Mr. Chutney's Confession

Dame Nature, that to flowers Gives sunshine, dew, and showers, To me hath given much billing and much cooing. And now my head grows gray, I can but sigh and say That wooing almost always ends in ruing.

Shrive me, good Reader!—oft I've loved. My heart's too soft. "I love not man the less, but woman more." In each new form and face I see some special grace: I've loved too many girls——Confiteor!

Confiteor!—One sees Those little humbugs, bees, Flit fast from flower to flower, their honey hiving; It has been mine to seek Rose lip and lily cheek. Confound it, yes! I need no end of shriving!

Why, I was scarce fourteen, And only once had seen Sweet Caroline, the pride of Bangalore, When straight to her I wrote On pink, a gushing note, In which my love, by all the stars, I swore!

But very strange to say, Upon that self-same day, I met three sisters, Alice, Clare, and Nelly: Nelly had golden hair, Alice sang well, and Clare Was a great hand at making guava jelly!

Bound by this triple chain, I knew not, in my pain, To which of these fair three to bend my knees: When at a ball one night Burst on my raptured sight Star-like, the charms of my serene Louise.

For, ah! I must confess A boundless amorousness Ingrain'd and rooted in my nature is; A girl I cannot see But straight there wakes in me Unutterable longing for a kiss!

When last, Madras, in thee I saw sweet Rosalie, With eyes so blue, so bright, and O! so merry,— I loved her,—till I met The coy and pale Annette, A sweet French rose that blooms in Pondicherry.

To Trichy next I came, And there another flame Blazed for a little, then was quench'd in tears For soon I learnt, enraged, That Agnes was engaged To Major Spooney of the Fusiliers.

But why should I dilate Further upon my fate Of loving many maids but wedding none? How Maud my heart perplext, Then Annie, Constance next,— The last a widow, aged twenty-one?

Enough for me to say That now, though I grow gray, My heart's as warm and tender as of yore. Yet, though my love burns bright It sheds a softer light, A milder radiance, mellowing evermore!

For now, not one, nor two, But every maid I view I love, with love that widens with my years. And when I pass away, Reader, weep not, but say, Chutney is with the cherubs—pretty dears!