| |
| Have sorrows come? Has pleasure sped? | |
| Is earthly bliss an empty bubble? | |
| Is some one dull, or something dead? | |
| Or may I, may n’t I share your trouble? . . . . . . . . | |
| Ay, so it is, and is it fair? | 5 |
| Poor men (your elders and your betters!) | |
| Who can’t look pretty in despair, | |
| Feel quite as sad about their letters. | |
| |
| Old letters! wipe away the tear | |
| For lines so pale, so vainly worded; | 10 |
| A Pilgrim finds his journal here | |
| Since first his youthful loins were girded. | |
| |
| Yes, here are wails from Clapham Grove; | |
| How could philosophy expect us | |
| To live with Dr. Wise, and love | 15 |
| Rice pudding and the Greek Delectus? | |
| |
| How strange to commune with the Dead! | |
| Dead joys, dead loves; and wishes thwarted; | |
| Here’s proof of cruel friendships fled, | |
| And, sad enough, of friends departed. | 20 |
| |
| Yes, here’s the offer that I wrote | |
| In ’33 to Lucy Diver; | |
| And here’s John Wylie’s begging note,— | |
| He never paid me back a stiver. | |
| |
| Here’s news from Paternoster Row; | 25 |
| How mad I was when first I learnt it! | |
| They would not take my Book, and now | |
| I wish to goodness I had burnt it. | |
| |
| A ghastly bill! “I disapprove.” | |
| And yet She help’d me to defray it:— | 30 |
| What tokens of a mother’s love! | |
| O bitter thought,—I can’t repay it. | |
| |
| And here’s a score of notes at last, | |
| With “Love” and “Dove,” and “Sever Never”; | |
| Though hope, though passion may be past, | 35 |
| Their perfume seems—ah, sweet as ever. | |
| |
| A human heart should beat for two, | |
| Whate’er may say your single scorners; | |
| And all the hearths I ever knew | |
| Had got a pair of chimney-corners. | 40 |
| |
| See here a double violet— | |
| Two locks of hair—A deal of scandal; | |
| I’ll burn what only brings regret— | |
| Kitty, go, fetch a lighted candle. | |
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