Point Lace and Diamonds

NEW AND REVISED EDITION WITH NUMEROUS NEW POEMS
NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY MDCCCXCIII
Copyrighted in 1875, by F.B. Patterson.
Copyright, 1886, By White, Stokes, & Allen.
Transcriber's Note: Possible typos and irregularities in indentation and word usage have been left as found in the original. There are places where punctuation may not have been correctly picked up by the scanning software; please consult another source if you require complete accuracy.

I'd wandered, for a week or more, Through hills, and dells, and doleful green'ry, Lodging at any carnal door, Sustaining life on pork, and scenery. A weary scribe, I'd just let slip My collar, for a short vacation, And started on a walking trip, That cheapest form of dissipation—
And vilest, Oh! confess my pen, That I, prosaic, rather hate your Ode to a Sky-lark sort of men; I really am not fond of Nature. Mad longing for a decent meal And decent clothing overcame me; There came a blister on my heel— I gave it up; and who can blame me?
Then wrote my Pulse of Nature's Heart, Which I procured some little cash on, And quickly packed me to depart In search of gilded haunts of fashion, Which I might puff at column rates, To please my host and meet my reckoning; Base is the slave who —hesitates When wealth, and pleasure both are beckoning.
I sought; I found. Among the swells I had my share of small successes, Made languid love to languid belles And penn'd descriptions of their dresses. Ah! Millionairess Millicent, How fair you were! How you adored me! How many tender hours we spent— And, oh, beloved, how you bored me! April, 1871.
Is not that fragmentary bit Of my young verse a perfect prism, Where worldly knowledge, pleasant wit, True humor, kindly cynicism, Refracted by the frolic glass Of Fancy, play with change incessant? June, 1874.
Great Cæsar! What a sweet young ass I must have been, when adolescent! August, 1886.