[It is pointed out by a contemporary that the dressmaker's waxen model
has quite lost her old insipid air. The latest examples of the
modeller's art show the "glad eye" and features with which "any man
might fall in love."]

In the days when I started to toddle
I loved with a frenzy sublime
A dressmaker's beauteous model--
I think I was three at the time;
She was fair in the foolish old fashion,
And they found me again and again
With my nose in an access of passion
Glued tight to the pane.

But I thought they were gone past returning
Till Time should go back on his tracks,
Those days of a child's undiscerning
But fervent devotion to wax;
Could a heart, though admittedly restive,
Recapture that innocent mood
At sixty next birthday? I'm blest if
I thought that it could.

But Art, ever bent on progression,
Has taken the model in hand,
And brought in the line of succession
A figure more pleasingly planned;
Her eyes with the gladdest of glances,
Her lips and her hair and her cheek
Can puncture like so many lances