They tenderly prattled,—what was it they said? The turf on that hillock was new: O! kenn’d ye, poor little ones, aught of the dead, Or could he be heedful of you? I wish to believe, and believe it I must, That a father beneath them was laid: I wish to believe,—I will take it on trust, That father knew all that they said. My Own, you are five, very nearly the age Of that poor little fatherless child; And some day a true-love your heart will engage When on earth I my last may have smil’d. Then visit my grave, like a good little lass, Where’er it may happen to be, And if any daisies should peer through the grass, Be sure they are kisses from me. And place not a stone to distinguish my name, For strangers and gossips to see, But come with your lover as these lovers came, And talk to him gaily of me. And while you are smiling, your father will smile Such a sweet little daughter to have: But mind, O yes! mind you are merry the while— _I wish you to visit my grave_. MY LIFE IS A— At Worthing an exile from Geraldine G—, How aimless, how wretched an exile is he! Promenades are not even prunella and leather To lovers, if lovers can’t foot them together. He flies the parade, sad by ocean he stands, He traces a “Geraldine G” on the sands. But a G, tho’ her lov’d patronymic is Green, “I will not betray thee, my own Geraldine.” The fortunes of men have a time and a tide, And Fate, the old fury, will not be denied; That name was, of course, soon wip’d out by the sea,— And she jilted the exile, did Geraldine G—. They meet, but they never have spoken since that,— He hopes she is happy—he knows she is fat; _She_ woo’d on the shore, now is wed in the Strand, And _I_—it was I wrote her name on the sand! VANITY FAIR “Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, all is vanity.” ECCLESIASTES. “Vanitas Vanitatum” has rung in the ears Of gentle and simple for thousands of years; The wail is still heard, yet its notes never scare Or simple, or gentle, from Vanity Fair. This Fair has allurements alike to engage The dimples of youth and the wrinkles of age; Though mirth may be feigning, though sheen may be glare, The gingerbread’s gilded in Vanity Fair. Old Dives there rolls in his chariot of state, There Jack takes his Joan at a lowlier rate, St Giles’, St James’, from alley and square, Send votaries plenty to Vanity Fair. That goal would be vain where the guerdon was dross, So come whence they may they must come by a loss: The tree was enticing,—its branches are bare; Heigh-ho! for the promise of Vanity Fair.