Then she danced through all the _ballet_, as a fairy blithe and young, Stood a tiptoe on a flow'ret, or from clouds of pasteboard swung-- And I said, "Miss Julia Belmont, speak, and speak the truth to me, Wilt thou from this fairy region with a heart congenial flee?" On her lovely cheek and forehead came a blushing through her paint, And she sank upon my bosom in the semblance of a faint; Then she turned, her voice was broken (so, if I must tell the truth, Was her English--all I pardoned in the generous warmth of youth), Saying, "Pray excuse my feelings, nothing wrong, indeed, is meant," Saying, "Will you be my loveyer?" weeping, "you are quite the gent." Love took up the glass before me, filled it foaming to the brim, Love changed every comic ballad to a sweet euphonious hymn! Many a morning in the railway did we run to Richmond, Kew, And her hunger cleared my pockets oft of shillings not a few! Many an evening down at Greenwich did we eat the pleasant "bait," Till I found my earnings going at a rather rapid rate. Oh! Miss Belmont, fickle-hearted! Oh, Miss Belmont known too late, Oh, that horrid, horrid Richmond, oh, the cursed, cursed "bait." Falser far than Lola Montes, falser e'en than Alice Gray, Scorner of a faithful press-man, sharer of a tumbler's pay!-- Is it well to wish thee happy? having once loved _me_--to wed With a fool who gains his living by his heels, and not his head! As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown, And pursuing his profession, he will strive to drag thee down. He will hold thee in the winter, when his fooleries begin, Something better than his wig, a little dearer than his gin. What is this? his legs are bending! think'st thou he is weary, faint? Go to him, it is thy duty; kiss him, how he tastes of paint! Am I mad, that I should cherish memories of the bygone time? Think of loving one whose husband fools it in a pantomime! Never, though my mortal summers should be lengthened to the sum Granted to the aged Parr, or more illustrious Widdicomb-- Comfort!--talk to me of comfort! What is comfort here below? Lies it in iced drinks in summer, aquascutum coats in snow? Think not thou wilt know its meaning, wail of all his vows the proof, Till the manager is sulky, and the rain pours through the roof. See, his life he acts in dreams, while thou art staring in his face, Listen to his hollow laughter, mark his effort at grimace! Thou shalt hear "Hot Codlins" muttered in his vision-haunted sleep, Thou shalt hear his feigned ecstatics, thou shalt hear his curses deep. Let them fall on gay Vauxhall, that scene to me of deepest woe, But--the waiters are departing, and perhaps I'd better go!-- By EDMUND H. YATES, From _Mirth and Metre_, 1855. * * * * *