Then to bring your plighted fair one first a ring--a rich and rare
one -
Next a bracelet, if she'll wear one, and a heap of things beside;
And serenely bending o'er her, to inquire if it would bore her
To say when her own adorer may aspire to call her bride!

Then, the days of courtship over, with your WIFE to start for Dover
Or Dieppe--and live in clover evermore, whate'er befalls:
For I've read in many a novel that, unless they've souls that
grovel,
Folks PREFER in fact a hovel to your dreary marble halls:

To sit, happy married lovers; Phillis trifling with a plover's
Egg, while Corydon uncovers with a grace the Sally Lunn,
Or dissects the lucky pheasant--that, I think, were passing
pleasant;
As I sit alone at present, dreaming darkly of a Dun.



THE PALACE.



They come, they come, with fife and drum,
And gleaming pikes and glancing banners:
Though the eyes flash, the lips are dumb;
To talk in rank would not be manners.
Onward they stride, as Britons can;
The ladies following in the Van.