A Vers de Société Anthology

Mr. Adams tells us that “_Vers de Société_ should be applied to the poetry of fashionable life alone; should be limited to the doings and sayings of the world of fashion, and sh...

And that he could die Whenever he would; But that he could live But as long as he could; How grievous soever The torment might grow, He scorned to endeavour To finish it so. But...

_LET all men living on earth take heed, For their own soul’s sake, to a rhyme well meant; Writ so that he who runs may read— We are the folk that a-summering went, Who while the...

Time passed. My eldest girl was married And I now am a grandsire grey; One pet of four years old I’ve carried Among the wild-flower’d meads to play. In our old fields of childis...

WHEN first I saw fair-featured Grace, In dainty tailor-fashioned gown, I fell in love with her sweet face, And pooh-poohed at her escort, Brown. The fellow’s rich, but such a cl...

EXQUISITE wines and comestibles, From Slater, and Fortnum and Mason; Billiard, écarté, and chess tables; Water in vast marble basin; Luminous books (not voluminous) To read unde...

True love is at home on a carpet, And mightily likes his ease, And true love has an eye for a dinner, And starves beneath shady trees. His wing is the fan of a lady, His foot’s...

A dozen engagements I’ve broken; I left in the midst of a set; Likewise a proposal, half spoken, That waits—on the stairs—for me yet. They say he’ll be rich—when he grows up— An...

As in Paradise I listened. Ah, I did not understand That a little cloud, no larger than the average human hand, Might, as stated oft in fiction, spread into a sable pall, When s...

I wonder if—What’s that? A knock? Is that you, James? Eh? What? God bless me! How time has flown! It’s eight o’clock, And here’s my fellow come to dress me. Be quick, or I shall...

A BAGATELLE! Ah, Mistress Prue, So gaily laughing all life through, You call it that, the flower you fling Lightly aside, the song you sing, The fan, the glove no longer new.

I know, Justine, you speak me fair As often as we meet; And ’tis a luxury, I swear, To hear a voice so sweet; And yet it does not please me quite, The civil way you’ve got; For...

Thou comfortest as music does, and wine, And grief dies smothered in thy purple fold. Let one greater than I, Kiss, and more bold, Rear thee a classic, monumental line.

To Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Company for poems by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, John Greenleaf Whittier, Bret Harte, John G. Saxe, Nora...

I should have guessed you drinking tea With someone whom you loved to madness; I should have thought you cold to me, And revelled in a depth of sadness. But, no! you came withou...

DOBSON, AUSTIN Avice 177 A Song of the Four Seasons 179 In Town 181 When I Saw You Last, Rose 183 To “Lydia Languish” 184 The Old Sedan Chair 186 “Le Roman de la Rose” 188