Close up again their gaping eyes and mouth, It is a thing, God wot! that can be told by none. Now by the creeping shadows of the noon, and four All blithe and boisterous, but leave two more, To weep, whilst all their mates in merry sunshine bask. Like sportive Elfins, on the verdant sod, And one, at Hare and Hound, plays all alone,- And, with shillelah small, break one another's brow; Or plucks the fragrant leek for pottage green, With that crisp curly herb, called Kale in Aberdeen. And so he wisely spends the fruitful hours, Or rules in Learning's hall, or trims her bowers; - Of Cam and Isis; for, alack! at each There dwells I wot some dronish Dominie, That does no garden work, nor yet doth teach, But wears a floury head, and talks in flowery speech! EPIGRAMS ON THE ART-UNIONS. THAT picture-raffles will conduce to nourish THE SUPERIORITY OF MACHINERY. A MECHANIC his labor will often discard But a clock and its case is uncommonly hard Will continue to work though it strikes. 16* THE FORGE: A ROMANCE OF THE IRON AGE. "Who's here, beside foul weather?"- KINg Lear. "Mine enemy's dog, though he had bit me, Should have stood that night against my fire."- CORDELIA. PART I. LIKE a dead man gone to his shroud, And the wind is rising squally and loud Through the branches bleak, bereaved, and bare, It's an ugly one for anywhere, But an awful night for the Brocken. For, O! to stop On that mountain top, After the dews of evening drop, Is always a dreary frolic Then what must it be when Nature groans, And the very mountain murmurs and moans With other strange supernatural tones, In a region so diabolic! A place where he whom we call Old Scratch, Gives midnight concerts and sermons, In a pulpit and orchestra built to match A plot right worthy of him to hatch, And well adapted, he knows, to catch The musical, mystical Germans! However, it's quite As wild a night As ever was known on that sinister height And the blast through the pines is howling and growling, As if a thousand wolves were prowling About in the old BLACK FOREST! Madly, sadly, the tempest raves Through the narrow gulleys and hollow caves. Like the billows that roar On a gusty shore Mourning over the mariners' graves- Of demons met To wake a dead relation. Badly, madly, the vapors fly At a pace that no pen can paint! Shorn of half her usual beams, As pale as if she would faint! The lightning flashes, The trees encounter with horrible clashes, As from Stygian ditch, Rises a foul sulphureous fog, Yet ONE there is abroad in the storm, The moon gets a glance, She spies the traveller's lonely form, As none can do but the super-strong; More keen, in sooth, And cutting than any German carver ! However, no time it is to lag; And on he scrambles from crag to crag, Like one determined never to flag Now weathers a block Of jutting rock, With hardly room for a toe to wag; But holding on by a timber-snag, That looks like the arm of a friendly hag; And sinking down a precipice now |