A MEDLEY.
161
CONCLUSION.
Here closed our compound story which at first
Had only meant to banter little maids
With mock-heroics and with parody:
But slipt in some strange way, crost with burlesque,
From mock to earnest, even into tones
Of tragic, and with less and less of jest
To such a serious end that Lilia fixt
A showery glance upon her Aunt and said
'You—tell us what we are;' who there began
A treatise, growing with it, and might have flow'd
In axiom worthier to be grav'n on rock,
Than all that lasts of old-world hieroglyph,
Or lichen-fretted Rune and arrowhead;
Had only meant to banter little maids
With mock-heroics and with parody:
But slipt in some strange way, crost with burlesque,
From mock to earnest, even into tones
Of tragic, and with less and less of jest
To such a serious end that Lilia fixt
A showery glance upon her Aunt and said
'You—tell us what we are;' who there began
A treatise, growing with it, and might have flow'd
In axiom worthier to be grav'n on rock,
Than all that lasts of old-world hieroglyph,
Or lichen-fretted Rune and arrowhead;
