BENEDETTA RAMUS.

Mysterious Benedetta! who

That Reynolds or that Romney drew

Was ever half so fair as you,

Or is so well forgot?

These eyes of melancholy brown,

These woven locks, a shadowy crown,

Must surely have bewitched the town;

Yet you're remembered not.

Through all that prattle of your age,

Through lore of fribble and of sage

I've read, and chiefly Walpole's page,

Wherein are beauties famous;

I've haunted ball, and rout, and sale;

I've heard of Devonshire and Thrale,

And all the Gunnings’ wondrous tale,

But nothing of Miss Ramus.

And yet on many a lattice pane

‘ Fair Benedetta,’ scrawled in vain

By lovers’ diamonds, must remain

To tell us you were cruel.

But who, of all that sighed and swore -

Wits, poets, courtiers by the score -

Did win and on his bosom wore

This hard and lovely jewel?

Why, dilettante records say

An Alderman, who came that way,

Woo'd you and made you Lady Day;

You crowned his civic flame.

It suits a melancholy song

To think your heart had suffered wrong,

And that you lived not very long

To be a City dame!

Perchance you were a Mourning Bride,

And conscious of a heart that died

With one who fell by Rodney's side

In blood-stained Spanish bays.

Perchance‘ twas no such thing, and you

Dwelt happy with your knight and true,

And, like Aurora, watched a crew

Of rosy little Days!

Oh, lovely face and innocent!

Whatever way your fortunes went,

And if to earth your life was lent

For little space or long,

In your kind eyes we seem to see

What Woman at her best may be,

And offer to your memory

An unavailing song!

A pleasant land is Scribie, where

The light comes mostly from below,

And seems a sort of symbol rare

Of things at large, and how they go,

In rooms where doors are everywhere

And cupboards shelter friend or foe.

This is a realm where people tell

Each other, when they chance to meet,

Of things that long ago befell -

And do most solemnly repeat

Secrets they both know very well,

Aloud, and in the public street!

A land where lovers go in fours,

Master and mistress, man and maid;

Where people listen at the doors

Or‘ neath a table's friendly shade,

And comic Irishmen in scores

Roam o'er the scenes all undismayed:

A land where Virtue in distress

Owes much to uncles in disguise;

Where British sailors frankly bless

Their limbs, their timbers, and their eyes;

And where the villain doth confess,

Conveniently, before he dies!

A land of lovers false and gay;

A land where people dread a “curse;”

A land of letters gone astray,

Or intercepted, which is worse;

Where weddings false fond maids betray,

And all the babes are changed at nurse.

Oh, happy land, where things come right!

We of the world where things go ill;

Where lovers love, but do n't unite;

Where no one finds the Missing Will -

Dominion of the heart's delight,

Scribie, we've loved, and love thee still!