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Both beds and bolsters are soft and

Save one alone, and that's of stone,

And under it lies a Counsellor keen.

green;

'Twould be a square tomb, if it were not too long, And 'tis fenced round with irons sharp, spearlike, and strong.

This fellow from Aberdeen hither did skip,
With a waxy face, and a blubber lip,

And a black tooth in front, to show in part
What was the colour of his whole heart.
This Counsellor sweet,

This Scotchman complete,

(The Devil scotch him for a snake) I trust he lies in his grave awake.

On the sixth of January,

When all around is white with snow,
As a Cheshire yeoman's dairy;
Brother Bard, ho! ho!

Believe it, or no,

On that stone tomb to you I'll show

Two round spaces void of snow.

I swear by our Knight, and his forefathers' souls, That in size and shape they are just like the holes In the house of privity

Of that ancient family.

On those two places void of snow,

There have sate in the night for an hour or so, Before sunrise, and after cock-crow,

He kicking his heels, she cursing her corns, All to the tune of the wind in their horns, The Devil, and his Grannam,

With a snow-blast to fan 'em ;

Expecting and hoping the trumpet to blow,
For they are cock-sure of the fellow below.

LINES

TO A COMIC AUTHOR, ON AN ABUSIVE REVIEW.

WHAT though the chilly wide-mouth'd quacking

chorus

[croak:

From the rank swamps of murk Review-land
So was it, neighbour, in the times before us,
When Momus, throwing on his Attic cloak,
Romped with the Graces; and each tickled Muse
(That Turk, Dan Phoebus, whom bards call divine,
Was married to at least, he kept-all nine)
Fled, but still with reverted faces ran;

Yet, somewhat the broad freedoms to excuse,
They had allur'd the audacious Greek to use,
Swore they mistook him for their own good man.
This Momus-Aristophanes on earth

Men called him-maugre all his wit and worth Was croaked and gabbled at. How, then, should

you,

Or I, friend, hope to 'scape the skulking crew? No! laugh, and say aloud, in tones of glee, "I hate the quacking tribe, and they hate me!"

CONSTANCY TO AN IDEAL OBJECT.

SINCE all that beat about in Nature's range,
Or veer or vanish; why shouldst thou remain
The only constant in a world of change,

O yearning thought! that liv'st but in the brain?
Call to the hours, that in the distance play,
The faery people of the future day—
Fond thought! not one of all that shining swarm
Will breathe on thee with life-enkindling breath,
Till when, like strangers shelt'ring from a storm,
Hope and Despair meet in the porch of Death!
Yet still thou haunt'st me; and though well I see,
She is not thou, and only thou art she,

Still, still as though some dear embodied good,
Some living love before my eyes there stood
With answering look a ready ear to lend,
I mourn to thee and say-"Ah! loveliest friend!
That this the meed of all my toils might be,
To have a home, an English home, and thee!"
Vain repetition! Home and Thou are one.
The peacefull'st cot, the moon shall shine upon,
Lulled by the thrush and wakened by the lark,
Without thee were but a becalmed bark,
Whose helmsman on an ocean waste and wide
Sits mute and pale his mouldering helm beside.
And art thou nothing? Such thou art, as when

The woodman winding westward up the glen
At wintry dawn, where o'er the sheep-track's maze
The viewless snow-mist weaves a glist'ning haze,
Sees full before him, gliding without tread,
An image1 with a glory round its head;
The enamoured rustic worships its fair hues,
Nor knows he makes the shadow he pursues!

THE SUICIDE'S ARGUMENT.

ERE the birth of my life, if I wished it or no,
No question was asked me-it could not be so !
If the life was the question, a thing sent to try,
And to live on be Yes; what can No be? to die.

NATURE'S ANSWER.

Is't returned, as 'twas sent? Is't no worse for the wear?

1 This phenomenon, which the author has himself expe rienced, and of which the reader may find a description in one of the earlier volumes of the Manchester Philosophical Transactions, is applied figuratively in the following pas sage of the Aids to Reflection.

"Pindar's fine remark respecting the different effects of music, on different characters, holds equally true of Genius; as many as are not delighted by it are disturbed, perplexed, irritated. The beholder either recognises it as a projected form of his own being, that moves before him with a glory round its head, or recoils from it as a spectre."-Aids to Reflection, p. 220.

Think first, what you are! Call to mind what you

were !

I gave you innocence, I gave you hope,
Gave health, and genius, and an ample scope.
Return you me guilt, lethargy, despair?
Make out the invent'ry; inspect, compare !
Then die-if die you dare!

THE BLOSSOMING OF THE SOLITARY
DATE-TREE. A LAMENT.

I SEEM to have an indistinct recollection of having read either in one of the ponderous tomes of George of Venice, or in some other compilation from the uninspired Hebrew writers, an apologue or Rabbinical tradition to the following purpose:

While our first parents stood before their offended Maker, and the last words of the sentence were yet sounding in Adam's ear, the guileful false serpent, a counterfeit and a usurper from the beginning, presumptuously took on himself the character of advocate or mediator, and pretending to intercede for Adam, exclaimed: "Nay, Lord, in thy justice, not so! for the Man was the least in fault. Rather let the Woman return at once to the dust, and let Adam remain in this thy Paradise." And the word of the Most High answered Satan : "The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. Treacherous Fiend! if with guilt like thine, it had been possible for thee to have the heart of a Man, and to feel the yearning of a human soul for its counterpart, the sentence, which thou now counsellest, should have been inflicted on thyself."

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