The Passionate Printer To His Love

(Whose name is Amanda.)

With Apologies to the Shade of Christopher Marlowe.


Come live with me and be my Dear;
And till that happy bond shall lapse,
I'll set your Poutings in Brevier,^[l]
Your Praises in the largest CAPS.

There's Diamond--'tis for your Eyes;
There's Ruby--that will match your Lips;
Pearl, for your Teeth; and Minion-size.
To suit your dainty Finger-tips.

In Nonpareil I'll put your Face;
In Rubric shall your Blushes rise;
There is no Bourgeois in your Case;
Your Form can never need "Revise."

Your Cheek seems "Ready for the Press";
Your Laugh as Clarendon is clear;
There's more distinction in your Dress
Than in the oldest Elzevir.

So with me live, and with me die;
And may no "FINIS" e'er intrude
To break into mere "Printers' Pie"
The Type of our Beatitude!

(ERRATUM.--If my suit you flout,
And choose some happier Youth to wed,
'Tis but to cross AMANDA out,
And read another name instead.)

Henry Austin Dobson

Henry Austin Dobson, commonly known as Austin Dobson, was an English poet and essayist. A civil servant by profession, Dobson was one of the most renowned poets and literary critics of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. His work is noted for its delicate craftsmanship and profound interest in 18th-century literature. Dobson's poetry often revisited and celebrated historical themes and characters, blending scholarly interest with lyrical form.

Henry Austin Dobson

An Old Fish Pond.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

The Screen In The Lumber Room.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

The Successful Author.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

Sat Est Scripsisse.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Premiers Amours.

Old Loves and old dreams,--
"Requiescant in pace."
How strange now it seems,--
"Old" Loves and "old" dreams!
Yet we once wrote you reams
Maude, Alice, and Gracie!
Old Loves and old dreams,--
"Requiescant in pace."


When I called at the "Hollies" to-day,
In the room with the cedar-wood presses,
Aunt Deb. was just folding away
What she calls her "memorial dresses."

She'd the frock that she wore at fifteen,--
Short-waisted, of course--my abhorrence;
She'd "the loveliest"--something in "een"
That she wears in her portrait by Lawrence;

She'd the "jelick" she used--"as a Greek," (!)
She'd the habit she got her bad fall in;
She had e'en the blue moiré antique
That she opened Squire Grasshopper's ball in:--

New and old ...

Henry Austin Dobson

The Happy Printer

"Hoc est vivere."--MARTIAL.


The Printer's is a happy lot:
Alone of all professions,
No fateful smudges ever blot
His earliest "impressions."

The outgrowth of his youthful ken
No cold obstruction fetters;
He quickly learns the "types" of men,
And all the world of "letters."

With "forms" he scorns to compromise;
For him no "rule" has terrors;
The "slips" he makes he can "revise"--
They are but "printers' errors."

From doubtful questions of the "Press"
He wisely holds aloof;
In all polemics, more or less,
His argument is "proof."

Save in their "case," with High and Low,
Small need has he to grapple!
Without dissent he still can go
To his accustomed "Chapel,"^[1]

From ills that others sca...

Henry Austin Dobson

A Revolutionary Relic.

Old it is, and worn and battered,
As I lift it from the stall;
And the leaves are frayed and tattered,
And the pendent sides are shattered,
Pierced and blackened by a ball.

'Tis the tale of grief and gladness
Told by sad St. Pierre of yore,
That in front of France's madness
Hangs a strange seductive sadness,
Grown pathetic evermore.

And a perfume round it hovers,
Which the pages half reveal,
For a folded corner covers,
Interlaced, two names of lovers,--
A "Savignac" and "Lucile."

As I read I marvel whether,
In some pleasant old château,
Once they read this book together,
In the scented summer weather,
With the shining Loire below?

Nooked--secluded from espial,
Did Love slip and snare them so,
While the hour...

Henry Austin Dobson

André Le Chapelain.

(Clerk of Love, 1170.)

His Plaint To Venus Of The Coming Years.

"Plus ne suis ce que j'ay esté
Et ne le sçaurois jamais estre;
Mon beau printemps et mon esté
Ont fait le saut par la fenestre."


Queen Venus, round whose feet,
To tend thy sacred fire,
With service bitter-sweet
Nor youths nor maidens tire;--
Goddess, whose bounties be
Large as the un-oared sea;--

Mother, whose eldest born
First stirred his stammering tongue,
In the world's youngest morn,
When the first daisies sprung:--
Whose last, when Time shall die,
In the same grave shall lie:--

Hear thou one suppliant more!
Must I, thy Bard, grow old,
Bent, with the temples frore,
Not jocund be nor bold,
To tune for folk in May
Ballad and ...

Henry Austin Dobson

The Book-Plate's Petition.

By A Gentleman Of The Temple.


While cynic CHARLES still trimm'd the vane
'Twixt Querouaille and Castlemaine,
In days that shocked JOHN EVELYN,
My First Possessor fixed me in.
In days of Dutchmen, and of frost,
The narrow sea with JAMES I cross'd,
Returning when once more began
The Age of Saturn and of ANNE.
I am a part of all the past;
I knew the GEORGES, first and last;
I have been oft where else was none
Save the great wig of ADDISON;
And seen on shelves beneath me grope
The little eager form of POPE.
I lost the Third that owned me when
French NOAILLES fled at Dettingen;
The year JAMES WOLFE surpris'd Quebec,
The Fourth in hunting broke his neck;
The day that WILLIAM HOGARTH dy'd,
The Fifth one found me in Cheapside.
This...

Henry Austin Dobson

To Miss - - [Harriet Grove] From Miss - - [Elizabeth Shelley].

For your letter, dear - [Hattie], accept my best thanks,
Rendered long and amusing by virtue of franks,
Though concise they would please, yet the longer the better,
The more news that's crammed in, more amusing the letter,
All excuses of etiquette nonsense I hate,
Which only are fit for the tardy and late,
As when converse grows flat, of the weather they talk,
How fair the sun shines - a fine day for a walk,
Then to politics turn, of Burdett's reformation,
One declares it would hurt, t'other better the nation,
Will ministers keep? sure they've acted quite wrong,
The burden this is of each morning-call song.
So - is going to - you say,
I hope that success her great efforts will pay [ - ]
That [the Colonel] will see her, be dazzled outright,
And declare he can't bear...

Percy Bysshe Shelley