As a skeleton of warning, and a blight upon the feast.
Once, ah! once I fell a-dreaming; some one played a polonaise
I associated strongly with those happier August days;
And I mused, “I’ll speak this evening,” recent pangs forgotten quite.
Sudden shrilled a scream of anguish: “Curfew shall not ring to-night!”
Ah, that sound was as a curfew, quenching rosy warm romance:
Were it safe to wed a woman one so oft would wish in France?
Oh, as she “cull-imbed” that ladder, swift my mounting hope came down.
I am still a single cynic; she is still Cassandra Brown!
—Coroebus Green.