Instead of cook'ry books and pies, of trains and highheeled shoes, We've now some dozen foreign tongues, and bustles, and "bas-bleus;" Our modern ladies scorn to study seas'ning and ragouts ; Politicians and astronomers have far more lofty views Than the fair and simple housewives of the merry olden time. Our recreations e'en are changed;-the good old country-dance No more may its far-lengthened lines on modern eyes advance! The cold, coquettish, prim quadrille—the gallopade of France With Germany's wild, whirling waltz, our giddy heads entrance; No more majestic minuets-no dames of olden time. Now, though all this may be "reform," 'tis far from good or wise; And much more happy should we be if dames made shirts and pies, Instead of scribbling odes and songs to love and butterflies, And digging up queer fossils to astonish vulgar eyes, Unlike the fair good housewives of the simple olden time. I hate the cupboards crammed with trash-tooth, skeleton, and bone; Here, a fish's tail in lime-there, a goose's head in stone, Where cordial, jam, and pickle once in goodly order shone: My powdered locks grew thickly then, but ah! those days are flown, And with them all the housewifery of bonny olden times. Ye beauteous dames of England, give up these mad brained ways— No more with Greek and Hebrew lore your pretty noddles craze; Shun crucible, and eke retort-seek no poetic bays, But spin and sew, knit, cook, and brew, as in the golden days, When British dames were housewives good-alas! the olden times! I LOVED THEE ONCE. I LOVED thee once,-I loved thee long - Breathed even by a stranger tongue, The scathing hand of mem'ry burns ;- And thou-and thou art proud and gay,— U MERRILY, merrily through the flowers Trace we our mazy dance to night, With the glow-worm's torch illume our bowers, Come, haste-then haste at your Queen's behest, To our fairy banqueting come On the bright star's glance, or the zephyr's breast, With flowers, gay flowers the earth is bright, From their perfumed leaves to the breath of night, |