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To Euston, or half over London town,

On one of the station trucks."

Then forth in a hurry did they twain fare,

The gent, and the son of the stout portèr,

Who fled like an arrow, nor turned a hair,

Through all the mire and muck:

"A ticket, a ticket, sir clerk, I pray :

For by two of the clock must I needs away."

"That may hardly be," the clerk did say,

"For indeed-the clocks have struck."

VOICES OF THE NIGHT.

"The tender Grace of a day that is past."

THE dew is on the roses,

The owl hath spread her wing;

And vocal are the noses

Of peasant and of king:

"Nature" (in short) "reposes"; But I do no such thing.

Pent in my lonesome study

Here I must sit and muse;

Sit till the morn grows ruddy,
Till, rising with the dews,
"Jeameses" remove the muddy

Spots from their masters' shoes.

Yet are sweet faces flinging

Their witchery o'er me here:

I hear sweet voices singing

A song as soft, as clear,

As (previously to stinging)

A gnat sings round one's ear.

Does Grace draw young Apollo's In blue mustachios still?

Does Emma tell the swallows

How she will pipe and trill,

When, some fine day, she follows

Those birds to the window-sill?

And oh has Albert faded

From Grace's memory yet?

Albert, whose "brow was shaded

By locks of glossiest jet,"

Whom almost any lady'd

Have given her eyes to get?

Does not her conscience smite her

For one who hourly pines,

Thinking her bright eyes brighter

Than any star that shines

I mean of course the writer

Of these pathetic lines?

Who knows? As quoth Sir Walter, "Time rolls his ceaseless course:

"The Grace of yore" may alter— And then, I've one resource:

I'll invest in a bran-new halter,

And I'll perish without remorse.

LINES SUGGESTED BY THE FOURTEENTH

OF FEBRUARY.

ERE the morn the East has crimsoned,

When the stars are twinkling there,

(As they did in Watts's Hymns, and

Made him wonder what they were:)

When the forest-nymphs are beading

Fern and flower with silvery dew

My infallible proceeding

Is to wake, and think of you.

When the hunter's ringing bugle

Sounds farewell to field and copse,

And I sit before my frugal

Meal of gravy-soup and chops:

When (as Gray remarks) "the moping

Owl doth to the moon complain,”

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