The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.
My grandmamma has said,—
Poor old lady, she is dead
Long ago,—
That he had a Roman nose,
And his cheek was like a rose
In the snow.
But now his nose is thin,
And it rests upon his chin
Like a staff,
And a crook is in his back,
And a melancholy crack
In his laugh.
I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin
At him here;
But the old three-cornered hat,
And the breeches, and all that,
Are so queer!
And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,—
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.
These admirable verses—set in so aptly framed a metre too—would alone suffice to make a reputation. In a like spirit, dashed with a few drops of the Thackeray essence, are the lines headed "Questions and Answers,"—among the queries and responses being these sarcastic sentimentalisms:
Where, where are the visions of morning,
Fresh as the dews of our prime?
Gone, like tenants that quit without warning,
Down the back entry of time.
Where, O where are life's lilies and roses,
Nursed in the golden dawn's smile?
Dead as the bulrushes round little Moses,
On the old banks of the Nile.
Where are the Marys, and Anns, and Elizas,
Loving and lovely of yore?
Look in the columns of old Advertisers,—
Married and dead by the score.
In such alliance of the humorous and fanciful lies a main charm in this writer's productions. Fancy he has in abundance, as he proves on all occasions, grave and gay. Sometimes, indeed, he indulges in similes that may be thought rather curious than felicitous: as where he speaks of the "half-built tower," which, thanks to Howe's artillery,
