But suffer me to pace
Round the forbidden place,
Lingering a minute

Like outcast spirits who wait
And see through Heaven's gate
Angels within it.

THE AGE OF WISDOM.

Ho, pretty page, with the dimpled chin, That never has known the Barber's shear, All your wish is woman to win,

This is the way that boys begin,

Wait till you come to Forty Year.

Curly gold locks cover foolish brains,
Billing and cooing is all your cheer;
Sighing and singing of midnight strains,
Under Bonnybell's window panes,-
Wait till you come to Forty Year!

Forty times over let Michaelmas pass,
Grizzling hair the brain doth clear-
Then you know a boy is an ass,
Then you know the worth of a lass,
Once you have come to Forty Year.

Pledge me round, I bid ye declare,

All good fellows whose beards are grey, Did not the fairest of the fair

The reddest lips that ever have kissed,

The brightest eyes that ever have shone, May pray and whisper, and we not list, Or look away, and never be missed, Ere yet ever a month is gone.

Gillian's dead, God rest her bier,
How I loved her twenty years syne!
Marian's married, but I sit here

Alone and merry at Forty Year,

Dipping my nose in the Gascon wine.

SORROWS OF WERTHER.

WERTHER had a love for Charlotte
Such as words could never utter;
Would you know how first he met her?
She was cutting bread and butter.

Charlotte was a married lady,

And a moral man was Werther,
And, for all the wealth of Indies,
Would do nothing for to hurt her.

So he sighed and pined and ogled,
And his passion boiled and bubbled,
Till he blew his silly brains out,

And no more was by it troubled.

Charlotte, having seen his body

Borne before her on a shutter,

Like a well-conducted person,

Went on cutting bread and butter

THE LAST OF MAY.

(IN REPLY TO AN INVITATION DATED ON THE 1ST.)

VOL. I.

By fate's benevolent award,
Should I survive the day,

I'll drink a bumper with my lord.
Upon the last of May.

That I may reach that happy time

The kindly gods I pray,

For are not ducks and peas in prime
Upon the last of May?

At thirty boards, 'twixt now and then,

My knife and fork shall play,

But better wine and better men
I shall not meet in May.

And though, good friend, with whom I dine,

Your honest head is grey;

And, like this grizzled head of mine,

Has seen its last of May;

F

LOVE SONGS MADE EASY.

WHAT MAKES MY HEART TO THRILL AND GLOW?

THE MAY-FAIR LOVE SONG.

WINTER and summer, night and morn,
I languish at this table dark;
My office window has a corn-

er looks into St. James's Park.
I hear the foot-guards' bugle horn,
Their tramp upon parade I mark;
I am a gentleman forlorn,

I am a Foreign-Office Clerk.

My toils, my pleasures, every one,

I find are stale, and dull, and slow;
And yesterday, when work was done,
I felt myself so sad and low,

I could have seized a sentry's gun

My wearied brains out out to blow.

What is it makes my blood to run?

What makes my heart to beat and glow ?

My notes of hand are burnt, perhaps?
Some one has paid my tailor's bill ?
No: every morn the tailor raps;
My IO U's are extant still.

I still am prey of debt and dun;

My elder brother's stout and well.

What is it makes my blood to run,

What makes my heart to glow and swell!

I know my chief's distrust and hate;
He says I'm lazy, and I shirk.
Ah! had I genius like the late

Right Honourable Edmund Burke !
My chance of all promotion's gone,
I know it is, he hates me so.
What is it makes my blood to run,

And all my heart to swell and glow?

?

Why, why is all so bright and gay There is no change, there is no cause ; My office-time I found to-day

Disgusting as it ever was.

At three, I went and tried the clubs, And yawned and saunter'd to and fro; And now my heart jumps up and throbs, And all my soul is in a glow.

At half-past four I had the cab;
I drove as hard as I could go.
The London sky was dirty drab,

And dirty brown the London snow.
And as I rattled in a cant-

er down by dear, old Bolton Row,

A something made my heart to pant,

And caused my cheek to flush and glow.

What could it be that made me find
Old Jawkins pleasant at the club ?
Why was it that I laughed and grinned
At whist, although I lost the rub?
What was it made me drink like mad

Thirteen small glasses of Curaço ?
That made my inmost heart so glad,

And every fibre thrill and glow?