I scan the windows--half in hope I may some friendly face detect--
To meet their blank brown-papered stare, depressing as the cut direct!

I pass the house where She is not, to feel an unfamiliar chill;
That door is disenchanted now, that number powerless to thrill!
'Twas there, in yonder balcony, that last July she used to stand;
Upon some balcony, more blest, she's leaning now, in Switzerland,

Her eyes upon rose-tinted peaks--but no, of sense I 'm quite bereft!
The hour is full early yet, and _table d hôte_ she'll scarce have left.
Some happy neighbour's handing her the salad--But I'll move, I think;
I see a grim caretaker's eye regard me through the shutter's chink.

Yes, I'll away,--no longer be the sport of sentiment forlorn,
But scale the heights of Primrose Hill, pretending it's the Matterhorn;
Or hie me through the dusk to sit beside the shimmering Serpentine,
And, with a little make-believe, imagine I am up the Rhine.

Alas! the poor device, I know, my restlessness will ne'er assuage:
Still Fanny beats, with pinions clipped, the wires of its Cockney cage!
No inch of turf to prisoned larks can represent the boundless moor;
And neither Hyde nor Regent's Park suggests a Continental Tour!

* * * * *

VOCES POPULI.

IN AN OMNIBUS.

_The majority of the inside passengers, as usual, sit in solemn