Since he
my
faithful service did engage
To follow him through his queer pilgrimage,
I've drawn and written many a line and page.
Caricatures I scribbled have, and rhymes,
And dinner-cards, and picture pantomimes,
And
merry little children's books at times.
I've writ the foolish fancy of his brain;
The aimless jest that, striking, hath caused pain;
The idle word that he'd wish back again.
I've help'd him to pen many a line for bread;
To joke, with sorrow aching in his head;
And make your laughter when his own heart bled.
I've spoke with men of all degree and sort-
Peers of the land, and ladies of the Court;
Oh, but I've chronicled a deal of sport!
Feasts that were ate a thousand days ago, Biddings to wine that long hath ceased to flow, Gay meetings with good fellows long laid low;
Summons to bridal, banquet, burial, ball, Tradesman's polite reminders of his small Account due Christmas last-I've answer'd all.
Poor Diddler's tenth petition for a half-
Guinea; Miss Bunyan's for an autograph;
So I refuse, accept, lament, or laugh,
Condole, congratulate, invite, praise, scoff,
Day after day still dipping in my trough,
And scribbling pages after pages off.
Day after day the labour's to be done,
And sure as comes the postman and the sun,
The indefatigable ink must run.
Go back, my pretty little gilded tome,
To a fair mistress and a pleasant home,
Where soft hearts greet us whensoe'er we come!
Dear, friendly eyes, with constant kindness lit,
However rude my verse, or poor my wit,
Or sad or gay my mood, you welcome it.
Kind lady! till my last of lines is penn❜d,
My master's love, grief, laughter, at an end,
Whene'er I write your name, may I write friend!
Not all are so that were so in past years;
Voices, familiar once, no more he hears;
Names, often writ, are blotted out in tears.
So be it :-joys will end and tears will dry
Album! my master bids me wish good-bye,
He'll send you to your mistress presently.
And thus with thankful heart he closes you; Blessing the happy hour when a friend he knew So gentle, and so generous, and so true.
Nor pass the words as idle phrases by;
Stranger! I never writ a flattery,
Nor sign'd the page that register'd a lie.
SEVENTEEN rose-buds in a ring,
Thick with sister flowers beset,
In a fragrant coronet,
Lucy's servants this day bring.
Be it the birthday wreath she wears
Fresh and fair, and symbolling
The young number of her years,
The sweet blushes of her spring.
Types of youth and love and hope!
Friendly hearts your mistress greet,
Be you ever fair and sweet,
And grow lovelier as you ope!
Gentle nurseling, fenced about
With fond care, and guarded so,
Scarce you've heard of storms without,
Frosts that bite, or winds that blow !
Kindly has your life begun,
And we pray that Heaven may send
To our floweret a warm sun,
A calm summer, a sweet end.
And where'er shall be her home,
May she decorate the place;
Still expanding into bloom,
And developing in grace.
In tatter'd old slippers that toast at the bars,
And a ragged old jacket perfumed with cigars,
Away from the world and its toils and its cares,
I've a snug little kingdom up four pair of stairs.
To mount to this realm is a toil, to be sure,
But the fire there is bright and the air rather pure;
And the view I behold on a sunshiny day
Is grand through the chimney-pots over the way.
This snug little chamber is cramm'd in all nooks,
With worthless old knicknacks and silly old books,
And foolish old odds and foolish old ends,
Crack'd bargains from brokers, cheap keepsakes from friends.
Old armour, prints, pictures, pipes, china, (all crack'd,)
Old rickety tables, and chairs broken-back'd;
A twopenny treasury, wondrous to see;
What matter? 'tis pleasant to you, friend, and me.
No better divan need the Sultan require,
Than the creaking old sofa that basks by the fire;
And 'tis wonderful, surely, what music you get
From the rickety, ramshackle, wheezy spinet.
That praying-rug came from a Turcoman's camp;
By Tiber once twinkled that brazen old lamp;
A Mameluke fierce yonder dagger has drawn:
'Tis a murderous knife to toast muffins upon.
Long, long through the hours, and the night, and the chimes,
Here we talk of old books, and old friends, and old times;
As we sit in a fog made of rich Latakie
This chamber is pleasant to you, friend, and me.
But of all the cheap treasures that garnish my nest,
There's one that I love and I cherish the best;
For the finest of couches that's padded with hair
I never would change thee, my cane-bottom'd chair.
'Tis a bandy-legg'd, high-shoulder'd, worm-eaten seat,
With a creaking old back, and twisted old feet;
But since the fair morning when Fanny sat there,
I bless thee and love thee, old cane-bottom'd chair.
If chairs have but feeling, in holding such charms,
A thrill must have pass'd through your wither'd old arms!
I look'd, and I long'd, and I wish'd in despair;
I wish'd myself turn'd to a cane-bottom'd chair.
It was but a moment she sate in this place,
She'd a scarf on her neck, and a smile on her face!
A smile on her face, and a rose in her hair,
And she sate there, and bloom'd in my cane-bottom'd chair.
And so I have valued my chair ever since,
Like the shrine of a saint, or the throne of a prince;
Saint Fanny, my patroness sweet I declare,
The queen of my heart and my
When the candles burn low, and the company's gone,
In the silence of night as I sit here alone—
I sit here alone, but we yet are a pair—
My Fanny I see in my cane-bottom'd chair.
She comes from the past and revisits my room;
She looks as she then did, all beauty and bloom;
So smiling and tender, so fresh and so fair,
And yonder she sits in my cane-bottom'd chair.
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