Classic Poem

When I called at the " Hollies " to-day,
In the room with the cedar-wood presses,
Aunt Deb. was just folding away
What she calls her " memorial dresses. "

She'd the frock that she wore at fifteen, —
Short-waisted, of course — my abhorrence;
She'd " the loveliest " — something in " een "
That she wears in her portrait by Lawrence;

She'd the " jelick " she used — " as a Greek, " (!)
She'd the habit she got her bad fall in;
She had e'en the blue moire antique
That she opened Squire Grasshopper's ball in: —

New and old they were all of them there: —
Sleek velvet and bombazine stately, —
She had hung them each over a chair
To the " paniers " she's taken to lately

(Which she showed me, I think, by mistake).
And I conned o'er the forms and the fashions,
Till the faded old shapes seemed to wake
All the ghosts of my passed-away " passions; " —

From the days of love's youthfullest dream,
When the height of my shooting idea
Was to burn, like a young Polypheme,
For a somewhat mature Galatea.

There was Lucy, who " tiffed " with her first,
And who threw me as soon as her third came;
There was Norah, whose cut was the worst,
For she told me to wait till my " berd " came;

Pale Blanche, who subsisted on salts;
Blonde Bertha, who doted on Schiller;
Poor Amy, who taught me to waltz;
Plain Ann, that I wooed for the " siller; " —

All danced round my head in a ring,
Like " The Zephyrs " that somebody painted,
All shapes of the feminine thing —
Shy, scornful, seductive, and sainted, —

To my Wife, in the days she was young . . .
" How, Sir, " says that lady, disgusted,
" Do you dare to include M E among
Your loves that have faded and rusted? "

" Not at all! " — I benignly retort.
(I was just the least bit in a temper!)
" Those, alas! were the fugitive sort,
But you are my — eadem semper! "

Full stop, — and a Sermon. Yet think, —
There was surely good ground for a quarrel, —
She had checked me when just on the brink
Of — I feel — a remarkable Moral .