I

PLAY'D with you 'mid cowslips blowing,

When I was six and you were four;

When garlands weaving, flower-balls throwing,

Were pleasures soon to please no more.
Thro' groves and meads, o'er grass and heather,
With little playmates, to and fro,

We wander'd hand in hand together;
But that was sixty years ago.

You grew a lovely, roseate maiden,
And still our early love was strong;
Still with no care our days were laden,
They glided joyously along;

And I did love you very dearly,—

How dearly, words want power to show;

I thought your heart was touched as nearly,-
But that was fifty years ago.

16

Love and Age.

Then other lovers came around you,
Your beauty grew from year to year,
And many a splendid circle found you
The center of its glittering sphere.

I saw you then, first vows forsaking,
On rank and wealth your hand bestow;
Oh, then I thought my heart was breaking,-
But that was forty years ago.

And I lived on to wed another;

No cause she gave me to repine;
And when I heard you were a mother,
I did not wish the children mine.
My own young flock, in fair progression,
Made up a pleasant Christmas row:
My joy in them was past expression,-
But that was thirty years ago.

You grew a matron plump and comely,
You dwelt in fashion's brightest blaze;
My earthly lot was far more homely;

But I, too, had my festal days.
No merrier eyes have ever glisten'd

Around the hearth-stone's wintry glow,

Than when my youngest child was christen'd,—
But that was twenty years ago.

Time passed. My eldest girl was married,
And I am now a grandsire gray;

One pet of four years old I've carried

Among the wild-flower'd meads to play.

Love and Age.

In our old fields of childish pleasure,
Where now, as then, the cowslips blow,
She fills her basket's ample measure,-
And that is not ten years ago.

But tho' first love's impassion'd blindness
Has pass'd away in colder light,

I still have thought of you with kindness,
And shall do, till our last good-night.
The ever-rolling silent hours

Will bring a time we shall not know,
When our young days of gathering flowers
Will be a hundred years ago.

Thomas L. Peacock.

17

¶ On Drinking.

OUT OF ANACREON.

T

HE thirsty earth soaks up the rain,

And drinks, and gapes for drink again;

The plants suck in the earth, and are
With constant drinking fresh and fair.
The sea itself, which one would think
Should have but little need to drink,
Drinks twice ten thousand rivers up,
So filled that they o'erflow the cup.
The busy sun (and one would guess
By 's drunken fiery face no less)
Drinks up the sea, and, when he 's done,
The moon and stars drink up the sun.
They drink and dance by their own light,
They drink and revel all the night;
Nothing in Nature's sober found,
But an eternal health goes round.
Fill up the bowl, then, fill it high,
Fill all the glasses there, for why
Should every creature drink but I;
Thou man of morals, tell me why?

Abraham Cowley, 1618—1667.

Robin Hood and Allin-a-Dale.

OME, listen to me, you gallants so free,

CO

All you that love mirth for to hear,

And I will tell you of a bold outlaw
That lived in Nottinghamshire.

As Robin Hood in the forest stood,
All under the greenwood tree,

There he was aware of a brave young man,

As fine as fine might be.

The youngster was clothed in scarlet red,

In scarlet fine and gay;

And he did frisk it over the plain,
And chanted a roundelay.

As Robin Hood next morning stood
Amongst the leaves so gay,

Then did he espy the same young man
Come drooping along the way.

The scarlet he wore the day before

It was clean cast away;

And at every step he fetched a sigh,— "Alack, and a well-a-day!"