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Home  »  The Little Book of Society Verse  »  A Nice Correspondent

Fuess and Stearns, comps. The Little Book of Society Verse. 1922.

By. Frederick Locker-Lampson

A Nice Correspondent

  • An angel at noon, she ’s a woman at night.
  • All softness, and sweetness, and love, and delight.

  • THE GLOW and the glory are plighted

    To darkness, for evening is come;

    The lamp in Glebe Cottage is lighted,

    The birds and the sheep-bells are dumb.

    I’m alone at my casement, for Pappy

    Is summoned to dinner to Kew:

    I’m alone, dearest Fred, but I’m happy—

    I’m thinking of you.

    I wish you were here! Were I duller

    Than dull, you’d be dearer than dear;

    I am drest in your favorite colour—

    Dear Fred, how I wish you were here!

    I’m wearing my lazuli necklace,

    The necklace you fasten’d askew!

    Was there ever so rude or so reckless

    A darling as you?

    I want you to come and pass sentence

    On two or three books with a plot;

    Of course you know “Janet’s Repentance”?

    I’m reading Sir Waverley Scott,

    The story of Edgar and Lucy,

    How thrilling, romantic, and true!

    The Master (his bride was a goosey!)

    Reminds me of you.

    They tell me Cockaigne has been crowning

    A poet whose garland endures;

    It was you who first spouted me Browning,—

    That stupid old Browning of yours!

    His vogue and his verve are alarming,

    I’m anxious to give him his due,

    But, Fred, he’s not nearly so charming

    A poet as you!

    I know how you shot at the Beeches,

    I saw how you rode Chanticleer,

    I have heard the report of your speeches,

    And echo’d the echoing cheer.

    There’s a whisper of hearts you are breaking,

    Dear Fred, I believe it, I do!

    Small marvel that Fashion is making

    Her idol of you.

    Alas for the world, and its dearly

    Bought triumph, its fugitive bliss;

    Sometimes I half wish I were merely

    A plain or a penniless miss;

    But, perhaps, one is best “with a measure

    Of pelf,” and I’m not sorry, too,

    That I’m pretty, because ’t is a pleasure,

    My darling, to you!

    Your whim is for frolic and fashion,

    Your taste is for letters and art;—

    This rhyme is the commonplace passion

    That glows in a fond woman’s heart:

    Lay it by in a dainty deposit

    For relics—we all have a few!

    Love, some day they’ll print it, because it

    Was written to you.