TITANIA.

So bluff Sir Leolin gave the bride away:

And when they married her, the little church

Had seldom seen a costlier ritual.

The coach and pair alone were two-pound-ten,

And two-pound-ten apiece the wedding-cakes;—

Three wedding-cakes. A Cupid poised a-top

Of each hung shivering to the frosted loves

Of two fond cushats on a field of ice,

As who should say‘ I see you!’ — Such the joy

When English-hearted Edwin swore his faith

With Mariana of the Moated Grange.

For Edwin, plump head-waiter at The Cock,

Grown sick of custom, spoilt of plenitude,

Lacking the finer wit that saith,

‘ I wait, They come; and if I make them wait, they go,’

Fell in a jaundiced humour petulant-green,

Watched the dull clerk slow-rounding to his cheese,

Flicked a full dozen flies that flecked the pane —

All crystal-cheated of the fuller air,

Blurted a free‘ Good-day t'ye,’ left and right,

And shaped his gathering choler to this head:—

‘ Custom! And yet what profit of it all?

The old order changeth yielding place to new,

To me small change, and this the Counter-change

Of custom beating on the self-same bar —

Change out of chop. Ah me! the talk, the tip,

The would-be-evening should-be-mourning suit,

The forged solicitude for petty wants

More petty still than they,— all these I loathe,

Learning they lie who feign that all things come

To him that waiteth. I have waited long,

And now I go, to mate me with a bride

Who is aweary waiting, even as I!’

But when the amorous moon of honeycomb

Was over, ere the matron-flower of Love —

Step-sister of To-morrow's marmalade —

Swooned scentless, Mariana found her lord

Did something jar the nicer feminine sense

With usage, being all too fine and large,

Instinct of warmth and colour, with a trick

Of blunting‘ Mariana's’ keener edge

To‘ Mary Ann’ — the same but not the same:

Whereat she girded, tore her crisped hair,

Called him‘ Sir Churl,’ and ever calling‘ Churl!’

Drave him to Science, then to Alcohol,

To forge a thousand theories of the rocks,

Then somewhat else for thousands dewy cool,

Wherewith he sought a more Pacific isle

And there found love, a duskier love than hers.