The curtains have been dyed; but there,
Unbroken, is the same,
The very same cracked pane of glass
On which I scratch’d her name.
Yes! there’s her tiny flourish still,
It used to so enchant her
To link two happy names in one—
“O tempora mutantur!”
* * * * *
What brought this wand’rer here, and why
Was Pamela away?
It may be she had found her grave,
Or he had found her gay.
The fairest fade; the best of men
May meet with a supplanter;—
How natural, how trite the cry,
“O tempora mutantur!”
PICCADILLY
“Often, when I have felt a weariness or distaste at home, have I rushed out into her crowded Strand, and fed my humour till tears have wetted my cheek for unutterable sympathies with the multitudinous moving picture; * * nursed amid her noise, her crowds, her beloved smoke, what have I been doing all my life, if I have not lent out my heart with usury to such scenes!”
C. Lamb.
Gay shops, stately palaces, bustle and breeze,
The whirring of wheels, and the murmur of trees,
By night, or by day, whether noisy or stilly,
Whatever my mood is—I love Piccadilly.
Wet nights, when the gas on the pavement is streaming,
And young Love is watching, and old Love is dreaming,
And Beauty is whirl’d off to conquest, where shrilly
Cremona makes nimble thy toes, Piccadilly!
Bright days, when I leisurely pace to and fro,
And meet all the people I do or don’t know.
Here is jolly old Brown, and his fair daughter Lillie;—
No wonder some pilgrims affect Piccadilly!
See yonder pair, fonder ne’er rode at a canter,—
She smiles on her Poet, contented to saunter;
Some envy her spouse, and some covet her filly,
He envies them both—he’s an ass, Piccadilly!