Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb
Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb :
But these are only massed there, I should think,
Waiting to see some wonder momently

Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky
(That's the pale ground you'd see this sweet face
by),

All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink.

A LIKENESS

OME people hang portraits up

SOM

In a room where they dine or sup:
And the wife clinks tea-things under,

And her cousin, he stirs his cup,

Asks, "Who was the lady, I wonder?" "'Tis a daub John bought at a sale,"

Quoth the wife,-looks black as thunder: "What a shade beneath her nose!

'Snuff-taking, I suppose,

Adds the cousin, while John's corns ail.
Or else, there's no wife in the case,
But the portrait's queen of the place,
Alone mid the other spoils

Of youth,-masks, gloves and foils,
And pipe-sticks, rose, cherry-tree, jasmine,
And the long whip, the tandem-lasher,
And the cast from a fist ("not, alas! mine,
"But my master's, the Tipton Slasher"),
And the cards where pistol-balls mark ace,
And a satin shoe used for a cigar-case,
And the chamois-horns ("shot in the Chablais")
And prints-Rarey drumming on Cruiser,
And Sayers, our champion, the bruiser,

And the little edition of Rabelais:

Where a friend, with both hands in his pockets, May saunter up close to examine it,

And remark a good deal of Jane Lamb in it, "But the eyes are half out of their sockets; "That hair's not so bad, where the gloss is, "But they've made the girl's nose a proboscis: Jane Lamb, that we danced with at Vichy! "What, is not she Jane? Then, who is she?

All that I own is a print,
An etching, a mezzotint;
'Tis a study, a fancy, a fiction,
Yet a fact (take my conviction)
Because it has more than a hint
Of a certain face, I never
Saw elsewhere touch or trace of
In women I've seen the face of:
Just an etching, and, so far, clever.

I keep my prints, an imbroglio,
Fifty in one portfolio.

When somebody tries my claret,
We turn round chairs to the fire,
Chirp over days in a garret,

Chuckle o'er increase of salary,
Taste the good fruits of our leisure,
Talk about pencil and lyre,

And the National Portrait Gallery:

Then I exhibit my treasure.

After we've turned over twenty,

And the debt of wonder my crony owes

Is paid to my Marc Antonios,

He stops me “Festina lentè!

"What's that sweet thing there, the etching?" How my waistcoat-strings want stretching, How my cheeks grow red as tomatos,

How my heart leaps! But hearts, after leaps, ache.

By the by, you must take, for a keepsake,
"That other, you praised, of Volpato's."
The fool! would he try a flight further and say—
He never saw, never before to-day,

What was able to take his breath away,

A face to lose youth for, to occupy age
With the dream of, meet death with,-why, I'll
not engage

But that, half in a rapture and half in a rage,
I should toss him the thing's self-"'Tis only a
duplicate,

"A thing of no value! Take it, I supplicate!"

MR SLUDGE, "THE MEDIUM"

OW, don't, sir! Don't expose me! Just this once! This was the first and only time, I'll swear,Look at me,-see, I kneel,—the only time, I swear, I ever cheated,-yes, by the soul Of Her who hears-(your sainted mother, sir!) All, except this last accident, was truthThis little kind of slip !—and even this,

It was your own wine, sir, the good champagne, (I took it for Catawba, you're so kind)

Which put the folly in my head!

"Get up?"

You still inflict on me that terrible face?

You show no mercy?-Not for Her dead sake,
The sainted spirit's, whose soft breath even now
Blows on my cheek-(don't you feel something, sir?)
You'll tell?

Go tell, then! Who the devil cares
What such a rowdy chooses to ...

Aie-aie-aie!

Please, sir! your thumbs are through my wind-pipe, sir!

Ch-ch!

Well, sir, I hope you've done it now!

Oh Lord! I little thought, sir, yesterday,

When your departed mother spoke those words
Of peace through me, and moved you, sir, so much,
You gave me (very kind it was of you)

These shirt-studs-(better take them back again,
Please, sir)—yes, little did I think so soon

A trifle of trick, all through a glass too much
Of his own champagne, would change my best of friends
Into an angry gentleman!

Though, 'twas wrong.
I don't contest the point; your anger's just:
Whatever put such folly in my head,

I know 'twas wicked of me. There's a thick
Dusk undeveloped spirit (I've observed)
Owes me a grudge-a negro's, I should say,
Or else an Irish emigrant's; yourself
Explained the case so well last Sunday, sir,
When we had summoned Franklin to clear up
A point about those shares i' the telegraph:
Ay, and he swore . . . or might it be Tom Paine?...
Thumping the table close by where I crouched,
He'd do me soon a mischief: that's come true!
Why, now your face clears! I was sure it would!
Then, this one time... don't take your hand away,
Through yours I surely kiss your mother's hand.
You'll promise to forgive me?—or, at least,
Tell nobody of this? Consider, sir!

What harm can mercy do? Would but the shade
Of the venerable dead-one just vouchsafe

A rap or tip! What bit of paper's here?
Suppose we take a pencil, let her write,
Make the least sign, she urges on her child

Forgiveness? There now! Eh? Oh! 'Twas your foot,