VISIONS. "She was a phantom," &c. IN lone Glenartney's thickets lies couched the lordly stag, The dreaming terrier's tail forgets its customary wag; And plodding ploughmen's weary steps insensibly grow quicker, As broadening casements light them on toward home, or home-brewed liquor. It is in brief the evening-that pure and pleasant time, When stars break into splendour, and poets into rhyme ; B When in the glass of Memory the forms of loved ones shine And when, of course, Miss Goodchild's is prominent in mine. Miss Goodchild!-Julia Goodchild!-how graciously you smiled Upon my childish passion once, yourself a fairhaired child: When I was (no doubt) profiting by Dr. Crabb's instruction, And sent those streaky lollipops home for your fairy suction! "She wore her natural "roses, the night when first we met " Her golden hair was gleaming 'neath the coercive net: "Her brow was like the snawdrift," her step was like Queen Mab's, And gone was instantly the heart of every boy at Crabb's. The parlour-boarder chasséed tow'rds her on graceful limb; The onyx deck'd his bosom-but her smiles were not for him : With me she danced-till drowsily her eyes "began to blink," And I brought raisin wine, and said, "Drink, pretty creature, drink!" And evermore, when winter comes in his garb of snows, And the returning schoolboy is told how fast he grows ; Shall I-with that soft hand in mine-enact ideal Lancers, And dream I hear demure remarks, and make impassioned answers :— |