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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


THE LADY JANE; A HUMOROUS NOVEL IN VERSE: CONCLUSION TO THE READER by NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS

First Line: AND NOW DEAR READER! AS A BRICK MAY BE
Last Line: ALWAYS IN CASE HER LADYSHIP'S NOT DEAD.

And now, dear reader! as a brick may be
A sample of a house -- a bit of glass
Of a broad mirror -- it has seem'd to me
These fragments for a tale may shift to pass.
(I am a poet much @3cut up,@1 pardie!)
But "shorts" is poor "to running loose to grass."
Where there's a meadow to range freely over,
You pick to please you -- timothy or clover.

Without the slightest hint at transmigration,
I wish hereafter we may meet @3in calf!@1
That you may read me with some variation --
@3This@1 when you're moody -- @3that@1 when you would laugh.
In that case, I may swell this true narration,
And blow off here and there a speech of chaff.
I trust you think, that, were there more 'twere better, or
If @3cetera desunt,@1 decent were the cetera!

P.S. I really had forgotten quite
To say to you, from Countess Pasibleu --
(Dying, 'tis thought, but quite too ill to write) --
Her Ladyship's best compliments to you,
And she's @3toujours chez elle@1 on Friday night,
(Buckingham Crescent, May Fair, No. 2.)
This, (as her written missive would have said,)
Always in case her Ladyship's not dead.



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