“L’Hymen, dit-on, craint les petits Cousins.”—SCRIBE.
Had you ever a Cousin, Tom?
Did your Cousin happen to sing?
Sisters we’ve all by the dozen, Tom,
But a Cousin’s a different thing:
And you’d find, if you ever had kissed her, Tom,
(But let this be a secret between us,)
That your lips would have been a blister, Tom,
For they’re not of the Sister genus.
There is something, Tom, in a Sister’s lip,
When you give her a good-night kiss,
That savours so much of relationship
That nothing occurs amiss;
But a Cousin’s lip if you once unite
With yours, in the quietest way,
Instead of sleeping a week that night,
You’ll be dreaming the following day.
And people think it no harm, Tom,
With a Cousin to hear you talk;
And no one feels any alarm, Tom,
At a quiet, cousinly walk;—
But, Tom, you’ll soon find what I happen to know,
That such walks often grow into straying,
And the voices of Cousins are sometimes so low,
Heaven only knows what you’ll be saying!
And then there happen so often, Tom,
Soft pressures of hands and fingers,
And looks that were moulded to soften, Tom,
And tones on which memory lingers;
That long ere the walk is half over, those strings
Of your heart are all put in play,
By the voice of those fair, demi-sisterly things,
In not quite the most brotherly way.
And the song of a Sister may bring to you, Tom,
Such tones as the angels woo,
But I fear if your Cousin should sing to you, Tom,
You’ll take her for an angel, too;
For so curious a note is that note of theirs,
That you’ll fancy the voice that gave it
Has been all the while singing the National Airs,
Instead of the Psalms of David.
I once had a Cousin who sung, Tom,
And her name may be nameless now,
But the sound of those songs is still young, Tom,
Though we are no longer so:
’Tis folly to dream of a bower of green
When there is not a leaf on the tree;—
But ’twixt walking and singing, that Cousin has been,
God forgive her! the ruin of me.
And now I care nought for society, Tom,
And lead a most anchorite life,
For I’ve loved myself into sobriety, Tom,
And out of the wish for a wife;
But oh! if I said but half what I might say,
So sad were the lesson ’twould give,
That ’twould keep you from loving for many a day,
And from Cousins—as long as you live.