OF POLITICKS.' It stands in the stable-yard, under the eaves, Propped up by a broomstick and covered with leaves; It once was the pride of the gay and the fair, But now 'tis a ruin,--that old Sedan-chair! It is battered and tattered,--it little avails That once it was lacquered, and glistened with nails; For its leather is cracked into lozenge and square Like a canvas by Wilkie,--that old Sedan-chair. See, here come the bearing-straps; here were the holes For the poles of the bearers--when once there were poles; It was cushioned with silk, it was wadded with hair, As the birds have discovered,--that old Sedan-chair. "Where's Troy?" says the poet! Look; under the seat Is a nest with four eggs; 'tis a favored retreat Of the Muscovy hen, who has hatched, I dare swear, Quite an army of chicks in that old Sedan-chair. And yet--Can't you fancy a face in the frame Of the window,--some high-headed damsel or dame, Be-patched and be-powdered, just set by the stair, While they raise up the lid of that old Sedan-chair? Can't you fancy Sir Plume, as beside her he stands, With his ruffles a-droop on his delicate hands, With his cinnamon coat, with his laced solitaire, As he lifts her out light from that old Sedan-chair? Then it swings away slowly. Ah, many a league It has trotted 'twixt sturdy-legged Terence and Teague; Stout fellows!--but prone, on a question of fare, To brandish the poles of that old Sedan-chair! It has waited by portals where Garrick has played; It has waited by Heidegger's "Grand Masquerade"; For my Lady Codille, for my Lady Bellair, It has waited--and waited, that old Sedan-chair! Oh, the scandals it knows! Oh, the tales it could tell Of Drum and Ridotto, of Rake and of Belle,-- Of Cock-fight and Levee, and (scarcely more rare!) Of Fête-days at Tyburn, that old Sedan-chair! "_Heu! quantum mutata_," I say as I go. It deserves better fate than a stable-yard, though! We must furbish it up, and dispatch it,--"With Care,"-- To a Fine-Art Museum--that old Sedan-chair. THE BALLAD OF PROSE AND RHYME When the ways are heavy with mire and rut, In November fogs, in December snows, When the North Wind howls, and the doors are shut,-- There is place and enough for the pains of prose; But whenever a scent from the whitethorn blows, And the jasmine-stars at the casement climb, And a Rosalind-face at the lattice shows, Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme!