Page 30 - Poetry-Family

That bicycle bestrode !
I look at these with awe: they’re decked
In trousers, à la mode!

A dog-eared Cæsar haunts your dreams;
Your tailor’s quite your chum.
You wish your arms were not so long,
Your fingers not all thumb.
Your voice has “caught the mannish crack,”
Where high and low notes clash:
While—just come here; great goodness! yes,
The boy has—a moustache!

An introduction is a trial;
An evening call, much more.
You’d like a Conversation Guide;
Of small talk have small store.
Yet you have noticed Belle’s grey eyes,
And Cora’s rippling curls,
And somehow suddenly surmise
There is a race called—girls !

But, oh! what idle, scribbling friend,
Or graver seer, shall breathe
Of those dim outlooks—mist and dream—
Where new-born fancies wreathe
And paint the future?—day by day
More riddle to thy breast—
With questions only half made known,
And answers not half guessed.

Ah, Fred! dear fellow, not our hands
Would check thee in that march
Each mortal makes. Thou couldst not stand
Long in the gateway arch.
Up with your banner, boy friend mine!
Step forward with good grace:
Fortune’s your friend! She told me so
The day she eyed your face.

—Edward Irenæus Stevenson (Cassell’s Family Magazine, 1887)

~ 28 ~