Howbeit some notion of his jealous drift She gather’d from the simple outward fact, That her own lap contained each slighted gift; Though quite unconscious of his cause to act So like Othello, with his face unblack’d; “Alas!” she sobbed, “your cruel course I see These faded charms no longer can attract; Your fancy palls, and you would wander free, And lay your own apostacy on me!” “_I_, false!--unjust Lorenzo!--and to _you_! Oh, all ye holy gospels that incline The soul to truth, bear witness I am true! By all that lives, of earthly or divine-- So long as this poor throbbing heart is mine-- _I_ false!--the world shall change its course as soon! True as the streamlet to the stars that shine-- True as the dial to the sun at noon, True as the tide to ‘yonder blessed moon’!” And as she spoke, she pointed through the window, Somewhere above the houses’ distant tops, Betwixt the chimney-pots of Mrs. Lindo, And Todd and Sturch’s cheapest of all shops For ribbons, laces, muslins, silks, and fops:-- Meanwhile, as she upraised her face so Grecian, And eyes suffused with scintillating drops, Lorenzo looked, too, o’er the blinds venetian, To see the sphere so troubled with repletion. “The Moon!” he cried, and an electric spasm Seem’d all at once his features to distort, And fix’d his mouth, a dumb and gaping chasm-- His faculties benumb’d and all amort-- At last his voice came, of most shrilly sort, Just like a sea-gull’s wheeling round a rock-- “Speak!--Ellen!--is your sight indeed so short? The Moon!--Brute! savage that I am, and block! The Moon! (O, ye Romantics, what a shock!) Why that’s the new Illuminated Clock!” [Illustration: ST. BLAISE.] [Illustration: “THOSE EVENING BELLS.”] THOSE EVENING BELLS. “I’D BE A PARODY.” THOSE Evening Bells, those Evening Bells, How many a tale their music tells, Of Yorkshire cakes and crumpets prime, And letters only just in time!-- The Muffin-boy has pass’d away, The Postman gone--and I must pay, For down below Deaf Mary dwells, And does not hear those Evening Bells, And so ’twill be when she is gone, That tuneful peal will still ring on, And other maids with timely yells Forget to stay those Evening Bells. [Illustration: BALL-PRACTICE.] LINES TO A FRIEND AT COBHAM. ’Tis pleasant, when we’ve absent friends, Sometimes to hob and nob ’em With Memory’s glass--at such a pass Remember me at Cobham! Have pigs you will, and sometimes kill, But if you sigh and sob ’em, And cannot eat your home-grown meat, Remember me at Cobham! Of hen and cock, you’ll have a stock, And death will oft unthrob ’em,-- A country chick is good to pick-- Remember me at Cobham!