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| “I AM Miss Catherine’s book” (the Album speaks); | |
| “I ’ve lain among your tomes these many weeks; | |
| I ’m tir’d of your old coats and yellow cheeks. | |
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| “Quick, Pen! and write a line with a good grace; | |
| Come! draw me off a funny little face; | 5 |
| And, prithee, send me back to Chesham Place.” | |
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PEN
I am my master’s faithful old Gold Pen; | |
| I ’ve serv’d him three long years, and drawn since then | |
| Thousands of funny women and droll men. | |
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| O Album! could I tell you all his ways | 10 |
| And thoughts, since I am his, these thousand days, | |
| Lord, how your pretty pages I ’d amaze! | |
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ALBUM
His ways? his thoughts? Just whisper me a few; | |
| Tell me a curious anecdote or two, | |
| And write ’em quickly off, good Mordan, do! | 15 |
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PEN
Since he my faithful service did engage | |
| To follow him through his queer pilgrimage, | |
| I ’ve drawn and written many a line and page. | |
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| Caricatures I scribbled have, and rhymes, | |
| And dinner cards, and picture pantomimes, | 20 |
| And merry little children’s books at times. | |
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| I ’ve writ the foolish fancy of his brain; | |
| The aimless jest that, striking, hath caus’d pain; | |
| The idle word that he’d wish back again. | |
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| I ’ve help’d him to pen many a line for bread; | 25 |
| To joke, with sorrow aching in his head; | |
| And make your laughter when his own heart bled. | |
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| I ’ve spoke with men of all degree and sort— | |
| Peers of the land, and ladies of the Court; | |
| O, but I ’ve chonicled a deal of sport. | 30 |
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| Feasts that were ate a thousand days ago, | |
| Biddings to wine that long hath ceas’d to flow, | |
| Gay meetings with good fellows long laid low; | |
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| Summons to bridal, banquet, burial, ball, | |
| Tradesman’s polite reminders of his small | 35 |
| Account due Christmas last—I ’ve answer’d all. | |
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| Poor Diddler’s tenth petition for a half | |
| Guinea; Miss Bunyan’s for an autograph; | |
| So I refuse, accept, lament, or laugh, | |
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| Condole, congratulate, invite, praise, scoff, | 40 |
| Day after day still dipping in my trough, | |
| And scribbling pages after pages off. | |
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| Day after day the labor’s to be done, | |
| And sure as comes the postman and the sun, | |
| The indefatigable ink must run. | 45 |
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| Go back, my pretty little gilded tome, | |
| To a fair mistress and a pleasant home, | |
| Where soft hearts greet us whensoe’er we come. | |
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| Dear, friendly eyes, with constant kindness lit, | |
| However rude my verse, or poor my wit, | 50 |
| Or sad or gay my mood, you welcome it. | |
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| Kind lady! till my last of lines is penn’d, | |
| My master’s love, grief, laughter, at an end, | |
| Whene’er I write your name, may I write friend! | |
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| Not all are so that were so in past years; | 55 |
| Voices, familiar once, no more he hears; | |
| Names, often writ, are blotted out in tears. | |
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| So be it:—joys will end and tears will dry— | |
| Album! my master bids me wish good-by; | |
| He ’ll send you to your mistress presently. | 60 |
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| And thus with thankful heart he closes you; | |
| Blessing the happy hour when a friend he knew | |
| So gentle, and so generous, and so true. | |
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| Nor pass the words as idle phrases by; | |
| Stranger! I never writ a flattery, | 65 |
| Nor sign’d the page that register’d a lie. | |
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