The signature "S.B." probably, though without confirmation, belongs to Shirley Brooks, frequent contributor to Once a Week and author of other letter poems such as "The private view."
No, Edith, I have got no briefs—I want no briefs at all, I want to know that you’re come back, and safe at Shirley Hall; And till I get a note from yon, announcing that return, I’ve neither head nor heart for Chitty, Sugden, Hayes, or Fearne.
Your letter speaks about “hard work,” and “rising at the bar;” I read it, Edith, at my window, smoking a cigar; And I’m to work while you’re away?—a likely thing, indeed! Yes, I’m in one Assizes case,—the one in Adam Bede.
You can believe, or disbelieve me, Edith, as you please, A fellow’s work’s all bosh unless a fellow’s mind’s at ease; And studying Cross Remainders Over is no use, I fear, While you’re in France, and I’m a cross remainder over here.
Don’t, Edith, write about myself, I want to hear of you, And what you’re doing day by day, and also how you do; And whether Mrs. Armington (whom I don’t like, and shan’t), Is really acting like a friend, or only like an aunt;
And takes you, Edith, everywhere, and shows you what’s to see, And in society performs what’s due to you—and me; Nor, while her own long girls are push’d wherever she can get, Permits you to be talk’d to by the billiard-playing set.
And, Edith, as she’s full of spite (she is, from wig to toes, And hates me for that harmless sketch that show’d her Roman nose); Inform me if those vicious inuendos she contrives, And talks at briefless barristers, and pities poor men’s wives.
Or if she ever gives you, Edith darling, half a hint (There’s nothing that a woman wouldn’t do with such a squint) That I’ve been fast, and people say, “who really ought to know,” That at getting briefs and paying bills alone they think I’m slow;
Or talks of our engagement in a way that isn’t kind, Makes it, at pic-nics, an excuse for leaving you behind; And drawls, that cold old lip of hers maliciously up-curl’d, “Of course, engaged Miss Ediths do not care about the world.”
You’ll call me such a worry, Edith, but it is not fun To be stuck in Temple chambers when October has begun; So pity for a lover who’s condemned in town to stay, When She—and everybody else—are off and far away.
I wander in our Gardens when the dusk makes all things dim, The gardener tells me not to smoke, but much I care for him; And Paper Buildings, Edith, in a sketch by fancy drawn, Grows an old baronial mansion, with the grassplat for its lawn:
The Thames, its lake; myself, its Lord (his income, lucky chance, Exactly fifty thousand pounds paid yearly in advance); Then at the eastern turret a sweet form is conjur’d up, And Edith waves a kerchief white, and calls me in—to sup.
Well, bless you, Edith. When you sail’d, I put aboard your ship Vanity Fair, by Thackeray, and my dear old Hound, by Grip; And to no girl her destiny more sure protection sends, S. B.Than such a dog to bite her foes, such book to bite her friends.
