Amongst the sights that Mrs. Bond
Enjoyed yet grieved at more than others,
Were little ducklings in a pond,
Swimming about beside their mothers—
Small things like living water-lilies,
But yellow as the daffo-dillies.
"It's very hard," she used to moan,
"That other people have their ducklings
To grace their waters—mine alone
Have never any pretty chucklings."
For why!—each little yellow navy
Went down—all downy—to old Davy!
She had a lake—a pond, I mean—
Its wave was rather thick than pearly—
She had two ducks, their napes were green—
She had a drake, his tail was curly,—
Yet 'spite of drake, and ducks, and pond,
No little ducks had Mrs. Bond!
The birds were both the best of mothers—
The nests had eggs—the eggs had luck—
The infant D's came forth like others—
But there, alas! the matter stuck!
They might as well have all died addle
As die when they began to paddle!
For when, as native instinct taught her,
The mother set her brood afloat,
They sank ere long right under water,
Like any overloaded boat;
They were web-footed too to see,
As ducks and spiders ought to be!
No peccant humor in a gander
Brought havoc on her little folks,—
No poaching cook—a frying pander
To appetite,—destroyed their yolks,—
Beneath her very eyes, Od rot 'em!
They went, like plummets, to the bottom.
The thing was strange—a contradiction
It seemed of nature and her works!
For little ducks, beyond conviction,
Should float without the help of corks:
Great Johnson, it bewildered him!
To hear of ducks that could not swim.
Poor Mrs. Bond! what could she do
But change the breed—and she tried divers
Which dived as all seemed born to do;
No little ones were e'er survivors—
Like those that copy gems, I'm thinking,
They all were given to die-sinking!
In vain their downy coats were shorn;
They floundered still!—Batch after batch went!
The little fools seemed only born
And hatched for nothing but a hatchment!
Whene'er they launched—oh, sight of wonder!
Like fires the water "got them under."
No woman ever gave their lucks
A better chance than Mrs. Bond did;
At last quite out of heart and ducks,
She gave her pond up, and desponded;
For Death among the water-lilies,
Cried "Duc ad me" to all her dillies!
But though resolved to breed no more,
She brooded often on this riddle—
Alas! 'twas darker than before!
At last about the summer's middle,
What Johnson, Mrs. Bond, or none did,
To clear the matter up the Sun did!
The thirsty Sirius dog-like drank
So deep, his furious tongue to cool,
The shallow waters sank and sank,
And lo, from out the wasted pool,
Too hot to hold them any longer,
There crawled some eels as big as conger!
I wish all folks would look a bit,
In such a case below the surface;
And when the eels were caught and split
By Mrs. Bond, just think of her face,
In each inside at once to spy
A duckling turned to giblet-pie!
The sight at once explained the case,
Making the Dame look rather silly:
The tenants of that Eely Place
Had found the way to Pick a dilly,
And so, by under-water suction,
Had wrought the little ducks' abduction.
A STORM AT HASTINGS,
AND THE LITTLE UNKNOWN.
'Twas August—Hastings every day was filling—
Hastings, that "greenest spot on memory's waste"!
With crowds of idlers willing and unwilling
To be bedipped—be noticed—or be braced,
And all things rose a penny in a shilling.
Meanwhile, from window, and from door, in haste
"Accommodation bills" kept coming down,
Gladding "the world of-letters" in that town.
Each day poured in new coachfuls of new cits,
Flying from London smoke and dust annoying,
Unmarried Misses hoping to make hits,
And new-wed couples fresh from Tunbridge toying,
Lacemen and placemen, ministers and wits,
And Quakers of both sexes, much enjoying
A morning's reading by the ocean's rim,
That sect delighting in the sea's broad brim.
And lo! amongst all these appeared a creature,
So small, he almost might a twin have been
With Miss Crachami—dwarfish quite in stature,
Yet well proportioned—neither fat nor lean,
His face of marvellously pleasant feature,
So short and sweet a man was never seen—
All thought him charming at the first beginning—
Alas, ere long they found him far too winning!
He seemed in love with chance—and chance repaid
His ardent passion with her fondest smile,
The sunshine of good luck, without a shade,
He staked and won—and won and staked—the bile
It stirred of many a man and many a maid,
To see at every venture how that vile
Small gambler snatched—and how he won them too—
A living Pam, omnipotent at loo!
Miss Wiggins set her heart upon a box,
'Twas handsome rosewood, and inlaid with brass,
And dreamt three times she garnished it with stocks
Of needles, silks, and cottons—but, alas!
She lost it wide awake. We thought Miss Cox
Was lucky—but she saw three caddies pass
To that small imp;—no living luck could loo him!
Sir Stamford would have lost his Raffles to him!
And so he climbed—and rode—and won—and
walked,
The wondrous topic of the curious swarm
That haunted the Parade. Many were balked
Of notoriety by that small form
Pacing it up and down: some even talked
Of ducking him—when lo! a dismal storm
Stopped in—one Friday, at the close of day—
And every head was turned another way—
Watching the grander guest. It seemed to rise
Bulky and slow upon the southern brink
Of the horizon—fanned by sultry sighs—
So black and threatening, I cannot think
Of any simile, except the skies
Miss Wiggins sometimes shades in Indian ink—
Mis-shapen blotches of such heavy vapor,
They seem a deal more solid than her paper.
As for the sea, it did not fret, and rave,
And tear its waves to tatters, and so dash on
The stony-hearted beach;—some bards would have
It always rampant, in that idle fashion—
Whereas the waves rolled in, subdued and grave,
Like schoolboys, when the master's in a passion,
Who meekly settle in and take their places,
With a very quiet awe on all their faces.
Some love to draw the ocean with a head,
Like troubled table-beer—and make it bounce,
And froth, and roar, and fling—but this, I've said,
Surged in scarce rougher than a lady's flounce:
But then, a grander contrast thus it bred
With the wild welkin, seeming to pronounce
Something more awful in the serious ear,
As one would whisper that a lion's near—
Who just begins to roar: so the hoarse thunder
Growled long—but low—a prelude note of death,
As if the stifling clouds yet kept it under,
But still it muttered to the sea beneath
Such a continued peal, as made us wonder
It did not pause more oft to take its breath,
Whilst we were panting with the sultry weather,
And hardly cared to wed two words together,
But watched the surly advent of the storm,
Much as the brown-cheeked planters of Barbadoes
Must watch a rising of the Negro swarm:
Meantime it steered, like Odin's old Armadas,
Right on our coast;—a dismal, coal-black form;
Many proud gaits were quelled—and all bravadoes
Of folly ceased—and sundry idle jokers
Went home to cover up their tongs and pokers.
So fierce the lightning flashed. In all their days
The oldest smugglers had not seen such flashing,
And they are used to many a pretty blaze,
To keep their Hollands from an awkward clashing
With hostile cutters in our creeks and bays:
And truly one could think, without much lashing
The fancy, that those coasting clouds, so awful
And black, were fraught with spirits as unlawful.
The gay Parade grew thin—all the fair crowd
Vanished—as if they knew their own attractions,—
For now the lightning through a near-hand cloud
Began to make some very crooked fractions—
Only some few remained that were not cowed,
A few rough sailors, who had been in actions,
And sundry boatmen, that with quick yeo's,
Lest it should blow,—were pulling up the
Rose:
(No flower, but a boat)—some more were hauling
The Regent by the head:—another crew
With that same cry peculiar to their calling—
Were heaving up the Hope:—and as they knew
The very gods themselves oft get a mauling
In their own realms, the seamen wisely drew
The Neptune rather higher on the beach,
That he might lie beyond his billows' reach.
And now the storm, with its despotic power,
Had all usurped the azure of the skies,
Making our daylight darker by an hour,
And some few drops—of an unusual size—
Few and distinct—scarce twenty to the shower,
Fell like huge teardrops from a giant's eyes—
But then this sprinkle thickened in a trice
And rained much harder—in good solid ice.
Oh for a very storm of words to show
How this fierce crash of hail came rushing o'er us!
Handel would make the gusty organs blow
Grandly, and a rich storm in music score us:—
But ev'n his music seemed composed and low,
When we were handled by this Hailstone Chorus;
Whilst thunder rumbled, with its awful sound,
And frozen comfits rolled along the ground—
As big as bullets:—Lord! how they did batter
Our crazy tiles:—and now the lightning flashed
Alternate with the dark, until the latter
Was rarest of the two!—the gust too dashed
So terribly, I thought the hail must shatter
Some panes,—and so it did—and first it smashed
The very square where I had chose my station
To watch the general illumination.
Another, and another, still came in,
And fell in jingling ruin at my feet,
Making transparent holes that let me win
Some samples of the storm:—Oh! it was sweet
To think I had a shelter for my skin,
Culling them through these "loopholes of retreat"—
Which in a little we began to glaze—
Chiefly with a jacktowel and some baize!
But which, the cloud had passed o'erhead, but played
Its crooked fires in constant flashes still,
Just in our rear, as though it had arrayed
Its heavy batteries at Fairlight Mill,
So that it lit the town, and grandly made
The rugged features of the Castle Hill
Leap, like a birth, from chaos into light,
And then relapse into the gloomy night—
As parcel of the cloud;—the clouds themselves,
Like monstrous crags and summits everlasting,
Piled each on each in most gigantic shelves,
That Milton's devils were engaged in blasting.
We could e'en fancy Satan and his elves
Busy upon those crags, and ever casting
Huge fragments loose,—and that we felt the sound
They made in falling to the startled ground.
And so the tempest scowled away,—and soon
Timidly shining through its skirts of jet,
We saw the rim of the pacific moon,
Like a bright fish entangled in a net,
Flashing its silver sides,—how sweet a boon
Seemed her sweet light, as though it would beget,
With that fair smile, a calm upon the seas—
Peace in the sky—and coolness in the breeze!
Meantime the hail had ceased:—and all the brood
Of glaziers stole abroad to count their gains;
At every window there were maids who stood
Lamenting o'er the glass's small remains,—
Or with coarse linens made the fractions good,
Stanching the wind in all the wounded panes,—
Or, holding candles to the panes, in doubt
The wind resolved—blowing the candles out.
No house was whole that had a southern front,—
No greenhouse but the same mishap befell;
Bow-windows and bell-glasses bore the
brunt,—
No sex in glass was spared!—For those who dwell
On each hill-side, you might have swum a punt
In any of their parlors;—Mrs. Snell
Was slopped out of her seat,—and Mr. Hitchin
Had a flower-garden washed into a Kitchen.
But still the sea was mild, and quite disclaimed
The recent violence.—Each after each
The gentle waves a gentle murmur framed,
Tapping, like woodpeckers, the hollow beach.
Howbeit his weather eye the seaman aimed
Across the calm, and hinted by his speech
A gale next morning—and when morning broke,
There was a gale—"quite equal to bespoke."
Before high water—(it were better far
To christen it not water then, but waiter,
For then the tide is serving at the bar)
Rose such a swell—I never saw one greater!
Black, jagged billows rearing up in war
Like ragged roaring bears against the baiter,
With lots of froth upon the shingle shed,
Like stout poured out with a fine beachy head.
No open boat was open to a fare,
Or launched that morn on seven-shilling trips;
No bathing woman waded—none would dare
A dipping in the wave—but waived their dips;
No seagull ventured on the stormy air,
And all the dreary coast was clear of ships;
For two lea shores upon the River Lea
Are not so perilous as one at sea.
Awe-struck we sat, and gazed upon the scene
Before us in such horrid hurly-burly,—
A boiling ocean of mixed black and green,
A sky of copper color, grim and surly,—
When lo, in that vast hollow scooped between
Two rolling Alps of water,—white and curly!
We saw a pair of little arms a-skimming,
Much like a first or last attempt at swimming!
Sometimes a hand—sometimes a little shoe—
Sometime a skirt—sometimes a hank of hair
Just like a dabbled seaweed rose to view,
Sometimes a knee—sometimes a back was bare—
At last a frightful summerset he threw
Right on the shingles. Any one could swear
The lad was dead—without a chance of perjury,
And battered by the surge beyond all surgery!
However, we snatched up the corse thus thrown,
Intending, Christian-like, to sod and turf it,
And after venting Pity's sigh and groan,
Then curiosity began with her fit;
And lo! the features of the Small Unknown!
'Twas he that of the surf had had this surfeit!
And in his fob, the cause of late monopolies,
We found a contract signed with Mephistopheles!
A bond of blood, whereby the sinner gave
His forfeit soul to Satan in reversion,
Providing in this world he was to have
A lordship over luck, by whose exertion
He might control the course of cards and brave
All throws of dice,—but on a sea excursion
The juggling demon, in his usual vein,
Seized the last cast—and Nicked him in the
main!
LINES TO A LADY.[29]
ON HER DEPARTURE FOR INDIA.
Go where the waves run rather Holborn-hilly,
And tempest make a soda-water sea,
Almost as rough as our rough Piccadilly,
And think of me!
Go where the mild Madeira ripens her juice,—
A wine more praised than it deserves to be!
Go pass the Cape, just capable of ver-juice,
And think of me!
Go where the tiger in the darkness prowleth,
Making a midnight meal of he and she;
Go where the lion in his hunger howleth,
And think of me!
Go where the serpent dangerously coileth,
Or lies along at full length like a tree,
Go where the Suttee in her own soot broileth,
And think of me!
Go where with human notes the parrot dealeth
In mono-polly-logue with tongue as free,
And, like a woman, all she can revealeth,
And think of me!
Go to the land of muslin and nankeening,
And parasols of straw where hats should be,
Go to the land of slaves and palankeening,
And think of me!
Go to the land of jungles and of vast hills,
And tall bamboos—may none bamboozle thee!
Go gaze upon their elephants and castles,
And think of me!
Go where a cook must always be a currier,
And parch the peppered palate like a pea,
Go where the fierce mosquito is a worrier,
And think of me!
Go where the maiden on a marriage plan goes,
Consigned for wedlock to Calcutta's quay,
Where woman goes for mart, the same as mangoes,
And think of me!
Go where the sun is very hot and fervent,
Go to the land of pagod and rupee,
Where every black will be your slave and servant,
And think of me!
"Resigned, I kissed the rod."
Well! I think it is time to put up!
For it does not accord with my notions,
Wrist, elbow, and chine,
Stiff from throwing the line,
To take nothing at last by my motions!
I ground-bait my way as I go,
And dip in at each watery dimple;
But however I wish
To inveigle the fish,
To my gentle they will not play simple!
Though my float goes so swimmingly on,
My bad luck never seems to diminish;
It would seem that the Bream
Must be scarce in the stream,
And the Chub, tho' it's chubby, be thinnish!
Not a Trout there can be in the place,
Not a Grayling or Rud worth the mention,
And although at my hook
With attention I look,
I can ne'er see my hook with a Tench on!
At a brandling once Gudgeon would gape,
But they seem upon different terms now;
Have they taken advice
Of the "Council of Nice,"
And rejected their "Diet of Worms," now?
In vain my live minnow I spin,
Not a Pike seems to think it worth snatching;
For the gut I have brought,
I had better have bought
A good rope that was used to Jack-ketching!
Not a nibble has ruffled my cork,
It is vain in this river to search then;
I may wait till it's night,
Without any bite
And at roost-time have never a Perch then!
No Roach can I meet with—no Bleak,
Save what in the air is so sharp now;
Not a Dace have I got,
And I fear it is not
"Carpe diem," a day for the Carp now!
Oh! there is not a one-pound prize
To be got in this fresh-water-lottery!
What then can I deem
Of so fishless a stream
But that 'tis—like St. Mary's—Ottery!
For an Eel I have learned how to try,
By a method of Walton's own showing—
But a fisherman feels
Little prospect of Eels,
In a path that's devoted to towing!
I have tried all the water for miles,
Till I'm weary of dipping and casting,
And hungry and faint—
Let the Fancy just paint
What it is, without Fish, to be Fasting!
And the rain drizzles down very fast,
While my dinner-time sounds from a far bell—
So, wet to the skin,
I'll e'en back to my inn,
Where at least I am sure of a Bar-bell!
ODE
TO THE ADVOCATES FOR THE REMOVAL OF SMITH-FIELD MARKET.
"Sweeping our flocks and herds."—DOUGLAS.
O Philanthropic men!—
For this address I need not make apology—
Who aim at clearing out the Smithfield pen,
And planting further off its vile Zoology—
Permit me thus to tell,
I like your efforts well,
For routing that great nest of Hornithology!
Be not dismay'd, although repulsed at first,
And driven from their Horse, and Pig, and Lamb parts,
Charge on!—you shall upon their hornworks burst,
And carry all their Bull-warks and their
Ram-parts.
Go on, ye wholesale drovers!
And drive away the Smithfield flocks and herds!
As wild as Tartar-Curds,
That come so fat, and kicking, from their clovers;
Off with them all!—those restive brutes, that vex
Our streets, and plunge, and lunge, and butt, and battle;
And save the female sex
From being cow'd—like Iö—by the cattle!
Fancy,—when droves appear on
The hill of Holborn, roaring from its top,—
Your ladies—ready, as they own, to drop,
Taking themselves to Thomson's with a Fear-on!
Or, in St. Martin's Lane,
Scared by a Bullock, in a frisky vein,—
Fancy the terror of your timid daughters,
While rushing souse
Into a coffee-house,
To find it—Slaughter's!
Or fancy this:—
Walking along the street, some stranger Miss,
Her head with no such thought of danger laden,
When suddenly 'tis "Aries Taurus Virgo!"—
You don't know Latin, I translate it ergo,
Into your Areas a Bull throws the Maiden!
Think of some poor old crone
Treated, just like a penny, with a toss!
At that vile spot now grown
So generally known
For making a Cow Cross!
Nay, fancy your own selves far off from stall,
Or shed, or shop—and that an Ox infuriate
Just pins you to the wall,
Giving you a strong dose of Oxy-Muriate!
Methinks I hear the neighbors that live round
The Market-ground
Thus make appeal unto their civic fellows—
"'Tis well for you that live apart—unable
To hear this brutal Babel,
But our firesides are troubled with their
bellows."
"Folks that too freely sup
Must e'en put up
With their own troubles if they can't digest;
But we must needs regard
The case as hard
That others' victuals should disturb our rest,
That from our sleep your food should start and jump
us!
We like, ourselves, a steak,
But, Sirs, for pity's sake!
We don't want oxen at our doors to rump-us!"
"If we do doze—it really is too bad!
We constantly are roar'd awake or rung,
Through bullocks mad
That run in all the 'Night Thoughts' of our Young!"
Such are the woes of sleepers—now let's take
The woes of those that wish to keep a Wake!
O think! when Wombwell gives his annual feasts,
Think of these "Bulls of Basan," far from mild ones;
Such fierce tame beasts,
That nobody much cares to see the Wild ones!
Think of the Show woman, "what shows a Dwarf,"
Seeing a red Cow come
To swallow her Tom Thumb,
And forc'd with broom of birch to keep her off!
Think, too, of Messrs. Richardson and Co.,
When looking at their public private boxes,
To see in the back row
Three live sheep's heads, a porker's, and an Ox's!
Think of their Orchestra, when two horns come
Through, to accompany the double drum!
Or, in the midst of murder and remorses,
Just when the Ghost is certain,
A great rent in the curtain,
And enter two tall skeletons—of Horses!
Great Philanthropics! pray urge these topics
Upon the Solemn Councils of the Nation,
Get a Bill soon, and give, some noon,
The Bulls, a Bull of Excommunication!
Let the old Fair have fair play, as its right,
And to each Show and sight
Ye shall be treated with a Free List latitude;
To Richardson's Stage Dramas,
Dio—and Cosmo—ramas,
Giants and Indians wild,
Dwarf, Sea Bear, and Fat Child,
And that most rare of Shows—a Show of Gratitude!
"Blow high, blow low."—SEA SONG.
As Mister B. and Mistress B.
One night were sitting down to tea,
With toast and muffins hot—
They heard a loud and sudden bounce,
That made the very china flounce,
They could not for a time pronounce
If they were safe or shot—
For Memory brought a deed to match
At Deptford done by night—
Before one eye appeared a Patch,
In t'other eye a Blight!
To be belabor'd at of life,
Without some small attempt at strife,
Our nature will not grovel;
One impulse hadd both man and dame,
He seized the tongs—she did the same,
Leaving the ruffian, if he came,
The poker and the shovel.
Suppose the couple standing so,
When rushing footsteps from below
Made pulses fast and fervent;
And first burst in the frantic cat,
All steaming like a brewer's rat,
And then—as white as my cravat—
Poor Mary May, the servant!
Lord, how the couple's teeth did chatter,
Master and Mistress both flew at her,
"Speak! Fire? or Murder? What's the matter?"
Till Mary, getting breath,
Upon her tale began to touch
With rapid tongue, full trotting, such
As if she thought she had too much
To tell before her death:—
"We was both, Ma'am, in the wash-house. Ma'am, a-standing at
our tubs,
And Mrs. Round was seconding what little things I rubs;
'Mary,' says she to me, 'I say'—and there she stops for
coughin,
'That dratted copper flue has took to smokin very often,
But please the pigs,'—for that's her way of swearing in
a passion,
I'll blow it up, and not be set a coughin in this fashion!
Well down she takes my master's horn—I mean his horn
for loading,
And empties every grain alive for to set the flue exploding.
Lawk, Mrs. Round! says I, and stares, that quantum is
unproper,
I'm sartin sure it can't not take a pound to sky a copper;
You'll powder both our heads off, so I tells you, with its
puff,
But she only dried her fingers, and she takes a pinch of
snuff.
Well, when the pinch is over—'Teach your Grandmother to
suck
A powder horn,' says she—Well, says I, I wish you luck.
Them words sets up her back, so with her hands upon her hips,
'Come,' says she, quite in a huff, 'come, keep your tongue
inside your lips;
Afore ever you was born, I was well used to things like
these;
I shall put it in the grate, and let it burn up by degrees.
So in it goes, and Bounce—O Lord! it gives us such a
rattle,
I thought we both were cannonized, like Sogers in a battle!
Up goes the copper like a squib, and us on both our backs,
And bless the tubs, they bundled off, and split all into
cracks.
Well, there I fainted dead away, and might have been cut
shorter,
But Providence was kind, and brought me to with scalding
water.
I first looks round for Mrs. Round, and sees her at a
distance,
As stiff as starch, and looked as dead as any thing in
existence;
All scorched and grimed, and more than that, I sees the
copper slap
Right on her head, for all the world like a percussion copper
cap.
Well, I crooks her little fingers, and crumps them well up
together,
As humanity pints out, and burnt her nostrums with a feather;
But for all as I can do, to restore her to her mortality,
She never gives a sign of a return to sensuality.
Thinks I, well there she lies, as dead as my own late
departed mother,
Well, she'll wash no more in this world, whatever she does in
t'other.
So I gives myself to scramble up the linens for a minute,
Lawk, sich a shirt! thinks I, it's well my master wasn't in
it;
Oh! I never, never, never, never, never, see a sight so
shockin;
Here lays a leg, and there a leg—I mean, you know, a
stocking—
Bodies all slit and torn to rags, and many a tattered skirt,
And arms burnt off, and sides and backs all scotched and
black with dirt;
But as nobody was in 'em—none but—nobody was
hurt!
Well, there I am, a-scrambling up the things, all in a lump,
When, mercy on us! such a groan as makes my heart to jump.
And there she is, a-lying with a crazy sort of eye,
A-staring at the wash-house roof, laid open to the sky:
Then she beckons with a finger, and so down to her I reaches,
And puts my ear agin her mouth to hear her dying speeches,
For, poor soul! she has a husband and young orphans, as I
knew;
Well, Ma'am, you won't believe it, but it's Gospel fact and
true,
But these words is all she whispered—'Why, where
is the powder blew?'"
"I'M NOT A SINGLE MAN."[30]
LINES WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY'S ALBUM.
A pretty task, Miss S——, to ask
A Benedictine pen,
That cannot quite at freedom write
Like those of other men.
No lover's plaint my muse must paint
To fill this page's span,
But be correct and recollect
I'm not a single man.
Pray only think, for pen and ink
How hard to get along,
That may not turn on words that burn
Or Love, the life of song!
Nine Muses, if I chooses, I
May woo all in a clan,
But one Miss S—— I daren't address—
I'm not a single man.
Scribblers unwed, with little head
May eke it out with heart,
And in their lays it often plays
A rare first-fiddle part.
They make a kiss to rhyme with bliss,
But if I so began,
I have my fears about my ears—
I'm not a single man.
Upon your cheek I may not speak,
Nor on your lip be warm,
I must be wise about your eyes,
And formal with your form;
Of all that sort of thing, in short,
On T.H. Bayly's plan,
I must not twine a single line—
I'm not a single man.
A watchman's part compels my heart
To keep you off its beat,
And I might dare as soon to swear
At you, as at your feet.
I can't expire in passion's fire
As other poets can—
My life (she's by) won't let me die—
I'm not a single man.
Shut out from love, denied a dove,
Forbidden bow and dart,
Without a groan to call my own,
With neither hand nor heart;
To Hymen vow'd, and not allow'd
To flirt e'en with your fan,
Here end, as just a friend, I must—
I'm not a single man.