IX.

For why, he neither slept, nor drank, nor fed,
Nor relish'd any kind of mirth below;
Fire in his heart, and frenzy in his head,
Love had become his universal foe,
Salt in his sugar-nightmare in his bed,
At last, no wonder wretched Julio,
A sorrow-ridden thing, in utter dearth
Of hope,-made up his mind to cut her girth!

X.

For hapless lovers always died of old,

Sooner than chew reflection's bitter cud; So Thisbe stuck herself, what time 'tis told, The tender-hearted mulberries wept blood; And so poor Sappho, when her boy was cold,

Drown'd her salt tear drops in a salter flood, Their fame still breathing, tho' their breath be past, For those old suitors lived beyond their last.

XI.

So Julio went to drown,-when life was dull,
But took his corks, and merely had a bath;
And once, he pull'd a trigger at his skull,
But merely broke a window in his wrath;
And once, his hopeless being to annul,

He tied a pack-thread to a beam of lath,
A line so ample, 'twas a query whether
'Twas meant to be a halter or a tether.

XII.

Smile not in scorn, that Julio did not thrust

His sorrows thro'-'tis horrible to die!
And come down with our little all of dust,
That dun of all the duns to satisfy;

To leave life's pleasant city as we must,
In Death's most dreary sponging-house to lie,
Where even all our personals must go

Το

pay

the debt of Nature that we owe !

XIII.

So Julio lived:-'twas nothing but a pet
He took at life-a momentary spite;
Besides, he hoped that time would some day get
The better of love's flame, however bright;
A thing that time has never compass'd yet,
For love, we know, is an immortal light.
Like that old fire, that, quite beyond a doubt,
Was always in, for none have found it out.

Meanwhile, Bianca dream'd-'twas once when
Along the darken'd plain began to creep,
Like a young Hottentot, whose eyes are bright,
Altho' in skin as sooty as a sweep:

The flow'rs had shut their eyes-the zephyr light
Was gone, for it had rock'd the leaves to sleep,
And all the little birds had laid their heads
Under their wings-sleeping in feather beds.

XV.

Lone in her chamber sate the dark-eyed maid, By easy stages jaunting thro' her prayers, But list'ning side-long to a serenade,

That robb'd the saints a little of their shares ; For Julio underneath the lattice play'd

His Deh Vieni, and such amorous airs,
Born only underneath Italian skies,
Where every fiddle has a Bridge of Sighs.

XVI.

Sweet was the tune-the words were even sweeter,
Praising her eyes, her lips, her nose, her hair,
With all the common tropes wherewith in metre
The hackney poets overcharge their fair.
Her shape was like Diana's, but completer;
Her brow with Grecian Helen's might compare.

Cupid, alas! was cruel Sagittarius,

Julio-the weeping water-man Aquarius.

XVII.

Now, after listing to such laudings rare,
'Twas very natural indeed to go—
What if she did postpone one little pray'r—
To ask her mirror" if it was not so?"
'Twas a large mirror, none the worse for wear,
Reflecting her at once from top to toe:

And there she gazed upon that glossy track,

That show'd her front face tho' it "gave her back."

XVIII.

And long her lovely eyes were held in thrall, By that dear page where first the woman That Julio was no flatt'rer, none at all, [reads: She told herself and then she told her beads; Meanwhile, the nerves insensibly let fall

Two curtains fairer than the lily breeds; For sleep had crept and kiss'd her unawares, Just at the half-way milestone of her pray'rs.

XIX.

Then like a drooping rose so bended she,

Till her bow'd head upon her hand reposed; But still she plainly saw, or seem'd to see, That fair reflection, tho' her eyes were closed, A beauty bright as it was wont to be,

A portrait Fancy painted while she dozed: 'Tis very natural, some people say,

To dream of what we dwell on in the day.

XX.

Still shone her face-yet not, alas! the same,
But 'gan some dreary touches to assume,
And sadder thoughts, with sadder changes came―
Her eyes resign'd their light, her lips their bloom,
Her teeth fell out, her tresses did the same,
Her cheeks were tinged with bile, her eyes
with rheum :

There was a throbbing at her heart within,
For, oh! there was a shooting in her chin.

XXI.

And lo! upon her sad desponding brow,
The cruel trenches of besieging age,
With seams, but most unseemly, 'gan to show
Her place was booking for the seventh stage;
And where her raven tresses used to flow,

Some locks that time had left her in his rage, And some mock ringlets, made her forehead shady

A compound (like our Psalms) of tête and

braidy.

XXII.

Then for her shape-alas! how Saturn wrecks, And bends, and corkscrews all the frame about, Doubles the hams, and crooks the straightest

necks,

Draws in the nape, and pushes forth the snout, Makes backs and stomachs concave or convex:

Witness those pensioners call'd In and Out, Who all day watching first and second rater, Quaintly unbend themselves—but grow no straighter.

XXIII.

So Time with fair Bianca dealt, and made

Her shape a bow, that once was like an arrow;

His iron hand upon her spine he laid,

And twisted all awry her "winsome marrow."