My tricksome Puck, my Robin,
Who in and out come bobbing,
As full of feints and frolic as
That fibbing rogue Autolycus,
And play the graceless robber on
Your grave-eyed brother Oberon,—
Ah! Dick, ah Dolce-riso,

How can you, can you be so ?

One cannot turn a minute,
But mischief-there you're in it,
A getting at my books, John,
With mighty bustling looks, John;
Or poking at the roses,

In midst of which your nose is;
Or climbing on a table,
No matter how unstable,
And turning up your quaint eye
And half-shut teeth with " Mayn't I?"
Or else you're off at play, John,
Just as you'd be all day, John,
With hat or not, as happens,

And there you dance, and clap hands,
Or on the grass go rolling,

Or plucking flow'rs, or bowling,

And getting me expenses

With losing balls o'er fences;
Or, as the constant trade is,
Are fondled by the ladies

With "What a young rogue this is!"
Reforming him with kisses;

Till suddenly you cry out,
As if you had an eye out,
So desperately tearful,
The sound is really fearful;
When lo! directly after,
It bubbles into laughter.

Ah rogue! and do you know, John,

Why 'tis we love you so, John?
And how it is they let ye

Do what you like and pet ye,!}
Though all who look upon ye,
Exclaim "Ah, Johnny, Johnny!" a
It is because you please 'em

Still more, John, than you tease 'em ;
Because, too, when not present,
The thought of you is pleasant;
Because, though such an elf, John,
They think that if yourself, John,
Had something to condemn too;
You'd be as kind to them too,
In short, because you're very
Good-temper'd, Jack, and merry;
And are as quick at giving,
As easy at receiving;

And in the midst of pleasure
Are certain to find leisure

To think, my boy of ours,
And bring us lumps of flowers.

But see, the sun shines brightly;
Come, put your hat on rightly,
And we'll among the bushes,
And hear your friends the thrushes;
And see what flow'rs the weather
Has render'd fit to gather;

And, when we home must jog, you
Shall ride my back, you rogue you,
Your hat adorn'd with fine leaves,
Horse-chestnut, oak, and vine-leaves;
And so, with green o'erhead, John,
Shall whistle home to bed, John.

Et modo qua nostri spatiantur in urbe quirites,
Et modo villarum proxima rura placent.

MILTON, Eleg. 7.

Enjoying now the range of town at ease,

And now the neighbouring rural villages.”

DEAR HAZLITT, whose tact intellectual is such, That it seems to feel truth, as pure matter of touch,

Who in politics, arts, metaphysics, poetics,
To critics in these times, are health to cosmetics,
And, nevertheless, or I rather should say,
For that very reason,-can relish boy's play,
And turning on all sides, through pleasures and

cares,

Find nothing more precious than laughs and fresh airs,

One's life, I conceive, might go prettily down,
In a due easy mixture of country and town;-
Not after the fashion of most with two houses,
Who gossip, and gape, and just follow their spouses,
And let their abode be wherever it will,

Are the same vacant, house-keeping animals still ;-
But with due sense of each, and of all that it

yields,

In the town, of the town,-in the fields, of the fields;

In the one, for example, to feel as we go on,
That streets are about us, arts, people, and so on;
In t'other, to value the stillness, the breeze,
And love to see farms, and to get among trees.

Each his liking, of course, so that this be the rule.

For my part, who went in the city to school,

And whenever I got in a field, felt my soul in it -Spring, so that like a young horse I could roll in it,

My inclinations are much what they were,

And cannot dispense, in the first place, with air; But then I would have the most rural of nooks Just near enough town to make use of its books, And to walk there, whenever I chose to make calls,

To look at the ladies, and lounge at the stalls.

To tell you the truth, I could spend very well Whole mornings in this way 'twixt here and Pall Mall,

-

And make my gloves' fingers as black as my hat, In pulling the books up from this stall and that :Then turning home gently through field and o'er style,

Partly reading a purchase, or rhyming the while, Take my dinner (to make a long evening) at two, With a few droppers-in like my Cousin and you, Who can season the talk with the right-flavour'd attic,

Too witty, for tattling,—too wise, for dogmatic ;— Then take down an author, whom one of us mentions,

And doat, for a while, on his jokes or inventions; Then have Mozart touched, on our bottle's completion,

Or one of your fav'rite trim ballads Venetian :-
Then up for a walk before tea down a valley,
And so to come back through a leafy-wall'd alley,
In which the sun peeping, as into a chamber,
Looks gold on the leaves, turning some to sheer
amber:

Then tea made by one, who (although my wife she be,)

If Jove were to drink it, would soon be his Hebe; Then silence a little,- -a creeping twilight,—

Then an egg for your supper, with lettuces white, And a moon and friend's arm to go home with at night.

Now this I call passing a few devout hours

Becoming a world that has friendships and flowers; That has lips also, made for still more than to chat

to;

And if it has rain, has a rainbow for that too.

"Lord bless us!" exclaims some old hunks in a

shop,

"What useless young dogs!"—and falls combing a

crop.

"How idle!" another cries-"really a sin!"

And starting up, takes his first customer in. "At least," cries another, "it's nothing but pleasure;"

Then longs for the Monday, quite sick of his leisure. "What toys!" cries the sagehaggard statesman,— "what stuff!"

Then fillips his ribbon, to shake off the snuff. "How profane!" cries the preacher, proclaiming his message;

Then calls God's creation a vile dirty passage.

66

Lips too!" cries a vixen,-and fidgets, and stirs, And concludes (which is true) that I didn't mean hers.

TO BARRON FIELD.39

DEAR FIELD, my old friend, who love strait-forward verse,

And will take it, like marriage, for better, for

worse,

Who cheered my fire-side, when we grew up together,