I am incurably in love with a young lady, residing in the country,
but have reason to think, from what passed between us at our last
interview, that she has some misgivings respecting my fidelity. I
therefore beg you will insert these lines in your Almanack, which,
as it circulates everywhere, will show everybody that my intentions
are strictly honourable.
Yours,
Greatly obliged, &c.,
PHIL. PHILOMEL.
Oh! why these cruel taunts throw out,
And say you cease to love me;
Or my affection that you doubt?
By all the stars above me,
I am not false—yet, since I fear
To meet a flat rejection,
I'll tell you when you may, with cause,
Mistrust my fond affection:
When trains from Railway _termini_
Start off at the same hour
Two weeks together, then begin
To doubt your beauty's power;
Or, when embankments cease to fall,
Or boilers to explode,
Or engines to run off the line,
You may some change forbode:
When shrimps are caught at Putney Bridge,
And gudgeons at Herne Bay,
When the Thames Tunnel clears enough
Its shareholders to pay;
Or, when Thorwaldsen's "Byron" stands
In Westminster's old Abbey,
You may, with truth, begin to think
My conduct rather shabby:
When Autumn tourists cease to roam
To Switzerland or Baden;
Or when the lessees fortunes make
At "Drury," or "The Garden;"
When _busses_ move along the Strand
As fast as you can walk—
Then think my words no longer true,
My vows of love all talk:
But, until then, I swear by all
The topics of the year—
The corn laws, sugar, opium, tea,
Lin, Elliott, and Napier.—
By D'Aumale's fortunate escape,
And Marie, "_femme_ Laffarge,"
Who writes as well within her cell
As if she were at large:
Or by Napoleon's _catafalque_,
'Midst such grand rites erected
(Although it made not half the stir
The French King had expected);
By the dim last declining rays
Of weather-doom'd Vauxhall,
Or by Cerito's masquerade,
Which ne'er took place at all:—
By all these things, and many more
Which I've no time to write
(Because the various mail-trains start
At half-past eight each night),
I swear again, to prove most true,
And every vow fulfil,
Till fashion's idlers quit Hyde Park,
And lounge on Tower Hill.