MY CICELY
('Twas hard to repress my heart-heavings
And new ecstasy.)
"She wedded."—"Ah!"—"Wedded beneath her—
She keeps the stage-hostel
Ten miles hence, beside the great Highway
The famed Lions-Three.
"Her spouse was her lackey—no option
'Twixt wedlock and worse things;
A lapse over-sad for a lady
Of her pedigree!"
I shuddered, said nothing, and wandered
To shades of green laurel:
Too ghastly had grown those first tidings
So brightsome of blee!
For, on my ride hither, I'd halted
Awhile at the Lions,
And her—her whose name had once opened
My heart as a key—
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