To the Ladies of Warwick Gardens

1 
    To our first critics send we these 
          In memory of two years ago
          When, in the 'Children's Room' below,
    We laboured at our poesies.
2 
    And often after supper time,
          Miss Georgie laid her work aside
          (Kindest of critics) to decide
    The merits of some halting rhyme.
3 
    Then by the Syndicate of Three
          The red-hot verse was duly tried—
          This thing or that was set aside,
    Or shapéd to perfecte degree.
4 
    And far into the night we sate,—
          (With ink and thoughts that gaily flowed) 
          Dashed from the lyric to the ode
    Nor e'en an epic seemed too great.
5 
    The morn  brought  council—ever  wise, 
          And ever kind and freely given,
          As though the writers twain had striven
    In verse that should outlive the skies.
6 
    And you shall find, if you will look,
          How much your words have stayed with us,
          When verse was written thus and thus 
    Among the pages of 'Our Book'.
7 
    For even now, as then, we feel
          The rhyming brochure we submit
          Will reach, when you have studied it,
    Our Court of Ultimate Appeal.

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