Ere the morn the East has crimsoned,
When the stars are twinkling there,
(As they did in Watts's Hymns, and
Made him wonder what they were:)
When the forest-nymphs are beading
Fern and flower with silvery dew —
My infallible proceeding
Is to wake, and think of you.

When the hunter's ringing bugle
Sounds farewell to field and copse,
And I sit before my frugal
Meal of gravy-soup and chops:
When (as Gray remarks) " the moping
Owl doth to the moon complain, "
And the hour suggests eloping —
Fly my thoughts to you again.

May my dreams be granted never?
Must I aye endure affliction
Rarely realized, if ever,
In our wildest works of fiction?
Madly Romeo loved his Juliet;
Copperfield began to pine
When he hadn't been to school yet —
But their loves were cold to mine.

Give me hope, the least, the dimmest,
Ere I drain the poisoned cup:
Tell me I may tell the chymist
Not to make that arsenic up!
Else the heart must cease to throb in
This my breast; and when, in tones
Hushed, men ask, " Who killed Cock Robin? "
They'll be told, " Miss Clara J — — s. "