Everyday Characters II - Quince
Fallentis semita vit*. — Hor.
Near a small village in the West,
Where many very worthy people
Eat, drink, play whist, and do their best
To guard from evil Church and steeple.
There stood — alas! it stands no more! —
A tenement of brick and plaster,
Of which, for forty years and four,
My good friend Quince was lord and master.
Welcome was he in hut and hall
To maids and matrons, peers and peasants ;
He won the sympathies of all
By making puns, and making presents.
Though all the parish were at strife.
He kept his counsel, and his carriage,
He laughed, and loved a quiet life,
And shrank from Chancery suits — and marriage.
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poem by Winthrop Mackworth Praed
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Everyday Characters V - Portrait Of A Lady
IN THE EXHIBITION OP THE ROYAL
ACADEMY
What are you, Lady ? — nought is here
To tell us of your name or story,
To claim the gazer's smile or fear.
To dub you Whig, or damn you Tory ;
It is beyond a poet's skill
To form the slightest notion, whether
We e'er shall walk through one quadrille.
Or look upon one moon together.
You're very pretty! — all the world
Are talking of your bright brow's splendour,
And of your locks, so softly curled.
And of your hands, so white and slender ;
Some think you 're blooming in Bengal ;
Some say you're blowing in the city;
Some know you 're nobody at all :
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poem by Winthrop Mackworth Praed
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