When I a lily from the stem had broken,
I gave it her, and then these words address’d:
“Ottilia, be my wife by this dear token,
“That I may be as good as thee, and blest.”
The answer that she gave, it reach’d me never,
For presently I woke,—and now lie here
In my sick chamber, weak and ill as ever—
As I have hopeless lain for many a year.
18. IT GOES OUT.
The curtain falls, as ends the play,
And all the audience go away;
And did the piece give satisfaction?
Methinks they found it of attraction.
A much-respected public then
Its poet thankfully commended;
But now the house is hush’d again,
And lights and merriment are ended.
But hark to that dull heavy clang
Hard by the empty stage’s middle!
It was perchance the bursting twang
Of the worn string of some old fiddle.
With rustling noise across the pit
Some nasty rats like shadows flit,
And rancid oil all places smell of,
And the last lamp, with groans and sighs
Despairing, then goes out and dies.—
My soul was this poor light I tell of.
19. THE WILL.
Now that life is nearly spent,
Here’s my will and testament,
Giving every foe a present,
As a Christian finds it pleasant:
Let these gentry full of merit
Have my sickness as their guerdon,
All that makes my life a burden,—
All my wretched pangs inherit.
I bequeath you all the colic
Which my belly tweaks in frolic,—
Strangury and these perfidious
Prussian piles so sharp and hideous.
Unto you my cramps be given,
Pains in joints, and salivation,
Pains in back, and inflammation,—
Every one the gift of heaven.