ATALANTA IN CAMDEN-TOWN
AY, 'twas here,
on this spot,
In that summer of
yore,
Atalanta did not
Vote my presence a bore,
Nor reply to my tenderest talk "She had
heard all that nonsense before."
She'd the
brooch I had bought
And the
necklace and
sash on,
And her heart, as I thought,
Was alive to
my passion;
And she'd done up her hair in the style that
the
Empress had brought into fashion.
I had been to the play
With
my pearl of a Peri -
But, for all I could say,
She declared she was weary,
That "the place was so crowded and hot, and
she couldn't abide that
Dundreary."
Then I thought "
Lucky boy!
'Tis for
you that she whimpers!"
And I noted with joy
Those sensational simpers:
And I said "This is
scrumptious!" - a
phrase I had learned from the
Devonshire shrimpers.
And I vowed "'Twill be said
I'm a fortunate fellow,
When the breakfast is spread,
When the topers are
mellow,
When the foam of the
bride-cake is white,
and the fierce
orange-blossoms are yellow!"
O that
languishing yawn!
O those
eloquent eyes!
I was drunk with the dawn
Of a splendid surmise -
I was stung by a look, I was slain by a tear,
by a tempest of sighs.
Then I whispered "I see
The sweet secret thou keepest.
And the yearning for
ME
That thou
wistfully weepest!
And the question is '
License or Banns?',
though undoubtedly Banns are the cheapest."
"Be
my Hero," said I,
"And let
me be Leander!"
But I lost her reply -
Something ending with "
gander" -
For the
omnibus rattled so loud that no
mortal could quite understand her.
Lewis Carroll,1869