CHARADES.

She stood at Greenwich, motionless amid

The ever-shifting crowd of passengers.

I marked a big tear quivering on the lid

Of her deep-lustrous eye, and knew that hers

Were days of bitterness. But, “Oh! what stirs”

I said “such storm within so fair a breast?”

Even as I spoke, two apoplectic curs

Came feebly up: with one wild cry she prest

Each singly to her heart, and faltered, “Heaven be blest!”

Yet once again I saw her, from the deck

Of a black ship that steamed towards Blackwall.

She walked upon MY FIRST. Her stately neck

Bent o'er an object shrouded in her shawl:

I could not see the tears — the glad tears — fall,

Yet knew they fell. And “Ah,” I said, “not puppies,

Seen unexpectedly, could lift the pall

From hearts who KNOW what tasting misery's cup is,

As Niobe's, or mine, or Mr. William Guppy's.”

Spake John Grogblossom the coachman to Eliza Spinks the cook:

“Mrs. Spinks,” says he, “I've foundered:‘ Liza dear, I'm overtook.

Druv into a corner reglar, puzzled as a babe unborn;

Speak the word, my blessed‘ Liza; speak, and John the coachman's yourn.”

Then Eliza Spinks made answer, blushing, to the coachman John:

“John, I'm born and bred a spinster: I've begun and I'll go on.

Endless cares and endless worrits, well I knows it, has a wife:

Cooking for a genteel family, John, it's a goluptious life!