"Now, so to thee the saints alway, Good gentleman, give luck,—

As never a cab may I find this day,

For the cabman wights have struck: And now, I wis, at the Red Post Inn, Or else at the Dog and Duck,

Or at Unicorn Blue, or at Green Griffin,

The nut-brown ale and the fine old gin Right pleasantly they do suck."

"Now rede me aright, thou stout portèr, What were it best that I should do:

For woe is me, an' I reach not there

Or ever the clock strike two."

"I have a son, a lytel son;

Fleet is his foot as the wild roebuck's:

Give him a shilling, and eke a brown,

And he shall carry thy fardels down

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 dead."

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 alterAnd then, I've one resource:

I'll invest in a bran-new halter,

And I'll perish without remorse.