S LUCY'S BIRTHDAY EVENTEEN rose-buds in a ring, Lucy's servants this day bring. Types of youth and love and hope! Scarce you've heard of storms without, Kindly has your life begun, I THE CANE-BOTTOM'D CHAIR N tattered old slippers that toast at the bars, And a ragged old jacket perfumed with cigars, Away from the world and its toils and its cares, I've a snug little kingdom up four pair of stairs. To mount to this realm is a toil, to be sure, Is grand through the chimney-pots over the way. This snug little chamber is cramm'd in all nooks Crack'd bargains from brokers, cheap keepsakes from friends. Old armour, prints, pictures, pipes, china, (all crack'd,) Old rickety tables, and chairs broken-backed; A twopenny treasury, wondrous to see; What matter? 't is pleasant to you, friend, and me. No better divan need the Sultan require, That praying-rug came from a Turcoman's camp; Long, long through the hours, and the night, and the chimes, Here we talk of old books, and old friends, and old times; As we sit in a fog made of rich Latakie This chamber is pleasant to you, friend, and me. But of all the cheap treasures that garnish my nest, 'Tis a bandy-legg'd, high-shoulder'd, worm-eaten seat, If chairs have but feeling, in holding such charms, A thrill must have pass'd through your wither'd old arms! I look'd, and I long'd, and I wish'd in despair; I wish'd myself turn'd to a cane-bottom'd chair. It was but a moment she sat in this place, She'd a scarf on her neck, and a smile on her face! A smile on her face, and a rose in her hair, And she sat there, and bloom'd in my cane-bottom'd chair. And so I have valued my chair ever since, Like the shrine of a saint, or the throne of a prince; Saint Fanny, my patroness sweet I declare, The queen of my heart and my cane-bottom'd chair. When the candles burn low, and the company's gone, She comes from the past and revisits my room; PISCATOR AND PISCATRIX LINES WRITTEN TO AN ALBUM PRINT S on this pictured page I look, A This pretty tale of line and hook I know them both, the boy and girl; My lord the County's page is. A pleasant place for such a pair! It is too hot to pace the keep; The postern-warder is asleep (Perhaps they've bribed him not to peep): And so from out the gate they creep, And cross the fields of clover. |