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A VERS DE SOCIÉTÉ ANTHOLOGY




    “_I’M a florist in verse, and what would people say
        If I came to a banquet without my bouquet?_”
                                       OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.




A Vers de Société Anthology

    Collected by
    Carolyn Wells

    New York
    Charles Scribner’s Sons
    1907




    COPYRIGHT 1907 BY
    CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

    Published November, 1907

[Illustration]




NOTE


ACKNOWLEDGMENT is hereby gratefully made to the publishers for
permission to use poems by the following authors:

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, Norah Perry, Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow, James T. Field, Edith Thomas, Edmund Clarence Stedman and
Charles Henry Webb.

To Messrs. Dodd, Mead and Company for poems by Austin Dobson.

To the Macmillan Company for poems by Lewis Carroll.

To Messrs. D. Appleton and Company for “Song,” by William Cullen Bryant.

To The Century Company for poems by Robert Underwood Johnson and Mary
Mapes Dodge.

To Messrs. Little, Brown and Company for “A Valentine,” by Mrs. Laura
E. Richards, and “Shadows” and “Les Papillottes,” by Gertrude Hall.

To Messrs. G. P. Putnam’s Sons for “The Debutante,” by Guy Wetmore
Carryl.

To The Frederick A. Stokes Company for poems by Frank Dempster Sherman
and Samuel Minturn Peck.

To The Lothrop, Lee and Shepard Company for poems by Sam Walter Foss.

To Messrs. E. H. Bacon and Company for poems by James Jeffrey Roche.




CONTENTS


                                                                    PAGE
  Introduction                                                       xix
  To Celia                              _Ben Jonson_                   3
  Cupid                                 _Ben Jonson_                   4
  Rosalind’s Madrigal                   _Thomas Lodge_                 5
  All Things Except Myself I Know       _François Villon_              6
  Cupid and Campaspe                    _John Lilly_                   8
  A Ditty                               _Sir Philip Sydney_            8
  Song from “Twelfth Night”             _William Shakespeare_          9
  Sigh No More (from “Much Ado About
      Nothing”)                         _William Shakespeare_          9
  Phillida and Corydon                  _Nicholas Breton_             10
  Cherry-Ripe                           _Richard Allison_             11
  Send Back My Long-Stray’d Eyes to Me  _John Donne_                  12
  Pack Clouds Away                      _Thomas Heywood_              13
  Shall I, Wasting in Despair           _George Wither_               14
  To the Virgins to Make Much of Time   _Robert Herrick_              15
  The Bracelet                          _Robert Herrick_              16
  An Old Rhyme                          _Anonymous_                   17
  Love Me Not for Comely Grace          _Anonymous_                   17
  On a Girdle                           _Edmund Waller_               18
  To My Love                            _Sir John Suckling_           18
  To Althea (From Prison)               _Richard Lovelace_            19
  Song                                  _Sir Charles Sedley_          21
  The Despairing Lover                  _William Walsh_               22
  Cupid Mistaken                        _Matthew Prior_               23
  The Contrast                          _Charles Morris_              24
  Oh, Tell Me How to Woo Thee           _Robert Graham_               27
  Song from “The Duenna”                _Richard Brinsley Sheridan_   28
  The Races                             _George Ellis_                29
  To Lady Anne Hamilton                 _Hon. William R. Spencer_     32
  To Mrs. Leigh Upon Her Wedding Day    _George Canning_              33
  Names                                 _Samuel T. Coleridge_         34
  The Exchange                          _Samuel T. Coleridge_         34
  Defiance                              _Walter Savage Landor_        35
  Her Lips                              _Walter Savage Landor_        35
  Commination                           _Walter Savage Landor_        36
  Margaret and Dora                     _Thomas Campbell_             36
  A Certain Young Lady                  _Washington Irving_           37
  Song                                  _John Shaw_                   38
  The Time I’ve Lost in Wooing          _Thomas Moore_                39
  When I Loved You                      _Thomas Moore_                40
  Reason, Folly and Beauty              _Thomas Moore_                41
  Tiresome Spring!                      _Béranger_                    42
  Rosette                               _Béranger_                    43
  She Is So Pretty                      _Béranger_                    44
  Rondeau                               _Leigh Hunt_                  45
  Stolen Fruit                          _Leigh Hunt_                  45
  Love and Age                          _Thomas L. Peacock_           46
  Clubs                                 _Theodore Hook_               48
  To Anne                               _William Maxwell_             51
  Song                                  _William Cullen Bryant_       51
  What Is London’s Last New Lion?       _Thomas Haynes Bayly_         53
  I’d Be a Butterfly                    _Thomas Haynes Bayly_         54
  I Must Come Out Next Spring           _Thomas Haynes Bayly_         55
  Why Don’t the Men Propose?            _Thomas Haynes Bayly_         57
  Ask and Have                          _Samuel Lover_                59
  Lines in a Young Lady’s Album         _Thomas Hood_                 60
  The Time of Roses                     _Thomas Hood_                 62
  Love                                  _Thomas Hood_                 63
  To Helen                              _Winthrop Mackworth Praed_    64
  The Belle of the Ball-Room            _Winthrop Mackworth Praed_    64
  Amy’s Cruelty                         _Elizabeth Barrett Browning_  68
  Beware!                               _Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_  70
  Love in a Cottage                     _Nathaniel Parker Willis_     71
  Because                               _Edward Fitzgerald_           73
  Lilian                                _Alfred Tennyson_             75
  The Henchman                          _John Greenleaf Whittier_     76
  Dorothy Q. A Family Portrait          _Oliver Wendell Holmes_       78
  A Reminiscence                        _James Freeman Clarke_        81
  The Age of Wisdom                     _William Makepeace Thackeray_ 82
  The Ballad of Bouillabaisse           _William Makepeace Thackeray_ 83
  An Invitation                         _Théophile Gautier_           86
  Fanny; or, The Beauty and the Bee     _Charles Mackay_              88
  Garden Fancies    The Flower’s Name   _Robert Browning_             89
  A Poem of Every Day Life              _Albert Riddle_               91
  Love Disposed Of                      _Robert Traill Spence Lowell_ 93
  Mabel, in New Hampshire               _James Thomas Fields_         94
  The Coquette      A Portrait          _John Godfrey Saxe_           96
  Justine, You Love Me Not!             _John Godfrey Saxe_           98
  Sing Heigh-Ho!                        _Charles Kingsley_            99
  Snowdrop                              _William Wetmore Story_      100
  The Protest.                          _James Russell Lowell_       101
  Scherzo                               _James Russell Lowell_       101
  The Handsomest Man in the Room        _William Macquorn Rankine_   102
  The Lawyer’s Invocation to Spring     _Henry Howard Brownell_      104
  A Terrible Infant                     _Frederick Locker-Lampson_   105
  Loulou and Her Cat                    _Frederick Locker-Lampson_   106
  Piccadilly                            _Frederick Locker-Lampson_   107
  A Word that Makes Us Linger           _Frederick Locker-Lampson_   109
  My Mistress’s Boots                   _Frederick Locker-Lampson_   110
  A Nice Correspondent!                 _Frederick Locker-Lampson_   112
  There’s a Time to Be Jolly            _Charles Godfrey Leland_     114
  I Remember, I Remember                _Phoebe Cary_                115
  The Flower of Love Lies Bleeding      _Richard Henry Stoddard_     116
  The Gold Room. An Idyl                _Bayard Taylor_              118
  Comfort                               _Mortimer Collins_           119
  A Summer Song                         _Mortimer Collins_           120
  My Aunt’s Spectre                     _Mortimer Collins_           121
  A Conceit                             _Mortimer Collins_           122
  Martial in London                     _Mortimer Collins_           123
  The Best of the Ball                  _William Sawyer_             123
  The Ballad of Dead Ladies
      (Translation from François
      Villon, 1450)                     _Dante Gabriel Rossetti_     125
  Feminine Arithmetic                   _Charles Graham Halpine_     127
  A Trifle                              _Henry Timrod_               128
  Flight                                _Charles S. Calverley_       129
  Love                                  _Charles S. Calverley_       132
  Since We Parted                       _Owen Meredith_              134
  A Kiss—By Mistake                     _Joel Benton_                134
  A Game of Fives                       _Lewis Carroll_              135
  A Valentine                           _Lewis Carroll_              137
  The Wedding Day                       _Edmund Clarence Stedman_    139
  Edged Tools                           _Edmund Clarence