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;