When man and maiden meet, I like to see a drooping eye, I always droop my own--I am the shyest of the shy. I'm also fond of bashfulness, and sitting down on thorns, For modesty's a quality that womankind adorns. Whenever I am introduced to any pretty maid, My knees they knock together, just as if I were afraid; I flutter, and I stammer, and I turn a pleasing red, For to laugh, and flirt, and ogle I consider most ill-bred. But still in all these matters, as in other things below, There is a proper medium, as I'm about to show. I do not recommend a newly-married pair to try To carry on as PETER carried on with SARAH BLIGH. Betrothed they were when very young--before they'd learnt to speak (For SARAH was but six days old, and PETER was a week); Though little more than babies at those early ages, yet They bashfully would faint when they occasionally met. They blushed, and flushed, and fainted, till they reached the age of nine, When PETER'S good papa (he was a Baron of the Rhine) Determined to endeavour some sound argument to find To bring these shy young people to a proper frame of mind. [Illustration] He told them that as SARAH was to be his PETER'S bride, They might at least consent to sit at table side by side; He begged that they would now and then shake hands, till he was hoarse, Which SARAH thought indelicate, and PETER very coarse. And PETER in a tremble to the blushing maid would say, "You must excuse papa, MISS BLIGH,--it is his mountain way." Says SARAH, "His behaviour I'll endeavour to forget, But your papa's the coarsest person that I ever met. "He plighted us without our leave, when we were very young, Before we had begun articulating with the tongue. His underbred suggestions fill your Sarah with alarm; Why, gracious me! he'll ask us next to walk out arm-in-arm!" At length when SARAH reached the legal age of twenty-one, The Baron he determined to unite her to his son; And SARAH in a fainting-fit for weeks unconscious lay, And PETER blushed so hard you might have heard him miles away. [Illustration] And when the time arrived for taking SARAH to his heart, They were married in two churches half-a-dozen miles apart (Intending to escape all public ridicule and chaff), And the service was conducted by electric telegraph. And when it was concluded, and the priest had said his say, Until the time arrived when they were both to drive away, They never spoke or offered for to fondle or to fawn, For _he_ waited in the attic, and _she_ waited on the lawn. At length, when four o'clock arrived, and it was time to go, The carriage was announced, but decent SARAH answered "No! Upon my word, I'd rather sleep my everlasting nap, Than go and ride alone with MR. PETER in a trap."