So Virtue blooms, brought forth amid the storms Of chill adversity, in some lone walk Of life she rears her head L owlines S Obscure and unobserved.
While every bleaching breeze that on her blows Chastens her spotless purity of breast, And hardens her to bear D isciplin E Serene the ills of life.
In the course of their correspondence Mr. Calverley wrote a Shakespearian sonnet, the initial letters of which form the name of William Herbert; and a parody entitled "The New Hat." I reproduce them both.
When o'er the world Night spreads her mantle dun, In dreams, my love, I see those stars, thine eyes, Lighting the dark: but when the royal sun Looks o'er the pines and fires the orient skies, I bask no longer in thy beauty's ray, And lo! my world is bankrupt of delight. Murk night seemed lately fair-complexioned day; Hope-bringing day now seems most doleful night. End, weary day, that art no day to me! Return, fair night, to me the best of days! But O my rose, whom in my dreams I see, Enkindle with like bliss my waking gaze! Replete with thee, e'en hideous night grows fair: Then what would sweet morn be, if thou wert there?
My boots had been wash'd, well wash'd, by a shower; But little I car'd about that: What I felt was the havoc a single half-hour Had made with my beautiful Hat.
For the Boot, tho' its lustre be dimm'd, shall assume New comeliness after a while; But no art may restore its original bloom, When once it hath fled, to the Tile.
I clomb to my perch, and the horses (a bay And a brown) trotted off with a clatter; The driver look'd round in his humorous way, And said huskily, "Who is your hatter?"
I was pleased that he'd noticed its shape and its shine; And, as soon as we reached the "Old Druid," I begged him to drink to its welfare and mine In a glass of my favourite fluid.
A gratified smile sat, I own, on my lips When the barmaid exclaimed to the master, (He was standing inside with his hands on his hips), "Just look at that gentleman's castor."
I laughed, when an organman paus'd in mid-air-- ('Twas an air that I happened to know, By a great foreign _maestro_)--expressly to stare At ze gent wiz _ze joli chapeau_.
Yet how swift is the transit from laughter to tears! How rife with results is a day! That Hat might, with care, have adorned me for years; But one show'r wash'd its beauty away.