THE

PAINT-KING.

THE

PAINT-KING.

F

AIR Ellen was long the delight of the

young,

No damsel could with her compare ;

Her charms were the theme of the heart and the

tongue,

And bards without number in ecstacies sung,

The beauties of Ellen the fair.

Yet cold was the maid; and though legions advanc'd,

All drill'd by Ovidean art,

And languish'd, and ogled, protested and danc'd,

Like shadows they came, and like shadows they

glane'd

From the hard polish'd ice of her heart.

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Yet still did the heart of fair Ellen implore
A something that could not be found;
Like a sailor she seem'd on a desolate shore,

With nor house, nor a tree, nor a sound but the

roar

Of breakers high dashing around.

From object to object still, still would she veer,
Though nothing, alas, could she find ;

Like the moon, without atmosphere, brilliant and

clear,

Yet doom'd, like the moon, with no being to

cheer

The bright barren waste of her mind.

But rather than sit like a statue so still

When the rain made her mansion a pound,

Up and down would she go, like the sails of a mill,
And pat every stair, like a woodpecker's bill,

From the tiles of the roof to the ground.