FILIA PULCHRA, MATER PULCHRIOR.
I loved a girl, divinely sweet,
An unsophisticated creature;
I did not scruple to repeat
She was divine, you could not meet
More charms displayed in form and feature.
I loved her youthful grace, her slight
And dainty form, an angel's seeming.
Crowned by sweet hair, as dark as night,
Her face would charm an artist's sight,
A poet's thoughts, a lover's dreaming.
I loved her dark and lustrous eyes,
Which love might light with glowing passion,
Her lips, her neck—you will surmise
I wrote her rhymes, all tears and sighs
In lovesick versifier's fashion.
I loved her like a childish pet,
I felt I could not love another,
Until the day when first I met
Her widowed mother, charming yet,
And now, instead, I love her mother.
I love the woman, for the rose,
Full blown, excels the rosebud's beauty,
Nor think of girlish charms since those
No more inspire my Muse, which shows
My Muse is fit for any duty.
I love her, stately as a queen
Whom Veronese might have painted,
Blue-eyed, with hair of golden sheen—
That's just the one thing which has been
A trouble since we've been acquainted.
I love not charms I loved before,
Dark as the night, or, say a hearse is.
Now auburn beauty pleases more,
My wasted hours I deplore—
I've had to alter all those verses.
Epping and Overstepping.—At a meeting of forest borderers, Wanstead, it was asserted that since the Corporation had had control of the forest, upwards of 100,000 trees had been felled. If true, the members of the Corporation-Epping-Forest-Committee will henceforth be known as "those fellers!"
