Page:Anacreontics.djvu/53

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ANACREONTICS.

And C. B. couldn't make him drink, no more than Stone could Beecher.[1]
Brevoort has left his cloudy skies, Suydam his streams and shores,
And little Lang one dimly spies, as through the crowd he bores.
Says Gray to Hicks, "I'm fain to think there is a slight omission,
We ought to have, with such a drink, some glowing blondes of Titian."

There's Rossiter, whose brilliant hues in old time would allure all eyes,

  1. The story goes that Stone, being at the Athenæum one night, approached the punch bowl as his wont is, and distributed of the same to the passers-by. Now, of these passers chanced to be Henry Ward Beecher, and it was Beecher's boast that no one ever dared to offer him a glass of liquor. Therefore, on being thus accosted by Stone, he felt that he had lost his aquarian virginity, and rushed frantically from the premises, and mirabile dictu, was not seen or heard of in public for the next twelve hours.

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