English

Somebody sent Dean Swift
An ounce of strychnine as a gift.
He took about thirty-five minims
While writing about the Houyhnhms.

A GREAT grieved heart, an iron will,
As fearless blood as ever ran;
A form elate with nervous strength
And fibrous vigour, — all all man.

A gallant rein, a restless spur,
The hand to wield a biting scourge;
Small patience for the tasks of Time,
Unmeasured power to speed and urge.

He rides the errands of the hour,
But sends no herald on his ways;
The world would thank the service done,
He cannot stay for gold or praise.

Not lavishly he casts abroad
The glances of an eye intense,

I

At times I lift mine eyes unto " the hills
Whence my salvation cometh " — aye, and higher —
And, the mind kindling with the heart's desire,
Mount to that realm nor blight nor shadow chills:
With concourse of bright forms that region thrills:
I see the lost one midmost in the choir:
From heaven to heaven, on wings that ne'er can tire,
I soar; and God Himself my spirit fills.

IN THE WHIM OF THE MOMENT .

To look upon dress, upon shew, upon birth,
As the noblest distinction of life,
On riches as all that give pleasure on earth,
And that only cure sorrow and strife;

And though to these maxims one might say quoi bon ,
Yet this is the life of a lady of ton.

II.

Stale virtue and vice to erase from their list,
Those of life make a pitiful part,

She was just sixteen, that night, as she stood
In her ragged dress and her rusty hood.

She had swept the crossing the same old way
You have seen the beggars do, any day,

With first a rush to the passer's side,
Then a dash ahead, and the broom well plied,

And then, as she gained the curb, you know,
The ancient professional moan of woe.

But now she is tired; the night grows late;
She leaves the crossing with laggard gait.

And as she passes the street lamp's glare,

Mr. Philip Snowden
Was rarely mistaken for Woden.
People as a rule were much more
Apt to mistake him for Thor.

IN THE ODDITIES .

What thos I be a country clown,
For all the fuss that you make,
One need not to be born in town
To know what two and two make:

'Squire fop there thinks his empty pate
Worth all ours put together,
But how can that have any weight
That's only made of feather.

Then duont ye be so proud, d'ye see,
It 'ent a thing that's suiting;
Can one than tother better be,
When both are on a footing?

II.

Now here's a man who seas and land
Has dreamt that he can cross over,

True, Lambert Simnel
Was not an habitual criminal,
But it really was hardly historic
To call himself Earl of Warwick.

Cleopatra, when the chilling fear
Of ruin touched her soul at ease,
When turbid sounds, blown over seas,
Would speed on rumor's rapid path
From the hot lips of Roman wrath
Straight to her own Egyptian ear, —
Then, even at some grand feast of hers,
Would seem to feel the joy struck dumb
Of citherns, harps and dulcimers,
With rumbling prelude, harsh to hear,
Of that which must in time become
Disaster, slavery, Actium!

Then she, that mighty and mystic queen,
Round whom her vassals crawled in awe,

Among the contemporaries of Shakespeare
There were few who regarded him as Drake's peer.
Spoiling paper was so much less strain
Than spoiling the Spanish Main.