Book Description:
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. SUMMER, 1875. Oh, for a picnic, here's a place, When the hot noon of summer kindles ! Down by express to Taplow race ; Befresh yourself where once was Skindle's ; Or row from Maidenhead, if you will, Along the river's loveliest reaches ; Then take the road, and drink your fill Of coolness 'neath the giant Beeches. Quoth Pet to me she's mistress now, I mean to be her lord and master ' Just corrugate your manly brow, And prove yourself a poetaster.' Luttrel was told to do the same ; A lesson his example teaches ; To an untimely end he came, Wanting another rhyme for ' beeches.' ' Pet,' I replied, ' some lobster first This fellow's the true Norway crimson ; A goblet then to quench your thirst See the bright wine the bubble swims on. Now, would you like a slice of pine, Or one of those voluptuous peaches Touch'd with a colour half divine, Like sunset seen through Burnham Beeches ?' Ah, what a wicked witch is Pet! Although so carefully I fed her, And then, as far as we could get From her mamma, I briskly led her ; Although we criticise the trees, And wonder what the tale of each is, Yet she returns to ' Charlie, please, Do write some verse on Burnham Beeches. ' Do quiz dear Amy, getting spoons Upon that gawky little cornet; And Mary, with big eyes like moons, Fainting because she saw a hornet; And grim old Sophonisba Snooks, Who tries to flirt, but only preaches Sermons on woman's rights, and looks A fungus upon Burnham Beeches.' ' Pet,' I replied, ' your rosy lips Were never meant for words satiric, From graceful head to finger tips Your every look's a living lyric : I'll punish you for naughtiness.' ' O don't, dear Charlie !' she beseeches ; Her penalty you'll have to guess :...
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