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, And a black tooth in front, to show in part 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, 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, 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 Yet, somewhat the broad freedoms to excuse, 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, O yearning thought! that liv'st but in the brain? Still, still as though some dear embodied good, The woodman winding westward up the glen THE SUICIDE'S ARGUMENT. ERE the birth of my life, if I wished it or no, 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, THE BLOSSOMING OF THE SOLITARY 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." |