Page 16 - Poetry-Romance

Teeth so fine you might suspect them, but that curious eyes behold
“In their Milky Way of whiteness just one little star of gold”—
That is what our poet called it in a sonnet that he wrote,
Which ‘tis much to be regretted that we haven’t room to quote.

She has had a hundred lovers, and she held them cheap as dirt—
For I grieve to say she’s been a most unconscionable flirt.
But they fell away to sixty, and they dwindled down to six,
And now, having passed the forest, she must make a choice of sticks.
Only two at last are left her—Colonel Birch and Mr. Brown.
It was long a question which should be the envy of the town.
For a while it seemed the poet; now it certainly is Birch,
And at ten o’clock next Tuesday she will marry him in church.
There he is—and not by any means a crooked stick is he:
It is wonderful how very straight an old Bent beau can be!
He has fought his country’s battles—in a commissary’s tent;
And he still is young and handsome—in the eyes of Bella Bent.
Well might her perfidious conduct drive a poet-lover mad!
After all his sighs and sonnets, it was really too bad.
Although poor, and six-and-thirty, and his last book hasn’t sold,
‘Twas her teeth that took his fancy, and he cares not for her gold.
Calmly sipping, sits the Colonel; and he keeps his eye the while
On his heiress; and you read it in his half-developed smile,
Cold and quiet as his sabre’s edge just started from its sheath—
‘Twas her gold that fired his fancy, and he cares not for her teeth.
So the yacht sailed down the harbor to a favorite fishing ground,
Where the skipper dropped an anchor; for the gentlemen were bound
Just to try their hands at cod, and have a chowder. There she lay
Rocking on the ocean billows that came rolling up the bay;

And the hooks went down with clam bait, and—in short, the luck
was fine;
Even Brown grew interested in an unpoetic line;
And he smiled; but Arabella grew as suddenly quite pale,
Leaned her cheek upon her hand, and laid her arm upon the rail.
Like the lady in the ballad, she grew sick as he grew well;
With the heaving of the billows her fair bosom heaved and fell;
He is actually jolly, when, at every sudden lurch,
Dizzy, dreadful, dying qualms oppress the future Mrs. Birch.
She is bending by the gunwale—all at once you hear a scream:
From her lips, in anguish parted, with a glitter and a gleam,

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