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!

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?

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.

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.

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.”

What right had a lounger up their lane?

But, by creeping very close,, With the good walls help, — their eyes might strain

And stretch themselves to Oes,