CONFESSIONS.

CONFESSIONS.

1.

WHAT is he buzzing in my ears?

"Now that I come to die,

Do I view the world as a vale of tears?

Ah, reverend sir, not I!

2.

What I viewed there once, what I view again,

Where the physic bottles stand

On the table's edge, is a suburb lane,

With a wall to my bedside hand.

3.

That lane sloped, much as the bottles do,
From a house you could descry

O'er the garden-wall: is the curtain blue
Or green to a healthy eye?

4.

To mine, it serves for the old June weather

Blue above lane and wall;

And that farthest bottle labelled "Ether”

Is the house o'er-topping all.

5.

At a terrace, somewhat near its stopper,
There watched for me, one June,

A girl: I know, sir, it's improper,
My poor mind's out of tune.

6.

Only, there was a way.. you crept
Close by the side, to dodge

Eyes in the house, two eyes except:

They styled their house "The Lodge."

7.

What right had a lounger up their lane?

But, by creeping very close,

With the good wall's help, — their eyes might strain

And stretch themselves to Oes,