And the world's standing still with all of their | Up flew the endowment, not weighing an ounce, And down, down the farthing-worth came with a bounce.

kind;

Contented to dwell deep down in the well,

Or move like the snail in the crust of his shell, Or live like the toad in his narrow abode, With their souls closely wedged in a thick wall of stone,

By further experiments (no matter how)
He found that ten chariots weighed less than
one plough;

By the gray weeds of prejudice rankly o'ergrown. A sword with gilt trapping rose up in the scale,

MRS. R. S. NICHOLS.

THE PHILOSOPHER'S SCALES.

A MONK, when his rites sacerdotal were o'er,
In the depth of his cell with his stone-covered floor,
Resigning to thought his chimerical brain,
Once formed the contrivance we now shall explain;
But whether by magic's or alchemy's powers
We know not; indeed, 't is no business of ours.

Though balanced by only a ten-penny nail;
A shield and a helmet, a buckler and spear,
Weighed less than a widow's uncrystallized tear.

A lord and a lady went up at full sail,
Ten doctors, ten lawyers, two courtiers, one earl,
When a bee chanced to light on the opposite scale;
All heaped in one balance and swinging from
Ten counsellors' wigs, full of powder and curl,
thence,

Weighed less than a few grains of candor and sense;
A first-water diamond, with brilliants begirt,
Than one good potato just washed from the dirt;
Yet not mountains of silver and gold could suffice
One pearl to outweigh, 't was THE PEARL OF

Perhaps it was only by patience and care,
At last, that he brought his invention to bear.
In youth 't was projected, but years stole away,
And ere 't was complete he was wrinkled and gray;
But success is secure, unless energy fails;
And at length he produced THE PHILOSOPHER'S Last of all, the whole world was bowled in at the

SCALES.

GREAT PRICE.

grate,

"What were they?" you ask. You shall pres- With the soul of a beggar to serve for a weight, When the former sprang up with so strong a rebuff

ently see;

These scales were not made to weigh sugar and tea.
O no; for such properties wondrous had they,
That qualities, feelings, and thoughts they could
weigh,

Together with articles small or immense,

From mountains or planets to atoms of sense.

Naught was there so bulky but there it would lay,
And naught so ethereal but there it would stay,
And naught so reluctant but in it must go :
All which some examples more clearly will show.

The first thing he weighed was the head of Voltaire,
Which retained all the wit that had ever been there.
As a weight, he threw in a torn scrap of a leaf,
Containing the prayer of the penitent thief;
When the skull rose aloft with so sudden a spell
That it bounced like a ball on the roof of the cell.

That it made a vast rent and escaped at the roof!
When balanced in air, it ascended on high,
And sailed up aloft, a balloon in the sky;
While the scale with the soul in't so mightily fell
That it jerked the philosopher out of his cell.

JANE TAYLOR.

THE CALIPH AND SATAN. VERSIFIED FROM THOLUCK'S TRANSLATION OUT OF THE

PERSIAN.

IN heavy sleep the Caliph lay,
When some one called, "Arise, and pray!"

The angry Caliph cried, "Who dare
Rebuke his king for slighted prayer?"

Then, from the corner of the room,

One time he put in Alexander the Great,
With the garment that Dorcas had made for a A voice cut sharply through the gloom :

weight;

And though clad in armor from sandals to crown,
The hero rose up, and the garment went down.

A long row of almshouses, amply endowed
By a well-esteemed Pharisee, busy and proud,
Next loaded one scale; while the other was pressed
By those mites the poor widow dropped into the
chest:

"My name is Satan. Rise! obey
Mohammed's law; awake, and pray."

"Thy words are good," the Caliph said,
"But their intent I somewhat dread.

For matters cannot well be worse

Than when the thief says, 'Guard your purse!'

POEMS OF TRAGEDY.

Have ! to the telling belis
In echoes dues and slow.
While on the breeze our bunsur floats
Draped in the weeds of wore.