e of arrows;
I thought 'twas Venus from her isle,
And wonder'd where she'd left her sparrows.

She talk'd,--of politics or prayers;
Of Southey's prose, or Wordsworth's sonnets;
Of daggers or of dancing bears,
Of battles, or the last new bonnets;
By candle-light, at twelve o'clock,
To me it matter'd not a tittle,
If those bright lips had quoted Locke,
I might have thought they murmur'd Little.

Through sunny May, through sultry June,
I loved her with a love eternal;
I spoke her praises to the moon,
I wrote them for the _Sunday Journal_.
My mother laugh'd; I soon found out
That ancient ladies have no feeling;
My father frown'd; but how should gout
See any happiness in kneeling?

She was the daughter of a Dean,
Rich, fat, and rather apoplectic;
She had one brother, just thirteen,
Whose color was extremely hectic;
Her grandmother for many a year
Had fed the parish with her bounty;
Her second cousin was a peer,
And lord lieutenant of the county.

But titles and the three per cents,
And mortgages, and great relations,
And India bonds, and tithes and rents,
Oh! what are they to love's sensations?
Black eyes, fair forehead, clustering locks,
Such wealth, such honors, Cupid chooses;
He cares as little for the stocks,
As Baron Rothschild for the Muses.

She sketch'd; the vale, the wood, the beach,
Grew lovelier from her pencil's shading;
She botanized; I envied each
Young blossom in her boudoir fading;
She warbled Handel; it was grand--
She made the Catalani jealous;
She touch'd the organ; I could stand
For hours and hours to blow the bellows.

She kept an album, too, at home,
Well fill'd with all an album's glories;
Paintings of butterflies, and Rome,
Patterns for trimming, Persian stories;
Soft songs to Julia's cockatoo,
Fierce odes to Famine and to Slaughter;
And autographs of Prince Leboo,
And recipes for elder water.

And she was flatter'd, worshipp'd, bored;
Her steps were watch'd, her dress was noted;
Her poodle dog was quite adored,
Her sayings were extremely quoted.
She laugh'd, and every heart was glad,
As if the taxes were abolish'd;
She frown'd, and every look was sad,
As if the Opera were demolished.

She smil'd on many just for fun--
I knew that there was nothing in it;
I was the first--the only one
Her heart had thought of for a minute;
I knew it, for she told me so,
In phrase which was divinely moulded;
She wrote a