The blooming rose conceals an asp, And bliss coquetting flies the grasp: And, waking up, snap goes the slight Poor cord that held my foolish kite,— Your slave, you may not care to know it, Your humble slave will be your Poet. Farewell!—can aught for her be will’d Whose every wish is all fulfill’d? Farewell!—could wishing weave a spell, There’s promise in those words “Fare well!” I wish your wish may not be marr’d;— Now wish yourself a better Bard! THE CRADLE Aye, here is your cradle! Why surely, my Jenny, Such slender dimensions go somewhat to show You were an exceedingly small pic-a-ninny Some nineteen or twenty short summers ago. Your baby-days flow’d in a much-troubled channel; I see you as then in your impotent strife,— A tight little bundle of wailing and flannel, Perplex’d with that newly-found fardel called life. To hint at an infantine frailty’s a scandal; All bye-gones are bye-gones—and somebody knows It was bliss such a baby to dance and to dandle, Your cheeks were so velvet—so rosy your toes. Aye, here is your cradle! and Hope, a bright spirit, With Love now is watching beside it, I know; They guard o’er the nest you yourself did inherit Some nineteen or twenty short summers ago. It is Hope gilds the future, Love welcomes it smiling; Thus wags this old world, therefore stay not to ask,— “My future bids fair, is my future beguiling?” If mask’d, still it pleases, then raise not its mask. Is life a poor coil some would gladly be doffing? He is riding post-haste who their wrongs will adjust; For at most ’tis a footstep from cradle to coffin,— From a spoonful of pap to a mouthful of dust. Then smile as your future is smiling, my Jenny! I see you, except for that infantine woe, Scarce changed since you were but a small pic-a-ninny,— Your cheek is still velvet—pray what is your toe? Aye, here is your cradle! much, much to my liking, Though nineteen or twenty long winters have sped; But, hark! as I’m talking there’s six o’clock striking, It is time JENNY’S BABY should be in its bed! O TEMPORA MUTANTUR! “O cruel Time! O tyrant Time! Whose winter all the streams of rhyme, The flowing waves of Love sublime, In bitter passage freezes. I only see the scrambling goat, The lotos on the water float, While an old shepherd with an oat Pipes to the autumn breezes.” MR M. COLLINS. Yes! here, once more, a traveller, I find the Angel Inn, Where landlord, maids, and serving-men, Receive me with a grin: They surely can’t remember _me_, My hair is grey and scanter; I’m chang’d, so chang’d since I was here— “O tempora mutantur!”