Haste, Dick--you're lost, if you lose time;--
Spinsters at forty-five grow giddy,
And Murtagh with his tropes sublime
Will surely carry off old Biddy,
Unless some spark at once propose,
And distance him by downright prose.
That sick, rich squire, whose wealth and lands
All pass, they say, to Biddy's hands,
(The patron, Dick, of three fat rectories!)
Is dying of _angina pectoris_;--
So that, unless you're stirring soon.
Murtagh, that priest of puff and pelf,
May come in for a honey-_moon_,
And be the _man_ of it, himself!
As for _me_, Dick--'tis whim, 'tis folly,
But this young niece absorbs me wholly.
'Tis true, the girl's a vile verse-maker--
Would rhyme all nature, if you'd let her;--
But even her oddities, plague take her,
But made me love her all the better.
_Too_ true it is, she's bitten sadly
With this new rage for rhyming badly,
Which late hath seized all ranks and classes,
Down to that new Estate, "the masses ";
Till one pursuit all tastes combines--
One common railroad o'er Parnassus,
Where, sliding in those tuneful grooves,
Called couplets, all creation moves,
And the whole world runs mad _in lines_.
Add to all this--what's even still worse,
As rhyme itself, tho' still a curse,
Sounds better to a chinking purse--
Scarce sixpence hath my charmer got,
While I can muster just a groat;
So that, computing self and Venus,
Tenpence would clear the amount between us.
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