xt spring and fall,
With fond elation,

I turned the brown old leaves. For there
All through one hopeful happy summer,
At such a page (I well knew where),
Some secret comer,

Whom I can picture, 'Trix, like you
(Though scarcely such a colt unbroken),
Would sometimes place for private view
A certain token;--

A rose-leaf meaning "Garden Wall,"
An ivy-leaf for "Orchard corner,"
A thorn to say "Don't come at all,"--
Unwelcome warner!--

Not that, in truth, our friends gainsaid;
But then Romance required dissembling,
(Ann Radcliffe taught us that!) which bred
Some genuine trembling;

Though, as a rule, all used to end
In such kind confidential parley
As may to you kind Fortune send,
You long-legged Charlie,

When your time comes. How years slip on!
We had our crosses like our betters;
Fate sometimes looked askance upon
Those floral letters;

And once, for three long days disdained,
The dust upon the folio settled;
For some-one, in the right, was pained,
And some-one nettled,

That sure was in the wrong, but spake
Of fixed intent and purpose stony
To serve King George, enlist and make
Minced-meat of "Boney,"

Who yet survived--ten years at least.
And so, when she I mean came hither,
One day that need for letters ceased,
She brought this with her!

Here is the leaf-stained Chapter:--_How
The English King laid Siege to Calais_;
I think Gran. knows it even now,--
Go ask her, Alice.

TO THE MAMMOTH-TORTOISE

OF THE MASCARENE ISLANDS.

"_Tuque, Testudo, resonare septem_
_Callida nervis._"
Hor. iii. 11.

Monster Chelonian, you suggest
To some, no doubt, the calm,--
The torpid ease of islets drest
In fan-like fern and palm;

To some your cumbrous ways, perchance,
Darwinian dreams recall;
And some your Rip-van-Winkle glance,
And ancient youth appal;

So widely varied views dispose:
But not so mine,--for me
Your vasty vault but simply shows
A LYRE immense, _per se_,

A LYRE to which the Muse might chant
A truly "Orphic t