HENRY DUFF TRAILL.

There, pay it, James! 'tis cheaply earned; My conscience! how one's cabman charges! But never mind, so I'm returned Safe to my native street of Clarges. I've just an hour for one cigar (What style these Reinas have, and what ash!) One hour to watch the evening star With just one Curaçao-and-potash. Ah me! that face beneath the leaves And blossoms of its piquant bonnet! Who would have thought that forty thieves Of years had laid their fingers on it! Could you have managed to enchant At Lord's to-day old lovers simple, Had Robber Time not played gallant, And spared you every youthful dimple! That Robber bold, like courtier Claude, Who danced the gay coranto jesting, By your bright beauty charmed and awed, Has bowed and passed you unmolesting. No feet of many-wintered crows Have traced about your eyes a wrinkle; Your sunny hair has thawed the snows That other heads with silver sprinkle. I wonder if that pair of gloves I won of you you'll ever pay me! I wonder if our early loves Were wise or foolish, cousin Amy? I wonder if our childish tiff Now seems to you, like me, a blunder! I wonder if you wonder if I ever wonder if you wonder. I wonder if you'd think it bliss Once more to be the fashion's leader! I wonder if the trick of this Escapes the unsuspecting reader! And as for him who does or can Delight in it, I wonder whether He knows that almost any man Could reel it off by yards together! I wonder if— What's that? a knock? Is that you, James? Eh? What? God bless me! How time has flown! It's eight o'clock, And here's my fellow come to dress me. Be quick, or I shall be the guest Whom Lady Mary never pardons; I trust you, James, to do your best To save the soup at Grosvenor Gardens.

Put case I circumvent and kill him: good. Good riddance—wipes at least from book o' th' world The ugly admiration-note-like blot— Gives honesty more elbow-room by just The three dimensions of one wicked knave. But then slips in the plaguy After-voice. 'Wicked? Holloa! my friend, whither away So fast? Who made you, Moses-like, a judge And ruler over men to spare or slay? A blot wiped off forsooth! Produce forthwith Credentials of your mission to erase The ink-spots of mankind—t' abolish ill For being what it is, is bound to be, Its nature being so—cut wizards off In flower of their necromantic lives For being wizards, when 'tis plain enough That they have no more wrought their wizardship Than cats their cathood.' Thus the plaguy Voice, Puzzling withal not overmuch, for thus I turn the enemy's flank: 'Meseems, my friend, Your argument's a thought too fine of mesh, And catches what you would not. Every mouse Trapped i' the larder by the kitchen wench Might reason so—but scarcely with effect. Methinks 'twould little serve the captured thief To plead, "The fault's Dame Nature's, guiltless I. Am I to blame that in the parcelling-out Of my ingredients the Great Chemist set Just so much here, there so much, and no more (Since 'tis but question, after all is said, Of mere proportion 'twixt the part that feels And that which guides), so much proclivity To nightly cupboard-breaking, so much lust Of bacon-scraps, such tendency to think Old Stilton-rind the noblest thing on earth? Then the per contra—so much power to choose The right and shun the wrong; so much of force Of uncorrupted will to stoutly bar The sensory inlets of the murine soul, And, when by night the floating rare-bit fume Lures like a siren's song, stop nostrils fast With more than Odusseian sailor-wax: Lastly so much of wholesome fear of trap To keep self-abnegation sweet. Then comes The hour of trial, when lo! the suadent scale Sinks instant, the deterrent kicks the beam, The heavier falls, the lighter mounts (as much A thing of law with motives as with plums), And I, forsooth, must die simply because Dame Nature, having chosen so to load The dishes, did not choose suspend for me The gravitation of the moral world." How would the kitchen-wench reply? Why thus (If given, as scullions use, to logic-fence And keen retorsion of dilemmata In speeches of a hundred lines or so): "Grant your plea valid. Good. There's mine to hear. 'Twas Nature made you? well: and me, no less; You she by forces past your own control Made a cheese-stealer? Be it so: of me By forces as resistless and her own She made a mouse-killer. Thus, either plays A rôle in no wise chosen of himself, But takes what part the great Stage Manager Cast him for, when, the play was set afoot. Remains we act ours—without private spite, But still with spirit and fidelity, As fits good actors: you I blame no whit For nibbling cheese—simply I throw you down Unblamed—nay, even morally assoiled, To pussy there: blame thou not me for that." Or say perhaps the girl is slow of wit, Something inapt at ethics—why, then thus. "Enough of prating, little thief! This talk Of 'fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,' Is hugely out of place! What next indeed, If all the casuistry of the schools Be prayed in aid by every pilfering mouse That's caught i' th' trap? See here, my thieving friend, Thus I resolve the problem. We prefer To keep our cheeses for our own behoof, And eat them with our proper jaws; and so, Having command of mouse-traps, we will catch Whatever mice we can, and promptly kill Whatever mice we catch. Entendez vous? Aye, and we will, though all the mice on earth Pass indignation votes, obtest the faith Of gods and men, and make the welkin ring With world-resounding dissonance of squeak!"' But hist! here comes my wizard! Ready then My nerves—and talons—for the trial of strength! A stout heart, feline cunning, and—who knows?

'Why do you wear your hair like a man, Sister Helen? This week is the third since you began.' 'I'm writing a ballad; be still if you can, Little brother. (O Mother Carey, mother! What chickens are these between sea and heaven?)' 'But why does your figure appear so lean, Sister Helen? And why do you dress in sage, sage green?' 'Children should never be heard, if seen, Little brother. (O Mother Carey, mother! What fowls are a-wing in the stormy heaven!)' 'But why is your face so yellowy white, Sister Helen? And why are your skirts so funnily tight?' 'Be quiet, you torment, or how can I write, Little brother? (O Mother Carey, mother! How gathers thy train to the sea from the heaven!)' 'And who's Mother Carey, and what is her train, Sister Helen? And why do you call her again and again?' 'You troublesome boy, why that's the refrain, Little brother. (O Mother Carey, mother! What work is toward in the startled heaven?)' 'And what's a refrain? What a curious word, Sister Helen! Is the ballad you're writing about a sea-bird?' 'Not at all; why should it be? Don't be absurd, Little brother. (O Mother Carey, mother! Thy brood flies lower as lowers the heaven.)' (A big brother speaketh:) 'The refrain you've studied a meaning had, Sister Helen! It gave strange force to a weird ballàd. But refrains have become a ridiculous "fad," Little brother. And Mother Carey, mother, Has a bearing on nothing in earth or heaven. 'But the finical fashion has had its day, Sister Helen. And let's try in the style of a different lay To bid it adieu in poetical way, Little brother. So, Mother Carey, mother! Collect your chickens and go to—heaven.' (A pause. Then the big brother singeth, accompanying himself in a plaintive wise on the triangle:) 'Look in my face. My name is Used-to-was, I am also called Played-out and Done-to-death, And It-will-wash-no-more. Awakeneth Slowly, but sure awakening it has, The common-sense of man; and I, alas! The ballad-burden trick, now known too well, Am turned to scorn, and grown contemptible— A too transparent artifice to pass. 'What a cheap dodge I am! The cats who dart Tin-kettled through the streets in wild surprise Assail judicious ears not otherwise; And yet no critics praise the urchin's "art," Who to the wretched creature's caudal part Its foolish empty-jingling "burden" ties.'