Till the kneelers round us, rising, Cross'd their foreheads and were gone; And o'er aisle and arch and cornice, Layer on layer, the night came on. CHARADES. I. SHE stood at Greenwich, motionless amid The ever-shifting crowd of passengers. I marked a big tear quivering on the lid Came feebly up: with one wild cry she prest Each singly to her heart, and faltered, "Heaven be blest!" Yet once again I saw her, from the deck Of a black ship that steamed towards Blackwall. She walked upon my first. Her stately neck I could not see the tears-the glad tears-fall, Yet knew they fell. And "Ah," I said, "not puppies, Seen unexpectedly, could lift the pall From hearts who know what tasting misery's cup is, As Niobe's, or mine, or Mr. William Guppy's." Spake John Grogblossom the coachman to Eliza Spinks the cook : "Mrs. Spinks," says he, "I've foundered: 'Liza dear, I'm overtook. Druv into a corner reglar, puzzled as a babe unborn ; Speak the word, my blessed 'Liza; speak, and John the coachman's yourn." Then Eliza Spinks made answer, blushing, to the coachman John: "John, I'm born and bred a spinster: I've begun and I'll go on. Endless cares and endless worrits, well I knows it, has a wife: Cooking for a genteel family, John, it's a goluptious life! "I gets £20 per annum-tea and things o' course not reckoned, There's a cat that eats the butter, takes the coals, and breaks my second: There's soci'ty-James the footman ;-(not that I look after him; But he's aff'ble in his manners, with amazing length of limb;) "Never durst the missis enter here until I've said 'Come in': If I saw the master peeping, I'd catch up the rolling-pin. Christmas-boxes, that's a something; perkisites, that's something too; And I think, take all together, John, I won't be on with you." John the coachman took his hat up, for he thought he'd had enough; Rubbed an elongated forehead with a meditative cuff; Paused before the stable doorway; said, when there, in accents mild, "She's a fine young 'oman, cook is; but that's where it is, she's spiled." I have read in some not marvellous tale, Of one who filled up the convivial cup |