Morbid sickliness surrounds us in our lives, our books, our art.
Oh, if sunshine and your breezes might but slay our soul-diseases,
Oust the pestilent miasma that pervades the home, the mart;
Neutralise the nauseous virus whose developments so tire us;
Disinfect the New Parnassus, purge the New Pierian Spring,
Bring us honesty and health, dear, why for all our wit and wealth, dear,
We might love like Nature's lovers, and like Nature's poets sing.
Ah! we need Spring's prophylactic!—But I'm getting too didactic
For a sunny April morning, and a sweet young thing like you.
My dear, the London Season, wrapped and furred out of all reason,