Simple this tale!—­but delicately perfumed
As the sweet roadside honeysuckle.  That’s why,
Difficult though its metre was to tackle,

                                            I’m glad I wrote it.

A TRIOLET.

To commemorate the virtue of Homoeopathy in restoring one apparently drowned.

Love, that in a tear was drown’d,
Lives revived by a tear. 
Stella heard them mourn around
Love that in a tear was drown’d,
Came and coax’d his dripping swound,
Wept ‘The fault was mine, my dear!’
Love, that in a tear was drown’d,
Lives, revived by a tear.

AN OATH.

(From ’Troy Town’.)

     A month ago Lysander pray’d
       To Jove, to Cupid, and to Venus,
     That he might die if he betray’d
       A single vow that pass’d between us.

     Ah, careless gods, to hear so ill
       And cheat a maid on you relying! 
     For false Lysander’s thriving still,
       And ’tis Corinna lies a-dying.

UPON GRACIOSA, WALKING AND TALKING.

(From ’Troy Town’.)

When as abroad, to greet the morn,
I mark my Graciosa walk,
In homage bends the whisp’ring corn,
Yet to confess
Its awkwardness
Must hang its head upon the stalk.

And when she talks, her lips do heal
The wounds her lightest glances give:—­
In pity then be harsh, and deal
Such wounds that I
May hourly die,
And, by a word restored, live.

WRITTEN UPON LOVE’S FRONTIER-POST.

(From ’Troy Town’.)

Toiling love, loose your pack,
All your sighs and tears unbind: 
Care’s a ware will break a back,
Will not bend a maiden’s mind.

     In this State a man shall need
       Neither priest nor law giver: 
     Those same lips that are his creed
       Shall confess their worshipper.

     All the laws he must obey,
       Now in force and now repeal’d,
     Shift in eyes that shift as they,
       Till alike with kisses seal’d.

TITANIA.

By Lord T-n.

     So bluff Sir Leolin gave the bride away: 
     And when they married her, the little church
     Had seldom seen a costlier ritual. 
     The coach and pair alone were two-pound-ten,
     And two-pound-ten apiece the wedding-cakes;—­
     Three wedding-cakes.  A Cupid poised a-top
     Of each hung shivering to the frosted loves
     Of two fond cushats on a field of ice,
     As who should say ’I see you!’—­Such the joy
     When English-hearted Edwin swore his faith
     With Mariana of the Moated Grange.