Annie Lyle, Annie Lyle,
No longer you smile
At my jokes, which a month since enjoyed such prosperity;
Howe’er I behave,
Your face is quite grave,
And your darling red lips speak unwonted severity.
Annie Lyle, Annie Lyle,
It may do for a while,
This on-ing and off-ing, repulsing and wooing:
But beware of the hour
When, escaped from your power,
No longer I seek you, beseeching and suing.
With your glance espiègle,
You quickly inveigle
A freshman from Oxford, a youth in the Guards;
But enough of Love’s strife
I have seen in my life
To furnish good subjects for hundreds of bards.
You take a great pride
To see at your side
A lord, and upon him how sweetly you smile;
Now I set forth no riddle,
I will play “first fiddle,”
So take warning at once, Annie Lyle, Annie Lyle.
How stately and grand
You parade by the band
Which each Friday in Kensington Gardens entrances!
Dressed in mousseline-de-laine,
What transports you feign,
And how skilfully use you your battery of glances!
Then how pleased are the “swells,”
How jealous the belles,
At least, so your vanity prompts you to reckon;
And ogling and smiling,
Poor victims beguiling,
You whisper and conquer, flirt, flatter, and beckon.
Annie Lyle, Annie Lyle,
It rouses my bile
To see one so lovely descend to such tricks:
Such flirting’s below you—
To people who know you
All feeling it beats, or what Yankees call “licks.”
What! tears in those eyes!
Are those genuine sighs?
Then once more I’m your slave—change that sob to a smile;
My lecture is o’er,
I’m your own, as before,
So come to my arms, Annie Lyle, Annie Lyle.
E. H. Y.