Yet when Lorenzo touch'd her on the shoulder,
She started up with an abortive scream,
As if some midnight ghost, from regions colder,
Had come within his bony arms to fold her.

"Lorenzo!"-" Ellen !"-then came "Sir!" and "Madam !" They tried to speak, but hammer'd at each word,

As if it were a flint for great Mac Adam;
Such broken English never else was heard,
For like an aspen leaf each nerve was stirr'd,
A chilly tremor thrill'd them through and through,
Their efforts to be stiff were quite absurd,
They shook like jellies made without a due
And proper share of common joiner's glue.

"Ellen! I'm come-to bid you-fare-farewell"
They thus began to fight their verbal duel;
"Since some more hap-hap-happy man must dwell—”
"Alas-Loren-Lorenzo!-cru-cru-cruel!"

For so they split their words like grits for gruel.
At last the Lover, as he long had plann'd,
Drew out that once inestimable jewel,
Her portrait, which was erst so fondly scann'd,
And thrust poor Ellen's face into her hand.

"There-take it, Madam-take it back I crave,
The face of one-but I must now forget her,
Bestow it on whatever hapless slave

Your art has last enticed into your fetter-
And there are your epistles-there! each letter!
I wish no record of your vow's infractions,

Send them to South-or Children-you had better-
They will be novelties-rare benefactions

To shine in Philosophical Transactions!

"Take them-pray take them-I resign them quite!
And there's the glove you gave me leave to steal—
And there's the handkerchief, so pure and white
Once sanctified by tears, when Miss O'Neill—
But no-you did not-cannot-do not feel
A Juliet's faith, that time could only harden!
Fool that I was, in my mistaken zeal !

I should have led you,---by your leave and pardon—
To Bartley's Orrery, not Covent Garden!

"And here's the birth-day ring-nor man nor devil Should once have torn it from my living hand,

Perchance 'twill look as well on Mr. Neville; And that-and that is all-and now I stand Absolved of each dissever'd tie and bandAnd so farewell, till Time's eternal sickle

Shall reap our lives; in this, or foreign land Some other may be found for truth to stickle Almost as fair-and not so false and fickle!"

And there he ceased: as truly it was time,
For of the various themes that left his mouth,
One half surpass'd her intellectual climb:

She knew no more than the old Hill of Howth About that "Children of a larger growth," Who notes proceedings of the F. R. S.'s;

Kit North, was just as strange to her as South, Except the south the weathercock expresses, Nay, Bartley's Orrery defied her guesses.

Howbeit some notion of his jealous drift
She gather'd from the simple outward fact,
That her own lap contained each slighted gift;
Though quite unconscious of his cause to act
So like Othello, with his face unblack'd;
"Alas!" she sobbed, "your cruel course I see
These faded charms no longer can attract;
Your fancy palls, and you would wander free,
And lay your own apostacy on me!

I, false!-unjust Lorenzo !-and to you!
Oh, all ye holy gospels that incline
The soul to truth, bear witness I am true!
By all that lives, of earthly or divine-

So long as this poor throbbing heart is mine-
I false !-the world shall change its course as soon!
True as the streamlet to the stars that shine-
True as the dial to the sun at noon,

True as the tide to 'yonder blessed moon'!"

And as she spoke, she pointed through the window, Somewhere above the houses' distant tops, Betwixt the chimney-pots of Mrs. Lindo,

And Todd and Sturch's cheapest of all shops For ribbons, laces, muslins, silks, and fops ;Meanwhile, as she upraised her face so Greciau,

And eyes suffused with scintillating drops, Lorenzo looked, too, o'er the blinds venetian, To see the sphere so troubled with repletion.

"The Moon!" he cried, and an electric spasm

Seem'd all at once his features to distort, And fix'd his mouth, a dumb and gaping chasm— His faculties benumb'd and all amort

At last his voice came, of most shrilly sort, Just like a sea-gull's wheeling round a rock

'Speak!-Ellen!-is your sight indeed so short! The Moon!-Brute! savage that I am, and block! The Moon! (O, ye Romantics, what a shock!) Why that's the new Illuminated Clock!"