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ONCE A WEEK.
[October 8, 1859.
You can believe, or disbelieve me, Edith, as you please,A fellow’s work’s all bosh unless a fellow’s mind’s at ease;And studying Cross Remainders Over is no use, I fear,While you’re in France, and I’m a cross remainder over here.
Don’t, Edith, write about myself, I want to hear of you,And what you’re doing day by day, and also how you do;And whether Mrs. Armington (whom I don’t like, and shan’t),Is really acting like a friend, or only like an aunt;
And takes you, Edith, everywhere, and shows you what’s to see,And in society performs what’s due to you—and me;Nor, while her own long girls are push’d wherever she can get,Permits you to be talk’d to by the billiard-playing set.
And, Edith, as she’s full of spite (she is, from wig to toes,And hates me for that harmless sketch that show’d her Roman nose);Inform me if those vicious inuendos she contrives,And talks at briefless barristers, and pities poor men’s wives.
Or if she ever gives you, Edith darling, half a hint(There’s nothing that a woman wouldn’t do with such a squint)That I’ve been fast, and people say, “who really ought to know,”That at getting briefs and paying bills alone they think I’m slow;
Or talks of our engagement in a way that isn’t kind,Makes it, at pic-nics, an excuse for leaving you behind;And drawls, that cold old lip of hers maliciously up-curl’d,“Of course, engaged Miss Ediths do not care about the world.”
You’ll call me such a worry, Edith, but it is not funTo be stuck in Temple chambers when October has begun;So pity for a lover who’s condemned in town to stay,When She—and everybody else—are off and far away.
I wander in our Gardens when the dusk makes all things dim,The gardener tells me not to smoke, but much I care for him;And Paper Buildings, Edith, in a sketch by fancy drawn,Grows an old baronial mansion, with the grassplat for its lawn:
The Thames, its lake; myself, its Lord (his income, lucky chance,Exactly fifty thousand pounds paid yearly in advance);Then at the eastern turret a sweet form is conjur’d up,And Edith waves a kerchief white, and calls me in—to sup.
Well, bless you, Edith. When you sail’d, I put aboard your shipVanity Fair, by Thackeray, and my dear old Hound, by Grip;And to no girl her destiny more sure protection sends,S. B.Than such a dog to bite her foes, such book to bite her friends.
Queen’s Bar Ride, Temple.