To The Rev. A. A. In The Country From His Friend In London.

(AFTER HEINE.)

Thou little village curate,
    Come quick, and do not wait;
We'll sit and talk together,
    So sweetly tete-a-tete.

Oh do not fear the railway
    Because it seems so big--
Dost thou not daily trust thee
    Unto thy little gig.

This house is full of painters,
    And half shut up and black;
But rooms the very snuggest
    Lie hidden at the back.
            Come! come! come!

Horace Smith

Horace Smith was an English poet and novelist, known for his collaboration with his brother James Smith in writing parodies. The brothers published 'Rejected Addresses' in 1812, which humorously imitated contemporary poets and became highly popular. Horace was also a friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley and wrote various works, including novels that reflect his interest in social issues and history. His writing often combined wit with a keen social conscience.

Horace Smith

Impromptu In The Assize Court At Lincoln.

Horace Smith, Simple Poetry

Prothalamion.

Horace Smith, Simple Poetry

My Boating Song.

Horace Smith, Simple Poetry

English

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The Last Despatch.

Hurrah! the Season's past at last;
At length we've "done" our pleasure.
Dear "Pater," if you only knew
How much I've longed for home and you,--
Our own green lawn and leisure!

And then the pets! One half forgets
The dear dumb friends--in Babel.
I hope my special fish is fed;--
I long to see poor Nigra's head
Pushed at me from the stable!

I long to see the cob and "Rob,"--
Old Bevis and the Collie;
And won't we read in "Traveller's Rest"!
Home readings after all are best;--
None else seem half so "jolly!"

One misses your dear kindly store
Of fancies quaint and funny;
One misses, too, your kind bon-mot;--
The Mayfair wit I mostly know
Has more of gall than honey!

How tired one grows of "calls and balls!"
This "tou...

Henry Austin Dobson

Contrast, The

In London I never know what I'd be at,
Enraptured with this, and enchanted with that;
I'm wild with the sweets of variety's plan,
And life seems a blessing too happy for man.

But the country, Lord help me! sets all matters right,
So calm and composing from morning to night;
Oh, it settles the spirits when nothing is seen
But an ass on a common, a goose on a green!

In town, if it rain, why it damps not our hope,
The eye has her choice, and the fancy her scope;
What harm though it pour whole nights or whole days?
It spoils not our prospects, or stops not our ways.

In the country, what bliss, when it rains in the fields,
To live on the transports that shuttlecock yields;
Or go crawling from window to window, to see
A pig on a dunghill or crow on a tr...

Captain C. Morris

Twopenny Post-Bag, Intercepted Letters, Etc. Letter V.

FROM THE COUNTESS DOWAGER OF CORK TO LADY---.


My dear Lady---! I've been just sending out
About five hundred cards for a snug little Rout--
(By the by, you've seen "Rokeby"?--this moment got mine--
The "Mail-Coach Edition"--prodigiously fine!)
But I can't conceive how in this very cold weather
I'm ever to bring my five hundred together;
As, unless the thermometer's near boiling heat,
One can never get half of one's hundreds to meet.

(Apropos--you'd have thought to see Townsend last night,
Escort to their chairs, with his staff, so polite,
The "three maiden Miseries," all in a fright;
Poor Townsend, like Mercury, filling two posts,
Supervisor of thieves and chief-usher of ghosts!)

    But, my dear Lady----, can't you hit on some noti...

Thomas Moore

To A Friend In The City, From Her Friend In The Country.

By especial request I take up my pen,
To write a few lines to my dear Mrs. N.;
And though nothing of depth she has right to expect;
Yet the will for the deed she will not reject
The task, on reflection, is a heavy one quite,
As here in the country we've no news to write;
For what is to us very new, rich, and rare,
To you in the city is stale and thread bare.
Should I write of Hungary, Kossuth, or the Swede,
They are all out of date, antiquated indeed.
I might ask you with me the New Forest to roam,
But it's stript of its foliage, quite leafless become;
N.P. Willis and rival have each had their day,
And of rappings and knockings there's nought new to say.
Yet do not mistake me, or think I would choose,
A home in the city, the country to l...

Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow

In The Royal Academy.

HUGH (on furlough).
HELEN (his cousin).


HELEN.

They have not come! And ten is past,--
Unless, by chance, my watch is fast;
--Aunt Mabel surely told us "ten."

HUGH.

I doubt if she can do it, then.
In fact, their train....

HELEN.

That is,--you knew.
How could you be so treacherous, Hugh?

HUGH.

Nay;--it is scarcely mine, the crime,
One can't account for railway-time!
Where shall we sit? Not here, I vote;--
At least, there's nothing here of note.

HELEN.

Then here we'll stay, please. Once for all,
I bar all artists,--great and small!
From now until we go in June
I shall hear nothing but this tune:--
Whether I like Long's "Vashti," or
Like Leslie's "Naughty Kitty" mo...

Henry Austin Dobson

The Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich - VI

A Long-Vacation Pastoral


VI

Ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnin.

Bright October was come, the misty-bright October,
Bright October was come to burn and glen and cottage;
But the cottage was empty, the matutine deserted.
Who are these that walk by the shore of the salt sea water?
Here in the dusky eve, on the road by the salt sea water?
Who are these? and where? it is no sweet seclusion;
Blank hill-sides slope down to a salt sea loch at their bases,
Scored by runnels, that fringe ere they end with rowan and alder;
Cottages here and there outstanding bare on the mountain,
Peat-roofed, windowless, white; the road underneath by the water.
There on the blank hill-side, looking down through the loch to the ocean,
There with a runne...

Arthur Hugh Clough