who, for all their spiteful ways,
Are "silent, unassuming Parties."

We hug this Phantom we detest,
Rarely we let it cross our portals:
It is a most exacting guest,
And we are much afflicted mortals.
Your neighbor Gay, that jovial wight,
As Dives rich, and brave as Hector,
Poor Gay steals twenty times a night,
On shaking knees, to see his Specter.

Old Dives fears a pauper fate,
So hoarding is his ruling passion:--
Some gloomy souls anticipate
A waistcoat, straiter than the fashion!
She childless pines, that lonely wife,
And secret tears are bitter shedding;
Hector may tremble all his life,
And die,--but not of that he's dreading....

Ah me, the World! How fast it spins!
The beldams dance, the caldron bubbles;
They shriek, they stir it for our sins,
And we must drain it for our troubles.
We toil, we groan; the cry for love
Mounts up from this poor seething city,
And yet I know we have above
A Father, infinite in pity.

When Beauty smiles, when Sorrow weeps,
Where sunbeams play, where shadows darken,
One inmate of our dwelling keeps
Its ghastly carnival; but hearken!
How dry the rattle of the bones!
That sound was not to make you start meant:
Stand by! Your humble servant owns
The Tenant of this Dark Apartment.

Frederick Locker-Lampson [1821-1895]

A TERRIBLE INFANT

I recollect a nurse called Ann,
Who carried me about the grass,
And one fine day a fine young man
Came up, and kissed the pretty lass:
She did not make the least objection!
Thinks I, "Aha!
When I can talk I'll tell Mamma"
--And that's my earliest recollection.

Frederick Locker-Lampson [1821-1895]

COMPANIONS
A Tale Of A Grandfather

I know not of what we pondered
Or made pretty pretence to talk,
As, her hand within mine, we wandered.
Toward the pool by the lime-tree walk,
While the dew fell in showers from the passion flowers
And the blush-rose bent on her stalk.

I cannot recall her figure:
Was it regal as Juno's own?
Or only a trifle bigger
Than the elves who surround the throne
Of the Fairy Queen, and are seen, I ween,
By mortals in dreams alone?

What her eyes were like I know not:
Perhaps they were blurred with tears;
And perhaps in yon skies there glow not
(On the contrary) clearer spheres.
No! as to her eyes I am just as wise
As you or the cat, my dears.

Her teeth, I presume, were "pearly":
But which was she, brunette or blonde?
Her hair, was it quaintly curly,
Or as straight as a beadle's w