Titania.

By Lord T-n.      So bluff Sir Leolin gave the bride away:      And when they married her, the little church      Had seldom seen a costlier ritual.      The coach and pair alone were two-pound-ten,      And two-pound-ten apiece the wedding-cakes;--      Three wedding-cakes.    A Cupid poised a-top      Of each hung shivering to the frosted loves      Of two fond cushats on a field of ice,      As who should say 'I see you!'--Such the joy      When English-hearted Edwin swore his faith      With Mariana of the Moated Grange.      For Edwin, plump head-waiter at The Cock,      Grown sick of custom, spoilt of plenitude,      Lacking the finer wit that saith,     'I wait, They come; and if I make them wait, they go,'      Fell in a jaundiced humour petulant-green,      Watched the dull clerk slow-rounding to his cheese,      Flicked a full dozen flies that flecked the pane--      All crystal-cheated of the fuller air,      Blurted a free 'Good-day t'ye,' left and right,      And shaped his gathering choler to this head:--     'Custom!    And yet what profit of it all?      The old order changeth yielding place to new,      To me small change, and this the Counter-change      Of custom beating on the self-same bar--      Change out of chop.    Ah me! the talk, the tip,      The would-be-evening should-be-mourning suit,      The forged solicitude for petty wants      More petty still than they,--all these I loathe,      Learning they lie who feign that all things come      To him that waiteth.    I have waited long,      And now I go, to mate me with a bride      Who is aweary waiting, even as I!'      But when the amorous moon of honeycomb      Was over, ere the matron-flower of Love--      Step-sister of To-morrow's marmalade--      Swooned scentless, Mariana found her lord      Did something jar the nicer feminine sense      With usage, being all too fine and large,      Instinct of warmth and colour, with a trick      Of blunting 'Mariana's' keener edge      To 'Mary Ann'--the same but not the same:      Whereat she girded, tore her crisped hair,      Called him 'Sir Churl,' and ever calling 'Churl!'      Drave him to Science, then to Alcohol,      To forge a thousand theories of the rocks,      Then somewhat else for thousands dewy cool,      Wherewith he sought a more Pacific isle      And there found love, a duskier love than hers.