She had toiled through Clarissa; Camilla could quote;
Knew the raptures of Werter and Charlotte by rote;
Thought Smith and Sir Walter ecstatic;
And as for the novels of Miss Lefanu,
She dog's-eared them till the whole twenty looked blue;
And studied 'The Monk' in the attic.

When her sire introduced our Apollo, he found
The maiden in torrents of sympathy drowned--
"Floods of tears" is too trite and too common:
Her eyes were quite swelled--her lips pouting and pale;
For she just had been reading that heartbreaking tale,
"Annabelle, or the Sufferings of Woman."

Apollo, I'll swear, had more courage than I,
To accost a young maid with a _drop in her eye_;
I'd as soon catch a snake or a viper:
She, while wiping her tears, gives Apollo some wipes;
And when a young lady has set up her pipes,
Her lover will soon pay the piper.

Papa locked her up--but the very next night,
With a cornet of horse, the young lady took flight;
To Apollo she left this apology--
"That, were she to spend with an old man her life,
She would gain, by the penance she'd bear as a wife,
A place in the next martyrology."

Apollo gave chase, but was destined to fail;