The Squire's Daughter

    We crawled about the nursery
        In tenderest years in tether,
    At six we waded in the sea
        And caught our colds together.

    At ten we practised playing at
        A kind of heathen cricket,
    A croquet mallet was the bat,
        The Squire's old hat the wicket.

    At twelve, the cricket waxing slow,
        With home-made bow and arrow
    We took to shooting--once I know
        I all but hit a sparrow.

    She took birds' nests from easy trees,
        I climbed the oaks and ashes,
    'Twas deadly work for hands and knees,
        Deplorable for sashes.

    At hide and seek one summer day
        We played in merry laughter,
    'Twas then she hid her heart away,
        I never found it after.

    So time slipped by until my call,
        For out of the professions
    I chose the Bar as best of all,
        And joined the Loamshire Sessions.

    The reason for it was that there
        Her father, short and pursy,
    Doled out scant justice in the chair
        And even scanter mercy.

    As Holofernes lost his head
        To Judith of Bethulia,
    So I fell victim, but instead
        Of Judith it was Julia.

    My speech left juries in the dark,
        Of Julia I was thinking,
    And once I heard a coarse remark
        About a fellow drinking.

    I practised verse in leisure time
        Both in and out of season,
    It was indubitably rhyme,
        Occasionally reason.

    I lacked the cheek to tell my woes,
        Had not concealment fed on
    My damask cheek, but left my nose
        With twice its share of red on?

    Too horrible was this suspense,
        At last, in desperation
    I went to Loamshire on pretence
        Of death of a relation.

    The Squire was beaming; "Julia's gone
        To London for a visit,
    But with a wedding coming on
        That's not surprising, is it?

    "Old friends like you will think, no doubt,
        That she is young to marry,
    But ever since she first came out,
        She's been engaged to Harry."