To the Ladies of Warwick Gardens

    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.

    And often after supper time,
          Miss Georgie laid her work aside
          (Kindest of critics) to decide
    The merits of some halting rhyme.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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'.

    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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