Poem by Frederick Locker-Lampson

My Life Is A—

At Worthing an exile from Geraldine G—,
How aimless, how wretched an exile is he!
Promenades are not even prunella and leather
To lovers, if lovers can’t foot them together.

He flies the parade, sad by ocean he stands,
He traces a “Geraldine G” on the sands.
But a G, tho’ her lov’d patronymic is Green,
“I will not betray thee, my own Geraldine.”

The fortunes of men have a time and a tide,
And Fate, the old fury, will not be denied;
That name was, of course, soon wip’d out by the sea,—
And she jilted the exile, did Geraldine G—.

They meet, but they never have spoken since that,—
He hopes she is happy—he knows she is fat;
She woo’d on the shore, now is wed in the Strand,
And I—it was I wrote her name on the sand!

1. The Old Clerk
2. Phœbe, the Nymph of the Well
3. A Word That Makes Us Linger
4. Vanity Fair
5. The Widow’s Mite

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