HUMOROUS POEMS. (continued 3)

A RECIPE. ROASTED SUCKING-PIG. Air.—"Scots wha hae." Cooks who'd roast a sucking-pig, Purchase one not over big; Coarse ones are not worth a fig; So a young one buy. See that he is scalded well (That is done by those who sell, Therefore on that point to dwell Were absurdity). Sage and bread, mix just enough, Salt and pepper quantum suff., And the pig's interior stuff, With the whole combined. To a fire that 's rather high, Lay it till completely dry; Then to every part apply Cloth, with butter lined. Dredge with flour o'er and o'er, Till the pig will hold no more; Then do nothing else before 'T is for serving fit. Then scrape off the flour with care; Then a buttered cloth prepare; Rub it well; then cut—not tear— Off the head of it. Then take out and mix the brains With the gravy it contains; While it on the spit remains, Cut the pig in two. Chop the sage and chop the bread Fine as very finest shred; O'er it melted butter spread,— Stinginess won't do. When it in the dish appears, Garnish with the jaws and ears; And when dinner-hour nears, Ready let it be. Who can offer such a dish May dispense with fowl and fish; And if he a guest should wish, Let him send for me! PUNCH'S Poetical Cookery Book.

A RECIPE FOR SALAD. To make this condiment your poet begs The pounded yellow of two hard boiled eggs; Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve, Smoothness and softness to the salad give; Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl, And, half suspected, animate the whole; Of mordant mustard add a single spoon, Distrust the condiment that bites so soon; But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault To add a double quantity of salt; Four times the spoon with oil from Lucca crown, And twice with vinegar, procured from town; And lastly, o'er the flavored compound toss A magic soupçon of anchovy sauce. O green and glorious! O herbaceous treat! 'T would tempt the dying anchorite to eat; Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul, And plunge his fingers in the salad-bowl; Serenely full, the epicure would say, "Fate cannot harm me,—I have dined to-day." SYDNEY SMITH.

ODE TO TOBACCO. Thou who, when fears attack, Bid'st them avaunt, and Black Care, at the horseman's back Perching, unseatest; Sweet when the morn is gray; Sweet, when they 've cleared away Lunch; and at close of day Possibly sweetest: I have a liking old For thee, though manifold Stories, I know, are told, Not to thy credit; How one (or two at most) Drops make a cat a ghost— Useless, except to roast— Doctors have said it: How they who use fusees All grow by slow degrees Brainless as chimpanzees, Meagre as lizards; Go mad, and beat their wives; Plunge (after shocking lives) Razors and carving-knives Into their gizzards. Confound such knavish tricks! Yet know I five or six Smokers who freely mix Still with their neighbors; Jones—(who, I 'm glad to say, Asked leave of Mrs. J.)— Daily absorbs a clay After his labors. Cats may have had their goose Cooked by tobacco-juice; Still why deny its use Thoughtfully taken? We're not as tabbies are: Smith, take a fresh cigar! Jones, the tobacco-jar! Here's to thee, Bacon! CHARLES S. CALVERLEY.

A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO. May the Babylonish curse Straight confound my stammering verse, If I can a passage see In this word-perplexity, Or a fit expression find, Or a language to my mind (Still the phrase is wide or scant), To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT! Or in any terms relate Half my love, or half my hate; For I hate, yet love, thee so, That, whichever thing I show, The plain truth will seem to be A constrained hyperbole, And the passion to proceed More from a mistress than a weed. Sooty retainer to the vine! Bacchus' black servant, negro fine! Sorcerer! that mak'st us dote upon Thy begrimed complexion, And, for thy pernicious sake, More and greater oaths to break Than reclaimèd lovers take 'Gainst women! Thou thy siege dost lay Much, too, in the female way, While thou suck'st the laboring breath Faster than kisses, or than death. Thou in such a cloud dost bind us That our worst foes cannot find us, And ill fortune, that would thwart us, Shoots at rovers, shooting at us; While each man, through thy heightening steam, Does like a smoking Etna seem; And all about us does express (Fancy and wit in richest dress) A Sicilian fruitfulness. Thou through such a mist dost show us That our best friends do not know us, And, for those allowèd features Due to reasonable creatures, Liken'st us to fell chimeras, Monsters,—that who see us, fear us; Worse than Cerberus or Geryon, Or, who first loved a cloud, Ixion. Bacchus we know, and we allow His tipsy rites. But what art thou, That but by reflex canst show What his deity can do,— As the false Egyptian spell Aped the true Hebrew miracle? Some few vapors thou mayst raise The weak brain may serve to amaze; But to the reins and nobler heart Canst nor life nor heat impart. Brother of Bacchus, later born! The old world was sure forlorn, Wanting thee, that aidest more The god's victories than, before, All his panthers, and the brawls Of his piping Bacchanals. These, as stale, we disallow, Or judge of thee meant: only thou His true Indian conquest art; And, for ivy round his dart, The reformèd god now weaves A finer thyrsus of thy leaves. Scent to match thy rich perfume Chemic art did ne'er presume, Through her quaint alembic strain, None so sovereign to the brain. Nature, that did in thee excel, Framed again no second smell. Roses, violets, but toys For the smaller sort of boys, Or for greener damsels meant; Thou art the only manly scent. Stinkingest of the stinking kind! Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind! Africa, that brags her foison, Breeds no such prodigious poison! Henbane, nightshade, both together, Hemlock, aconite— Nay rather, Plant divine, of rarest virtue; Blisters on the tongue would hurt you! 'T was but in a sort I blamed thee; None e'er prospered who defamed thee; Irony all, and feigned abuse, Such as perplexèd lovers use At a need, when, in despair To paint forth their fairest fair, Or in part but to express That exceeding comeliness Which their fancies doth so strike, They borrow language of dislike; And, instead of dearest Miss, Jewel, honey, sweetheart, bliss, And those forms of old admiring, Call her cockatrice and siren, Basilisk, and all that 's evil, Witch, hyena, mermaid, devil, Ethiop, wench, and blackamoor, Monkey, ape, and twenty more; Friendly trait'ress, loving foe,— Not that she is truly so, But no other way they know, A contentment to express Borders so upon excess That they do not rightly wot Whether it be from pain or not. Or, as men, constrained to part With what 's nearest to their heart, While their sorrow 's at the height Lose discrimination quite, And their hasty wrath let fall, To appease their frantic gall, On the darling thing, whatever, Whence they feel it death to sever, Though it be, as they, perforce, Guiltless of the sad divorce. For I must (nor let it grieve thee, Friendliest of plants, that I must) leave thee. Would do anything but die, And but seek to extend my days Long enough to sing thy praise. But, as she who once hath been A king's consort is a queen Ever after, nor will bate Any tittle of her state Though a widow, or divorced, So I, from thy converse forced, The old name and style retain, A right Katherine of Spain; And a seat, too, 'mongst the joys Of the blest Tobacco Boys; Where, though I, by sour physician, Am debarred the full fruition Of thy favors, I may catch Some collateral sweets, and snatch Sidelong odors, that give life Like glances from a neighbor's wife; And still live in the by-places And the suburbs of thy graces; And in thy borders take delight, An unconquered Canaanite. CHARLES LAMB.

TOO GREAT A SACRIFICE. The maid, as by the papers doth appear, Whom fifty thousand dollars made so dear, To test Lothario's passion, simply said: "Forego the weed before we go to wed. For smoke take flame; I 'll be that flame's bright fanner: To have your Anna, give up your Havana." But he, when thus she brought him to the scratch, Lit his cigar and threw away his match. ANONYMOUS.

FROM "LOVE SONNETS OF A HOODLUM." PROLOGUE. Wouldn't it jar you, wouldn't it make you sore To see the poet, when the goods play out, Crawl off of poor old Pegasus and tout His skate to two-step sonnets off galore? Then, when the plug, a dead one, can no more Shake rag-time than a biscuit, right about The poem-butcher turns with gleeful shout And sends a batch of sonnets to the store. The sonnet is a very easy mark, A James P. Dandy as a carry-all For brain-fag wrecks who want to keep it dark Just why their crop of thinks is running small. On the low down, dear Mame, my looty loo, That's why I've cooked this batch of rhymes for you. EPILOGUE. To just one girl I've turned my sad bazoo, Stringing my pipe-dream off as it occurred, And as I've tipped the straight talk every word, If you don't like it you know what to do. Perhaps you think I've handed out to you An idle jest, a touch-me-not, absurd As any sky-blue-pink canary bird, Billed for a record season at the Zoo. If that's your guess you'll have to guess again, For thus I fizzled in a burst of glory, And this rhythmatic side-show doth contain The sum and substance of my hard-luck story, Showing how Vanity is still on deck And Humble Virtue gets it in the neck. WALLACE IRWIN.

A SADDENED TRAMP. "Now unto yonder wood-pile go, Where toil till I return; And feel how proud a thing it is A livelihood to earn." A saddened look came o'er the tramp; He seemed like one bereft. He stowed away the victuals cold, He—saw the wood, and left. ANONYMOUS.

III. PARODIES: IMITATIONS. ——————

THE MODERN HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT. Behold the mansion reared by dædal Jack. See the malt, stored in many a plethoric sack, In the proud cirque of Ivan's bivouac. Mark how the rat's felonious fangs invade The golden stores in John's pavilion laid. Anon, with velvet foot and Tarquin strides, Subtle grimalkin to his quarry glides,— Grimalkin grim, that slew the fierce rodent Whose tooth insidious Johann's sackcloth rent. Lo! now the deep-mouthed canine foe's assault, That vexed the avenger of the stolen malt; Stored in the hallowed precincts of the hall That rose complete at Jack's creative call. Here stalks the impetuous cow, with the crumpled horn, Whereon the exacerbating hound was torn, Who bayed the feline slaughter-beast, that slew The rat predaceous, whose keen fangs ran through The textile fibres that involved the grain That lay in Hans' inviolate domain. Here walks forlorn the damsel crowned with rue, Lactiferous spoils from vaccine dugs who drew, Of that corniculate beast whose tortuous horn Tossed to the clouds, in fierce vindictive scorn, The harrowing hound, whose braggart bark and stir Arched the lithe spine and reared the indignant fur Of puss, that with verminicidal claw Struck the weird rat, in whose insatiate maw Lay reeking malt, that erst in Ivan's courts we saw. Robed in senescent garb, that seemed, in sooth, Too long a prey to Chronos' iron tooth, Behold the man whose amorous lips incline, Full with young Eros' osculative sign, To the lorn maiden, whose lac-albic hands Drew albu-lactic wealth from lacteal glands Of the immortal bovine, by whose horn, Distort, to realm ethereal was borne The beast catulean, vexer of that sly Ulysses quadrupedal who made die The old mordacious rat, that dared devour Antecedaneous ale in John's domestic bower. Lo! here, with hirsute honors doffed, succinct Of saponaceous locks, the priest who linked In Hymen's golden bands the torn unthrift, Whose means exiguous stared from many a rift, Even as he kissed the virgin all forlorn, Who milked the cow with the implicated horn, Who in fine wrath the canine torturer skied, That dared to vex the insidious muricide, Who let auroral effluence through the pelt Of the sly rat that robbed the palace Jack had built. The loud cantankerous Shanghai comes at last, Whose shouts aroused the shorn ecclesiast, Who sealed the vows of Hymen's sacrament To him who, robed in garments indigent, Exosculates the damsel lachrymose, The emulgator of that hornèd brute morose That tossed the dog that worried the cat that kilt The rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built. ANONYMOUS.

THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE KNIFE-GRINDER. [8] FRIEND OF HUMANITY. Needy knife-grinder! whither are you going? Rough is the road; your wheel is out of order. Bleak blows the blast;—your hat has got a hole in't; So have your breeches! Weary knife-grinder! little think the proud ones, Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike- Road, what hard work 't is crying all day, "Knives and Scissors to grind O!" Tell me, knife-grinder, how came you to grind knives? Did some rich man tyrannically use you? Was it the squire? or parson of the parish? Or the attorney? Was it the squire for killing of his game? or Covetous parson for his tithes distraining? Or roguish lawyer made you lose your little All in a lawsuit? (Have you not read the Rights of Man, by Tom Paine?) Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids, Ready to fall as soon as you have told your Pitiful story. KNIFE-GRINDER. Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, sir; Only, last night, a-drinking at the Chequers, This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were Torn in a scuffle. Constables came up for to take me into Custody; they took me before the justice; Justice Oldmixon put me into the parish Stocks for a vagrant. I should be glad to drink your honor's health in A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence; But for my part, I never love to meddle With politics, sir. FRIEND OF HUMANITY. I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned first,— Wretch! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance,— Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded, Spiritless outcast! (Kicks the knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport of republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy.) GEORGE CANNING.

DEBORAH LEE [9] 'T is a dozen or so of years ago, Somewhere in the West countree, That a nice girl lived, as ye Hoosiers know By the name of Deborah Lee; Her sister was loved by Edgar Poe, But Deborah by me. Now I was green, and she was green, As a summer's squash might be; And we loved as warmly as other folks,— I and my Deborah Lee,— With a love that the lasses of Hoosierdom Coveted her and me. But somehow it happened a long time ago, In the aguish West countree, That chill March morning gave the shakes To my beautiful Deborah Lee; And the grim steam-doctor (drat him!) came, And bore her away from me,— The doctor and death, old partners they,— In the aguish West countree. The angels wanted her in heaven (But they never asked for me), And that is the reason, I rather guess, In the aguish West countree, That the cold March wind, and the doctor, and death, Took off my Deborah Lee— My beautiful Deborah Lee— From the warm sunshine and the opening flowers, And bore her away from me. Our love was as strong as a six-horse team, Or the love of folks older than we, Or possibly wiser than we; But death, with the aid of doctor and steam, Was rather too many for me: He closed the peepers and silenced the breath Of my sweetheart Deborah Lee, And her form lies cold in the prairie mold, Silent and cold,—ah me! The foot of the hunter shall press her grave, And the prairie's sweet wild flowers In their odorous beauty around it wave Through all the sunny hours,— The still, bright summer hours; And the birds shall sing in the tufted grass And the nectar-laden bee, With his dreamy hum, on his gauze wings pass,— She wakes no more to me; Ah, nevermore to me! Though the wild birds sing and the wild flowers spring, She wakes no more to me. Yet oft in the hush of the dim, still night, A vision of beauty I see Gliding soft to my bedside,—a phantom of light, Dear, beautiful Deborah Lee,— My bride that was to be; And I wake to mourn that the doctor, and death, And the cold March wind, should stop the breath Of my darling Deborah Lee,— Adorable Deborah Lee,— That angels should want her up in heaven Before they wanted me. WILLIAM H. BURLEIGH.

THE COCK AND THE BULL. [10] You see this pebble-stone? It's a thing I bought Of a bit of a chit of a boy i' the mid o' the day— I like to dock the smaller parts-o'-speech, As we curtail the already cur-tailed cur (You catch the paronomasia, play o' words?)— Did, rather, i' the pre-Landseerian days. Well, to my muttons. I purchased the concern, And clapt it i' my poke, and gave for same By way, to-wit, of barter or exchange— "Chop" was my snickering dandiprat's own term— One shilling and fourpence, current coin o' the realm. O-n-e one and f-o-u-r four Pence, one and fourpence—you are with me, sir?— What hour it skills not: ten or eleven o' the clock, One day (and what a roaring day it was!) In February, eighteen sixty-nine, Alexandrina Victoria, Fidei Hm—hm—how runs the jargon?—being on throne. Such, sir, are all the facts, succinctly put, The basis or substratum—what you will— Of the impending eighty thousand lines. "Not much in 'em either," quoth perhaps simple Hodge. But there's a superstructure. Wait a bit. Mark first the rationale of the thing: Hear logic rival and levigate the deed. That shilling—and for matter o' that, the pence— I had o' course upo' me—wi' me, say— (Mecum 's the Latin, make a note o' that) When I popped pen i' stand, blew snout, scratched ear, Sniffed—tch!—at snuff-box; tumbled up, he-heed, Haw-hawed (not hee-hawed, that's another guess thing:) Then fumbled at, and stumbled out of, door, I shoved the door ope wi' my omoplat; And in vestibulo, i' the entrance-hall, Donned galligaskins, antigropelos, And so forth; and, complete with hat and gloves, One on and one a-dangle i' my hand. And ombrifuge, (Lord love you!) case o' rain, I flopped forth, 's buddikins! on my own ten toes, (I do assure you there be ten of them.) And went clump-clumping up hill and down dale To find myself o' the sudden i' front o' the boy. Put case I hadn't 'em on me, could I ha' bought This sort-o'-kind-o'-what-you-might-call toy, This pebble-thing, o' the boy-thing? Q. E. D. That's proven without aid from mumping Pope, Sleek porporate or bloated Cardinal. (Isn't it, old Fatchaps? You 're in Euclid now.) So, having the shilling—having i' fact a lot— And pence and halfpence, ever so many o' them, I purchased, as I think I said before, The pebble (lapis, lapidis,—di,—dem.—de,— What nouns 'crease short i' the genitive, Fatchaps, eh?) O' the boy, a bare-legged beggarly son of a gun, For one and fourpence. Here we are again. Now Law steps in, big-wigged, voluminous-jawed; Investigates and re-investigates. Was the transaction illegal? Law shakes head. Perpend, sir, all the bearings of the case. At first the coin was mine, the chattel his. But now (by virtue of the said exchange And barter) vice versa all the coin, Per juris operationem, vests I' the boy and his assigns till ding o' doom; (In sæcula sæculo-o-o-orum; I think I hear the Abbate mouth out that.) To have and hold the same to him and them ... Confer some idiot on Conveyancing, Whereas the pebble and every part thereof, And all that appertaineth thereunto, Or shall, will, may, might, can, could, would, or should, (Subandi cætera—clap me to the close— For what's the good of law in a case o' the kind?) Is mine to all intents and purposes. This settled, I resume the thread o' the tale. Now for a touch o' the vendor's quality. He says a gen'lman bought a pebble of him, (This pebble i' sooth, sir, which I hold i' my hand)— And paid for 't, like a gen'lman, on the nail. "Did I o'ercharge him a ha'penny? Devil a bit. Fiddlestick's end! Get out, you blazing ass! Gabble o' the goose. Don't bugaboo-baby me! Go double or quits? Yah! tittup! what's the odds?" —There's the transaction viewed, i' the vendor's light. Next ask that dumpled hag, stood snuffling by, With her three frowsy-browsy brats o' babes, The scum o' the kennel, cream o' the filth-heap—Faugh? Aie, aie, aie, aie! ὁτοτοτοτοτοἱ, ('Stead which we blurt out Hoighty-toighty now)— And the baker and candlestick-maker, and Jack and Gill, Bleared Goody this and queasy Gaffer that. Ask the schoolmaster. Take schoolmaster first. He saw a gentleman purchase of a lad A stone, and pay for it rite, on the square, And carry it off per saltum, jauntily, Propria quæ maribus, gentleman's property now (Agreeable to the law explained above), In proprium usum, for his private ends. The boy he chucked a brown i' the air, and bit I' the face the shilling: heaved a thumping-stone At a lean hen that ran cluck-clucking by, (And hit her, dead as nail i' post o' door,) Then abiit—what's the Ciceronian phrase?— Excessit, evasit, erupit,—off slogs boy; Off in three flea-skips. Hactenus, so far, So good, tam bene. Bene, satis, male,— Where was I? who said what of one in a quag? I did once hitch the syntax into verse: Verbum personale, a verb personal, Concordat,—ay, "agrees," old Fatchaps—cum Nominativo, with its nominative, Genere, i' point o' gender, numero, O' number, et persona, and person. Ut, Instance: Sol ruit, down flops sun, et, and, Montes umbrantur, snuffs out mountains. Pah! Excuse me, sir, I think I'm going mad. You see the trick on 't though, and can yourself Continue the discourse ad libitum. It takes up about eighty thousand lines, A thing imagination boggles at: And might, odds-bobs, sir! in judicious hands, Extend from here to Mesopotamy. CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY.

THE AULD WIFE. [11] The auld wife sat at her ivied door, (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) A thing she had frequently done before; And her spectacles lay on her aproned knees. The piper he piped on the hill-top high, (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) Till the cow said "I die" and the goose asked "Why;" And the dog said nothing but searched for fleas. The farmer he strode through the square farmyard; (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) His last brew of ale was a trifle hard, The connection of which with the plot one sees. The farmer's daughter hath frank blue eyes, (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies, As she sits at her lattice and shells her peas. The farmer's daughter hath ripe red lips; (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) If you try to approach her, away she skips Over tables and chairs with apparent ease. The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair; (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) And I met with a ballad, I can't say where, Which wholly consists of lines like these. She sat with her hands 'neath her dimpled cheeks, (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) And spake not a word. While a lady speaks There is hope, but she didn't even sneeze. She sat with her hands 'neath her crimson cheeks (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) She gave up mending her father's breeks, And let the cat roll in her best chemise. She sat with her hands 'neath her crimson cheeks (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) And gazed at the piper for thirteen weeks; Then she followed him out o'er the misty leas. Her sheep followed her as their tails did them (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) And this song is considered a perfect gem, And as to the meaning, it's what you please. CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY.

LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION. [12] In moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter (And heaven it knoweth what that may mean; Meaning, however, is no great matter) Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween; Through God's own heather we wonned together, I and my Willie (O love my love): I need hardly remark it was glorious weather, And flitterbats waved alow, above: Boats were curtseying, rising, bowing (Boats in that climate are so polite), And sands were a ribbon of green endowing, And O the sun-dazzle on bark and bight! Through the rare red heather we danced together, (O love my Willie!) and smelt for flowers: I must mention again it was glorious weather, Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours:— By rises that flushed with their purple favors, Through becks that brattled o'er grasses sheen, We walked or waded, we two young shavers, Thanking our stars we were both so green. We journeyed in parallels, I and Willie, In "fortunate parallels!" Butterflies, Hid in weltering shadows of daffodilly Or marjoram, kept making peacock's eyes: Song-birds darted about, some inky As coal, some snowy (I ween) as curds; Or rosy as pinks, or as roses pinky— They reck of no eerie To-come, those birds! But they skim over bents which the mill-stream washes, Or hang in the lift 'neath a white cloud's hem; They need no parasols, no galoshes; And good Mrs. Trimmer [13] she feedeth them. Then we thrid God's cowslips (as erst his heather) That endowed the wan grass with their golden blooms; And snapt—(it was perfectly charming weather)— Our fingers at Fate and her goddess glooms: And Willie 'gan sing—(O, his notes were fluty; Wafts fluttered them out to the white-winged sea)— Something made up of rhymes that have done much duty, Rhymes (better to put it) of "ancientry:" Bowers of flowers encountered showers In William's carol (O love my Willie!) When he bade sorrow borrow from blithe Tomorrow I quite forget what—say a daffodilly: A nest in a hollow, "with buds to follow," I think occurred next in his nimble strain; And clay that was "kneaden" of course in Eden— A rhyme most novel, I do maintain: Mists, bones, the singer himself, love-stories, And all least furlable things got "furled;" Not with any design to conceal their glories, But simply and solely to rhyme with "world." O, if billows and pillows and hours and flowers, And all the brave rhymes of an elder day, Could be furled together this genial weather, And carted, or carried on wafts away, Nor ever again trotted out—ay me! How much fewer volumes of verse there'd be! CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY.

NEPHELIDIA. From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through a notable nimbus of nebulous noon-shine, Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower that flickers with fear of the flies as they float, Are they looks of our lovers that lustrously lean from a marvel of mystic miraculous moon-shine, These that we feel in the blood of our blushes that thicken and threaten with sobs from the throat? Thicken and thrill as a theatre thronged at appeal of an actor's appalled agitation, Fainter with fear of the fires of the future than pale with the promise of pride in the past; Flushed with the famishing fulness of fever that reddens with radiance of rathe recreation, Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast? Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on the temples of terror, Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who is dumb as the dust-heaps of death: Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic emotional exquisite error, Bathed in the balms of beatified bliss, beatific itself by beatitude's breath. Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit and soul of our senses Sweetens the stress of suspiring suspicion that sobs in the semblance and sound of a sigh; Only this oracle opens Olympian, in mystical moods and triangular tenses— Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day when we die. Mild is the mirk and monotonous music of memory, melodiously mute as it may be, While the hope in the heart of a hero is bruised by the breach of men's rapiers resigned to the rod; Made meek as a mother whose bosom-beats bound with the bliss-bringing bulk of a balm-breathing baby, As they grope through the grave-yards of creeds, under skies growing green at a groan for the grimness of God. Blank is the book of his bounty beholden of old and its binding is blacker than bluer: Out of blue into black is the scheme of the skies, and their dews are the wine of the blood-shed of things; Till the darkling desire of delight shall be free as a fawn that is freed from the fangs that pursue her, Till the heart-beats of hell shall be hushed by a hymn from the hunt that has harried the kernel of kings. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

THE ARAB. On, on, my brown Arab, away, away! Thou hast trotted o'er many a mile to-day, And I trow right meagre hath been thy fare Since they roused thee at dawn from thy straw-piled lair, To tread with those echoless, unshod feet Yon weltering flats in the noontide heat, Where no palm-tree proffers a kindly shade, And the eye never rests on a cool grass blade; And lank is thy flank, and thy frequent cough, O, it goes to my heart—but away, friend, off! And yet, ah! what sculptor who saw thee stand, As thou standest now, on thy native strand, With the wild wind ruffling thine uncombed hair, And thy nostril upturned to the odorous air, Would not woo thee to pause, till his skill might trace At leisure the lines of that eager face; The collarless neck and the coal-black paws And the bit grasped tight in the massive jaws; The delicate curve of the legs, that seem Too slight for their burden—and, O, the gleam Of that eye, so sombre and yet so gay! Still away, my lithe Arab, once more away! Nay, tempt me not, Arab, again to stay; Since I crave neither Echo nor Fun to-day. For thy hand is not Echoless—there they are, Fun, Glowworm, and Echo, and Evening Star, And thou hintest withal that thou fain wouldst shine, As I read them, these bulgy old boots of mine. But I shrink from thee, Arab! Thou eatest eel-pie, Thou evermore hast at least one black eye; There is brass on thy brow, and thy swarthy hues Are due not to nature, but handling shoes; And the bit in thy mouth, I regret to see, Is a bit of tobacco-pipe—Flee, child, flee! CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY.

THE MODERN HIAWATHA. He killed the noble Mudjokivis. Of the skin he made him mittens, Made them with the fur side inside, Made them with the skin side outside. He, to get the warm side inside, Put the inside skin side outside; He, to get the cold side outside, Put the warm side fur side inside. That's why he put the fur side inside, Why he put the skin side outside, Why he turned them inside outside. ANONYMOUS.

POEMS RECEIVED IN RESPONSE TO AN ADVERTISED CALL FOR A NATIONAL ANTHEM.

NATIONAL ANTHEM. BY H. W. L——, OF CAMBRIDGE. Back in the years when Phlagstaff, the Dane, was monarch Over the sea-ribbed land of the fleet-footed Norsemen, Once there went forth young Ursa to gaze at the heavens,— Ursa, the noblest of all Vikings and horsemen. Musing he sat in his stirrups and viewed the horizon, Where the Aurora lapt stars in a north-polar manner: Wildly he started,—for there in the heavens before him Fluttered and flew the original star-spangled banner. Two objections are in the way of the acceptance of this anthem by the committee: in the first place, it is not an anthem at all; secondly, it is a gross plagiarism from an old Sclavonic war-song of the primeval ages.

NATIONAL ANTHEM. BY THE HON. EDWARD E—, OF BOSTON. Ponderous projectiles, hurled by heavy hands, Fell on our Liberty's poor infant head, Ere she a stadium had well advanced On the great path that to her greatness led; Her temple's propylon, was shatter-ed; Yet, thanks to saving Grace and Washington, Her incubus was from her bosom hurled; And, rising like a cloud-dispelling sun, She took the oil with which her hair was curled To grease the "hub" round which revolves the world. This fine production is rather heavy for an "anthem," and contains too much of Boston to be considered strictly national. To set such an "anthem" to music would require a Wagner; and even were it really accommodated to a tune, it could only be whistled by the populace.

NATIONAL ANTHEM. BY JOHN GREENLEAF W—. My native land, thy Puritanic stock Still finds its roots firm bound in Plymouth Rock; And all thy sons unite in one grand wish,— To keep the virtues of Preserv-ed Fish. Preserv-ed Fish, the Deacon stern and true, Told our New England what her sons should do; And, should they swerve from loyalty and right, Then the whole land were lost indeed in night. The sectional bias of this "anthem" renders it unsuitable for use in that small margin of the world situated outside of New England. Hence the above must be rejected.

NATIONAL ANTHEM. BY DR. OLIVER WENDELL H—. A diagnosis of our history proves Our native land a land its native loves: Its birth a deed obstetric without peer, Its growth a source of wonder far and near. To love it more, behold how foreign shores Sink into nothingness beside its stores. Hyde Park at best—though counted ultra grand— The "Boston Common" of Victoria's land—

NATIONAL ANTHEM. BY WILLIAM CULLEN B—. The sun sinks softly to his evening post, The sun swells grandly to his morning crown; Yet not a star our flag of heaven has lost, And not a sunset stripe with him goes down. So thrones may fall; and from the dust of those New thrones may rise, to totter like the last; But still our country's noble planet glows, While the eternal stars of Heaven are fast.

NATIONAL ANTHEM. BY GENERAL GEORGE P. M—. In the days that tried our fathers, Many years ago, Our fair land achieved her freedom Blood-bought, you know. Shall we not defend her ever, As we'd defend That fair maiden, kind and tender, Calling us friend? Yes! Let all the echoes answer, From hill and vale; Yes! Let other nations hearing, Joy in the tale. Our Columbia is a lady, High born and fair, We have sworn allegiance to her,— Touch her who dare.

NATIONAL ANTHEM. BY N. P. W—. One hue of our flag is taken From the cheeks of my blushing pet, And its stars beat time and sparkle Like the studs on her chemisette. Its blue is the ocean shadow That hides in her dreamy eyes, And it conquers all men, like her, And still for a Union flies.

NATIONAL ANTHEM. THOMAS BAILEY A—. The little brown squirrel hops in the corn, The cricket quaintly sings; The emerald pigeon nods his head, And the shad in the river springs; The dainty sunflower hangs its head On the shore of the summer sea; And better far that I were dead, If Maud did not love me. I love the squirrel that hops in the corn, And the cricket that quaintly sings; And the emerald pigeon that nods his head, And the shad that gayly springs. I love the dainty sunflower, too, And Maud with her snowy breast; I love them all; but I love—I love— I love my country best.

ROBERT H. NEWELL (Orpheus C. Kerr). ——————

BELAGCHOLLY DAYS. Chilly Dovebber with its boadigg blast Dow cubs add strips the beddow add the lawd, Eved October's suddy days are past— Add Subber's gawd! I kdow dot what it is to which I cligg That stirs to sogg add sorrow, yet I trust That still I sigg, but as the liddets sigg— Because I bust. Dear leaves that rustle sadly 'death by feet— By liggerigg feet—add fill by eyes with tears, Ye bake be sad, add oh! it gars be greet That ye are sear! The sud id sulled skies too early sigks; Do trees are greed but evergreeds add ferds; Gawd are the orioles add bobligks— Those Robert Burds! Add dow, farewell to roses add to birds, To larded fields and tigkligg streablets eke; Farewell to all articulated words I faid would speak. Farewell, by cherished strolliggs od the sward, Greed glades add forest shades, farewell to you; With sorrowigg heart I, wretched add forlord, Bid you—achew!!! ANONYMOUS.

SNEEZING. What a moment, what a doubt! All my nose is inside out,— All my thrilling, tickling caustic, Pyramid rhinocerostic, Wants to sneeze and cannot do it! How it yearns me, thrills me, stings me, How with rapturous torment wrings me! Now says, "Sneeze, you fool,—get through it." Shee—shee—oh! 'tis most del-ishi— Ishi—ishi—most del-ishi! (Hang it, I shall sneeze till spring!) Snuff is a delicious thing. LEIGH HUNT.

TO MY NOSE. Knows he that never took a pinch, Nosey, the pleasure thence which flows? Knows he the titillating joys Which my nose knows? O nose, I am as proud of thee As any mountain of its snows; I gaze on thee, and feel that pride A Roman knows! ALFRED A. FORRESTER (Alfred Crowquill).

LAPSUS CALAMI. TO R. K. Will there never come a season Which shall rid us from the curse Of a prose which knows no reason And an unmelodious verse: When the world shall cease to wonder At the genius of an ass, And a boy's eccentric blunder Shall not bring success to pass: When mankind shall be delivered From the clash of magazines, And the inkstand shall be shivered Into countless smithereens: When there stands a muzzled stripling, Mute, beside a muzzled bore: When the Rudyards cease from Kipling And the Haggards ride no more? JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN.

A CONSERVATIVE. The garden beds I wandered by One bright and cheerful morn, When I found a new-fledged butterfly, A-sitting on a thorn, A black and crimson butterfly, All doleful and forlorn. I thought that life could have no sting, To infant butterflies, So I gazed on this unhappy thing With wonder and surprise, While sadly with his waving wing He wiped his weeping eyes. Said I, "What can the matter be? Why weepest thou so sore? With garden fair and sunlight free And flowers in goodly store:"— But he only turned away from me And burst into a roar. Cried he, "My legs are thin and few Where once I had a swarm! Soft fuzzy fur—a joy to view— Once kept my body warm, Before these flapping wing-things grew, To hamper and deform!" At that outrageous bug I shot The fury of mine eye; Said I, in scorn all burning hot, In rage and anger high, "You ignominious idiot! Those wings are made to fly!" "I do not want to fly," said he, "I only want to squirm!" And he drooped his wings dejectedly, But still his voice was firm: "I do not want to be a fly! I want to be a worm!" O yesterday of unknown lack! To-day of unknown bliss! I left my fool in red and black, The last I saw was this,— The creature madly climbing back Into his chrysalis. CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN.

"FOREVER." Forever! 'T is a single word! Our rude forefathers deemed it two; Can you imagine so absurd A view? Forever! What abysms of woe The word reveals, what frenzy, what Despair! For ever (printed so) Did not. It looks, ah me! how trite and tame; It fails to sadden or appall Or solace—it is not the same At all. O thou to whom it first occurred To solder the disjoined, and dower Thy native language with a word Of power: We bless thee! Whether far or near Thy dwelling, whether dark or fair Thy kingly brow, is neither here Nor there. But in men's hearts shall be thy throne, While the great pulse of England beats: Thou coiner of a word unknown To Keats! And nevermore must printer do As men did long ago; but run "For" into "ever," bidding two Be one. Forever! passion-fraught, it throws O'er the dim page a gloom, a glamour: It's sweet, it's strange; and I suppose It's grammar. Forever! 'T is a single word! And yet our fathers deemed it two: Nor am I confident they erred;— Are you? CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY.

IV. INGENUITIES: ODDITIES. ————

SIEGE OF BELGRADE. An Austrian army, awfully arrayed, Boldly by battery besieged Belgrade. Cossack commanders cannonading come, Dealing destruction's devastating doom. Every endeavor engineers essay, For fame, for fortune fighting,—furious fray! Generals 'gainst generals grapple—gracious God! How honors Heaven heroic hardihood! Infuriate, indiscriminate in ill, Kindred kill kinsmen, kinsmen kindred kill. Labor low levels longest loftiest lines; Men march mid mounds, mid moles, mid murderous mines; Now noxious, noisy numbers nothing, naught Of outward obstacles, opposing ought; Poor patriots, partly purchased, partly pressed, Quite quaking, quickly "Quarter! Quarter!" quest. Reason returns, religious right redounds, Suwarrow stops such sanguinary sounds. Truce to thee, Turkey! Triumph to thy train, Unwise, unjust, unmerciful Ukraine! Vanish, vain victory! vanish, victory vain! Why wish we warfare? Wherefore welcome were Xerxes, Ximenes, Xanthus, Xavier? Yield, yield, ye youths! ye yeomen, yield your yell! Zeus's, Zarpater's, Zoroaster's zeal, Attracting all, arms against acts appeal! ANONYMOUS.

METRICAL FEET. Trochee trips from long to short; From long to long in solemn sort Slow Spondee stalks; strong foot! yet ill able Ever to come up with dactyl trisyllable. Iambics march from short to long;— With a leap and a bound the swift Anapæsts throng; One syllable long, with one short at each side, Amphibrachys hastes with a stately stride;— First and last being long, middle short, Amphimacer Strikes his thundering hoofs like a proud high-bred racer. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

NOCTURNAL SKETCH. BLANK VERSE IN RHYME. Even is come; and from the dark Park, hark, The signal of the setting sun—one gun! And six is sounding from the chime, prime time To go and see the Drury-Lane Dane slain,— Or hear Othello's jealous doubt spout out,— Or Macbeth raving at that shade-made blade, Denying to his frantic clutch much touch; Or else to see Ducrow with wide stride ride Four horses as no other man can span; Or in the small Olympic pit sit split Laughing at Liston, while you quiz his phiz. Anon Night comes, and with her wings brings things Such as, with his poetic tongue, Young sung; The gas upblazes with its bright white light, And paralytic watchmen prowl, howl, growl About the streets, and take up Pall-Mall Sal, Who, hasting to her nightly jobs, robs fobs. Now thieves to enter for your cash, smash, crash, Past drowsy Charley, in a deep sleep, creep, But, frightened by Policeman B. 3, flee, And while they're going, whisper low, "No go!" Now puss, when folks are in their beds, treads leads, And sleepers, waking, grumble, "Drat that cat!" Who in the gutter caterwauls, squalls, mauls Some feline foe, and screams in shrill ill-will. Now Bulls of Bashan, of a prize size, rise In childish dreams, and with a roar gore poor Georgy, or Charley, or Billy, willy-nilly;— But Nursemaid in a nightmare rest, chest-pressed, Dreameth of one of her old flames, James Games, And that she hears—what faith is man's!—Ann's banns And his, from Reverend Mr. Rice, twice, thrice; White ribbons flourish, and a stout shout out, That upward goes, shows Rose knows those bows' woes! THOMAS HOOD.

RAILROAD RHYME. Singing through the forests, Rattling over ridges; Shooting under arches, Rumbling over bridges; Whizzing through the mountains, Buzzing o'er the vale,— Bless me! this is pleasant, Riding on the rail! Men of different "stations" In the eye of fame, Here are very quickly Coming to the same; High and lowly people, Birds of every feather, On a common level, Travelling together. Gentleman in shorts, Looming very tall; Gentleman at large Talking very small; Gentleman in tights, With a loose-ish mien; Gentleman in gray, Looking rather green; Gentleman quite old, Asking for the news, Gentleman in black, In a fit of blues; Gentleman in claret, Sober as a vicar; Gentleman in tweed, Dreadfully in liquor! Stranger on the right Looking very sunny, Obviously reading Something rather funny. Now the smiles are thicker,— Wonder what they mean! Faith, he's got the Knicker- Bocker Magazine! Stranger on the left Closing up his peepers; Now he snores amain, Like the Seven Sleepers; At his feet a volume Gives the explanation, How the man grew stupid From "Association"! Ancient maiden lady Anxiously remarks, That there must be peril 'Mong so many sparks; Roguish-looking fellow, Turning to the stranger, Says it's his opinion She is out of danger! Woman with her baby, Sitting vis-à-vis; Baby keeps a-squalling, Woman looks at me; Asks about the distance, Says it 's tiresome talking, Noises of the cars Are so very shocking! Market-woman, careful Of the precious casket, Knowing eggs are eggs, Tightly holds her basket; Feeling that a smash, If it came, would surely Send her eggs to pot, Rather prematurely. Singing through the forests, Rattling over ridges; Shooting under arches, Rumbling over bridges; Whizzing through the mountains, Buzzing o'er the vale,— Bless me! this is pleasant, Riding on the rail! JOHN GODFREY SAXE.

PHYSICS. (THE UNCONSCIOUS POETIZING OF A PHILOSOPHER.) There is no force however great Can stretch a cord however fine Into a horizontal line That shall be accurately straight. WILLIAM WHEWELL.

THE COLLEGIAN TO HIS BRIDE: BEING A MATHEMATICAL MADRIGAL IN THE SIMPLEST FORM. Charmer, on a given straight line, And which we will call B C, Meeting at a common point A, Draw the lines A C, A B. But, my sweetest, so arrange it That they're equal, all the three; Then you'll find that, in the sequel, All their angles, too are equal. Equal angles, so to term them, Each one opposite its brother! Equal joys and equal sorrows, Equal hopes, 'twere sin to smother, Equal,—O, divine ecstatics,— Based on Hutton's mathematics! PUNCH.

THE LAWYER'S INVOCATION TO SPRING Whereas, on certain boughs and sprays Now divers birds are heard to sing, And sundry flowers their heads upraise, Hail to the coming on of spring! The songs of those said birds arouse The memory of our youthful hours, As green as those said sprays and boughs, As fresh and sweet as those said flowers. The birds aforesaid,—happy pairs,— Love, mid the aforesaid boughs, inshrines In freehold nests; themselves, their heirs, Administrators, and assigns. O busiest term of Cupid's Court, Where tender plaintiffs actions bring,— Season of frolic and of sport, Hail, as aforesaid, coming spring! HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL.

THE COSMIC EGG. Upon a rock yet uncreate, Amid a chaos inchoate, An uncreated being sate; Beneath him, rock, Above him, cloud. And the cloud was rock, And the rock was cloud. The rock then growing soft and warm, The cloud began to take a form, A form chaotic, vast, and vague, Which issued in the cosmic egg. Then the Being uncreate On the egg did incubate, And thus became the incubator; And of the egg did allegate, And thus became the alligator; And the incubator was potentate, But the alligator was potentator. ANONYMOUS.

THE HEN. A famous hen's my story's theme, Which ne'er was known to tire Of laying eggs, but then she'd scream So loud o'er every egg, 't would seem The house must be on fire. A turkey-cock, who ruled the walk, A wiser bird and older, Could bear 't no more, so off did stalk Right to the hen, and told her: "Madam, that scream, I apprehend, Adds nothing to the matter; It surely helps the egg no whit; Then lay your egg, and done with it! I pray you, madam, as a friend, Cease that superfluous clatter! You know not how 't goes through my head." "Humph! very likely!" madam said, Then proudly putting forth a leg,— "Uneducated barnyard fowl! You know, no more than any owl, The noble privilege and praise Of authorship in modern days— I'll tell you why I do it: First, you perceive, I lay the egg, And then—review it." From the German of MATTHAIAS CLAUDIUS.

ODE—TO THE ROC. O unhatched Bird, so high preferred, As porter of the Pole, Of beakless things, who have no wings, Exact no heavy toll. If this my song its theme should wrong, The theme itself is sweet; Let others rhyme the unborn time, I sing the Obsolete. And first, I praise the nobler traits Of birds preceding Noah, The giant clan, whose meat was Man, Dinornis, Apteryx, Moa. These, by hints we get from prints Of feathers and of feet, Excelled in wits the later tits, And so are obsolete. I sing each race whom we displace In their primeval woods, While Gospel Aid inspires Free-Trade To traffic with their goods. With Norman Dukes the still Sioux In breeding might compete; But where men talk the tomahawk Will soon grow obsolete. I celebrate each perished State; Great cities ploughed to loam; Chaldæan kings; the Bulls with wings; Dead Greece, and dying Rome. The Druids' shrine may shelter swine, Or stack the farmer's peat; 'Tis thus mean moths treat finest cloths, Mean men the obsolete. Shall nought be said of theories dead? The Ptolemaic system? Figure and phrase, that bent all ways Duns Scotus liked to twist 'em? Averrhoes' thought? and what was taught, In Salamanca's seat? Sihons and Ogs? and showers of frogs? Sea-serpents obsolete? Pillion and pack have left their track; Dead is "the Tally-ho;" Steam rails cut down each festive crown Of the old world and slow; Jack-in-the-Green no more is seen, Nor Maypole in the street; No mummers play on Christmas-day; St. George is obsolete. O fancy, why hast thou let die So many a frolic fashion? Doublet and hose, and powdered beaux? Where are thy songs whose passion Turned thought to fire in knight and squire, While hearts of ladies beat? Where thy sweet style, ours, ours erewhile? All this is obsolete. In Auvergne low potatoes grow Upon volcanoes old; The moon, they say, had her young day, Though now her heart is cold; Even so our earth, sorrow and mirth, Seasons of snow and heat, Checked by her tides in silence glides To become obsolete. The astrolabe of every babe Reads, in its fatal sky, "Man's largest room is the low tomb— Ye all are born to die." Therefore this theme, O Bird, I deem The noblest we may treat; The final cause of Nature's laws Is to grow obsolete. WILLIAM JOHN COURTHOPE.

MOTHERHOOD. She laid it where the sunbeams fall Unscanned upon the broken wall. Without a tear, without a groan, She laid it near a mighty stone, Which some rude swain had haply cast Thither in sport, long ages past, And time with mosses had o'erlaid, And fenced with many a tall grass-blade, And all about bid roses bloom And violets shed their soft perfume. There, in its cool and quiet bed, She set her burden down and fled: Nor flung, all eager to escape, One glance upon the perfect shape, That lay, still warm and fresh and fair, But motionless and soundless there. No human eye had marked her pass Across the linden-shadowed grass Ere yet the minster clock chimed seven: Only the innocent birds of heaven— The magpie, and the rook whose nest Swings as the elm-tree waves his crest— And the lithe cricket, and the hoar And huge-limbed hound that guards the door, Looked on when, as a summer wind That, passing, leaves no trace behind, All unapparelled, barefoot all, She ran to that old ruined wall, To leave upon the chill dank earth (For ah! she never knew its worth), Mid hemlock rank, and fern and ling, And dews of night, that precious thing! And then it might have lain forlorn From morn to eve, from eve to morn: But, that, by some wild impulse led, The mother, ere she turned and fled, One moment stood erect and high; Then poured into the silent sky A cry so jubilant, so strange, That Alice—as she strove to range Her rebel ringlets at her glass— Sprang up and gazed across the grass; Shook back those curls so fair to see, Clapped her soft hands in childish glee; And shrieked—her sweet face all aglow, Her very limbs with rapture shaking— "My hen has laid an egg, I know; And only hear the noise she's making!" CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY.

DISASTER. 'Twas ever thus from childhood's hour My fondest hopes would not decay: I never loved a tree or flower Which was the first to fade away! The garden, where I used to delve Short-frocked, still yields me pinks in plenty; The pear-tree that I climbed at twelve, I see still blossoming, at twenty. I never nursed a dear gazelle. But I was given a paroquet— How I did nurse him if unwell! He's imbecile but lingers yet. He's green, with an enchanting tuft; He melts me with his small black eye: He'd look inimitable stuffed, And knows it—but he will not die! I had a kitten—I was rich In pets—but all too soon my kitten Became a full-sized cat, by which I've more than once been scratched and bitten: And when for sleep her limbs she curled One day beside her untouched plateful, And glided calmly from the world, I freely own that I was grateful. And then I bought a dog—a queen! Ah, Tiny, dear departing pug! She lives, but she is past sixteen, And scarce can crawl across the rug. I loved her beautiful and kind; Delighted in her pert bow-wow: But now she snaps if you don't mind; 'T were lunacy to love her now. I used to think, should e'er mishap Betide my crumple-visaged Ti, In shape of prowling thief, or trap, Or coarse bull-terrier—I should die. But ah! disasters have their use; And life might e'en be too sunshiny: Nor would I make myself a goose, If some big dog should swallow Tiny. CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY.

LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.

ON THE BRINK. I watched her as she stooped to pluck A wild flower in her hair to twine; And wished that it had been my luck To call her mine; Anon I heard her rate with mad, Mad words her babe within its cot, And felt particularly glad That it had not. I knew (such subtle brains have men!) That she was uttering what she shouldn't; And thought that I would chide, and then I thought I wouldn't. Few could have gazed upon that face, Those pouting coral lips, and chided: A Rhadamanthus, in my place, Had done as I did. For wrath with which our bosoms glow Is chained there oft by Beauty's spell; And, more than that, I did not know The widow well. So the harsh phrase passed unreproved: Still mute—(O brothers, was it sin?)— I drank unutterably moved, Her beauty in. And to myself I murmured low, As on her upturned face and dress The moonlight fell, "Would she say No,— By chance, or Yes?" She stood so calm, so like a ghost, Betwixt me and that magic moon, That I already was almost A finished coon. But when she caught adroitly up And soothed with smiles her little daughter; And gave it, if I'm right, a sup Of barley-water; And, crooning still the strange, sweet lore Which only mothers' tongues can utter, Snowed with deft hand the sugar o'er Its bread-and-butter; And kissed it clingingly (ah, why Don't women do these things in private?)— I felt that if I lost her, I Should not survive it. And from my mouth the words nigh flew,— The past, the future, I forgat 'em,— "Oh, if you'd kiss me as you do That thankless atom!" But this thought came ere yet I spake, And froze the sentence on my lips: "They err who marry wives that make Those little slips." It came like some familiar rhyme, Some copy to my boyhood set; And that's perhaps the reason I'm Unmarried yet. Would she have owned how pleased she was, And told her love with widow's pride? I never found out that, because I never tried. Be kind to babes and beasts and birds, Hearts may be hard though lips are coral; And angry words are angry words: And that's the moral. CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY.

THE V-A-S-E. From the maddening crowd they stand apart, The maidens four and the Work of Art; And none might tell from sight alone In which had culture ripest grown,— The Gotham Millions fair to see, The Philadelphia Pedigree, The Boston Mind of azure hue, Or the soulful Soul from Kalamazoo,— For all loved Art in a seemly way, With an earnest soul and a capital A. ———— Long they worshipped; but no one broke The sacred stillness, until up spoke The Western one from the nameless place, Who blushingly said: "What a lovely vace!" Over three faces a sad smile flew, And they edged away from Kalamazoo. But Gotham's haughty soul was stirred To crush the stranger with one small word Deftly hiding reproof in praise, She cries: "'T is, indeed, a lovely vaze!" But brief her unworthy triumph when The lofty one from the home of Penn, With the consciousness of two grand papas, Exclaims: "It is quite a lovely vahs!" And glances round with an anxious thrill, Awaiting the word of Beacon Hill. But the Boston maid smiles courteouslee, And gently murmurs: "Oh pardon me! "I did not catch your remark, because I was so entranced with that charming vaws!" Dies erit prægelida Sinistra quum Bostonia. JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE.

LARKS AND NIGHTINGALES. Alone I sit at eventide: The twilight glory pales, And o'er the meadows far and wide Chant pensive bobolinks. (One might say nightingales!) Song-sparrows warble on the tree, I hear the purling brook, And from the old "manse o'er the lea" Flies slow the cawing crow. (In England 'twere a rook!) The last faint golden beams of day Still glow on cottage panes, And on their lingering homeward way Walk weary laboring men. (Oh, would that we had swains!) From farm-yards, down fair rural glades Come sounds of tinkling bells, And songs of merry brown milkmaids, Sweeter than oriole's. (Yes, thank you—Philomel's!) I could sit here till morning came, All through the night hours dark, Until I saw the sun's bright flame And heard the chickadee. (Alas we have no lark!) We have no leas, no larks, no rooks, No swains, no nightingales, No singing milkmaids (save in books): The poet does his best— It is the rhyme that fails! NATHAN HASKELL DOLE.

OF BLUE CHINA. There's a joy without canker or cark, There's a pleasure eternally new, 'T is to gloat on the glaze and the mark Of china that's ancient and blue; Unchipped, all the centuries through It has passed, since the chime of it rang, And they fashioned it, figure and hue, In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. These dragons (their tails, you remark, Into bunches of gillyflowers grew),— When Noah came out of the ark, Did these lie in wait for his crew? They snorted, they snapped, and they slew, They were mighty of fin and of fang, And their portraits Celestials drew In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. Here's a pot with a cot in a park, In a park where the peach-blossoms blew, Where the lovers eloped in the dark, Lived, died, and were changed into two Bright birds that eternally flew Through the boughs of the may, as they sang; 'T is a tale was undoubtedly true In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. ENVOY Come, snarl at my ecstasies, do, Kind critic; your "tongue has a tang," But—a sage never heeded a shrew In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. ANDREW LANG.

A RIDDLE. [14] THE LETTER "H". 'T was in heaven pronounced, and 't was muttered in hell, And echo caught faintly the sound as it fell; On the confines of earth 't was permitted to rest, And the depths of the ocean its presence confessed; 'T will be found in the sphere when 't is riven asunder, Be seen in the lightning and heard in the thunder. 'T was allotted to man with his earliest breath, Attends him at birth, and awaits him in death, Presides o'er his happiness, honor and health, Is the prop of his house, and the end of his wealth. In the heaps of the miser 't is hoarded with care, But is sure to be lost on his prodigal heir. It begins every hope, every wish it must bound, With the husbandman toils, and with monarchs is crowned. Without it the soldier, the seaman may roam, But woe to the wretch who expels it from home! In the whispers of conscience its voice will be found, Nor e'en in the whirlwind of passion be drowned. 'T will not soften the heart; but though deaf be the ear, It will make it acutely and instantly hear. Yet in shade let it rest, like a delicate flower, Ah, breathe on it softly,—it dies in an hour. CATHARINE FANSHAWE.

A THRENODY. "The Ahkoond of Swat is dead." —London Papers. What, what, what, What's the news from Swat? Sad news, Bad news, Comes by the cable led Through the Indian Ocean's bed, Through the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and the Med- Iterranean—he's dead; The Ahkoond is dead! For the Ahkoond I mourn, Who wouldn't? He strove to disregard the message stern, But he Ahkoodn't. Dead, dead, dead; (Sorrow Swats!) Swats wha hae wi' Ahkoond bled, Swats whom he had often led Onward to a gory bed, Or to victory, As the case might be, Sorrow Swats! Tears shed, Shed tears like water, Your great Ahkoond is dead! That Swats the matter! Mourn, city of Swat! Your great Ahkoond is not, But lain 'mid worms to rot. His mortal part alone, his soul was caught (Because he was a good Ahkoond) Up to the bosom of Mahound. Though earthy walls his frame surround (Forever hallowed be the ground!) And sceptics mock the lowly mound And say "He's now of no Ahkoond!" His soul is in the skies,— The azure skies that bend above his loved Metropolis of Swat. He sees with larger, other eyes, Athwart all earthly mysteries— He knows what's Swat. Let Swat bury the great Ahkoond With a noise of mourning and of lamentation! Let Swat bury the great Ahkoond With the noise of the mourning of the Swattish nation! Fallen is at length Its tower of strength, Its sun is dimmed ere it had nooned; Dead lies the great Ahkoond, The great Ahkoond of Swat Is not! GEORGE THOMAS LANIGAN.

LINES TO MISS FLORENCE HUNTINGTON. Sweet maiden of Passamaquoddy, Shall we seek for communion of souls Where the deep Mississippi meanders, Or the distant Saskatchewan rolls? Ah no,—for in Maine I will find thee A sweetly sequestrated nook, Where the far winding Skoodoowabskooksis Conjoins with the Skoodoowabskook. There wander two beautiful rivers, With many a winding and crook; The one is the Skoodoowabskooksis, The other—the Skoodoowabskook. Ah, sweetest of haunts! though unmentioned In geography, atlas, or book, How fair is the Skoodoowabskooksis, When joining the Skoodoowabskook! Our cot shall be close by the waters Within that sequestrated nook— Reflected in Skoodoowabskooksis And mirrored in Skoodoowabskook. You shall sleep to the music of leaflets, By zephyrs in wantonness shook, And dream of the Skoodoowabskooksis, And, perhaps, of the Skoodoowabskook. When awaked by the hens and the roosters, Each morn, you shall joyously look On the junction of Skoodoowabskooksis With the soft gliding Skoodoowabskook. Your food shall be fish from the waters, Drawn forth on the point of a hook, From murmuring Skoodoowabskookis, Or wandering Skoodoowabskook! You shall quaff the most sparkling of water, Drawn forth from a silvery brook Which flows to the Skoodoowabskooksis, And then to the Skoodoowabskook! And you shall preside at the banquet, And I will wait on thee as cook; And we'll talk of the Skoodoowabskooksis, And sing of the Skoodoowabskook! Let others sing loudly of Saco, Of Quoddy, and Tattamagouche, Of Kennebeccasis, and Quaco, Of Merigonishe, and Buctouche, Of Nashwaak, and Magaguadavique, Or Memmerimammericook,— There's none like the Skoodoowabskooksis, Excepting the Skoodoowabskook! ANONYMOUS.

V. NONSENSE. ————

NONSENSE. Good reader, if you e'er have seen, When Phœbus hastens to his pillow, The mermaids with their tresses green Dancing upon the western billow; If you have seen at twilight dim, When the lone spirit's vesper hymn Floats wild along the winding shore, The fairy train their ringlets weave Glancing along the spangled green; I you have seen all this, and more— God bless me! what a deal you've seen! THOMAS MOORE.

THE PURPLE COW. I never saw a Purple Cow, I never hope to see one; But I can tell you, anyhow, I rather see than be one. GELETT BURGESS.

PSYCHOLOPHON. [Supposed to be translated from the Old Parsee.] Twine then the rays Round her soft Theban tissues! All will be as She says, When that dead past reissues. Matters not what nor where, Hark, to the moon's dim cluster! How was her heavy hair Lithe as a feather duster! Matters not when nor whence; Flittertigibbet! Sound makes the song, not sense, Thus I inhibit! GELETT BURGESS.

THE BAKER'S TALE. FROM "THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK" They roused him with muffins—they roused him with ice— They roused him with mustard and cress— They roused him with jam and judicious advice— They set him conundrums to guess. When at length he sat up and was able to speak, His sad story he offered to tell; And the Bellman cried "Silence! Not even a shriek!" And excitedly tingled his bell. There was silence supreme! Not a shriek, not a scream, Scarcely even a howl or a groan, As the man they called "Ho!" told his story of woe In an antediluvian tone. My father and mother were honest though poor—" "Skip all that!" cried the Bellman in haste. "If it once become dark, there's no chance of a Snark— We have hardly a minute to waste!" "I skip forty years," said the Baker, in tears, "And proceed without further remark To the day when you took me aboard of your ship To help you in hunting the Snark. "A dear uncle of mine (after whom I was named) Remarked, when I bade him farewell—" "Oh, skip your dear uncle!" the Bellman exclaimed, As he angrily tingled his bell. "He remarked to me then," said that mildest of men, "'If your Snark be a Snark, that is right: Fetch it home by all means—you may serve it with greens, And it's handy for striking a light. "'You may seek it with thimbles—and seek it with care; You may hunt it with forks and hope; You may threaten its life with a railway-share; You may charm it with smiles and soap—'" ("That's exactly the method," the Bellman bold In a hasty parenthesis cried, "That's exactly the way I have always been told That the capture of Snarks should be tried!") "'But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day, If your Snark be a Boojum! For then You will softly and suddenly vanish away, And never be met with again!' "It is this, it is this that oppresses my soul, When I think of my uncle's last words: And my heart is like nothing so much as a bowl Brimming over with quivering curds! "It is this, it is this—" "We have had that before!" The Bellman indignantly said. And the Baker replied, "Let me say it once more. It is this, it is this that I dread! "I engage with the Snark—every night after dark— In a dreamy, delirious fight: I serve it with greens in those shadowy scenes, And I use it for striking a light: "But if ever I meet with a Boojum, that day, In a moment (of this I am sure), I shall softly and suddenly vanish away— And the notion I cannot endure!" CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON (Lewis Carroll).

JABBERWOCKY. 'T was brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. "Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!" He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought— So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought. And as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. "And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!" He chortled in his joy. 'T was brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON (Lewis Carroll).

FOR A NOVEL OF HALL CAINE'S. AFTER KIPLING. He sits in a sea-green grotto with a bucket of lurid paint, And draws the Thing as it isn't for the God of things as they ain't. ROBERT BRIDGES (Droch).