THE PAUPER'S DRIVE.

189

Yet their country long shall mourn
For her ranks so rashly shorn,-
So gallantly, but madly shorn

In that fierce and fatal charge,
On the battle's bloody marge.

ALEXANDER B. MEEK.

The Pauper's Drive.

THERE 's a grim one-horse hearse in a jolly round trot
To the church-yard a pauper is going, I wot;
The road it is rough, and the hearse has no springs;
And hark to the dirge which the mad driver sings:

Rattle his bones over the stones !
He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns !

Oh, where are the mourners ? Alas! there are none-
He has left not a gap in the world, now he 's gone-
Not a tear in the eye of child, woman, or man;
To the grave with his carcass as fast as you can:

Rattle his bones over the stones !
He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns !

What a jolting, and creaking, and splashing, and din!
The whip, how it cracks! and the wheels, how they spin!
How the dirt, right and left, o'er the hedges is hurled !
The pauper at length makes a noise in the world !

Rattle his bones over the stones !

He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns !
Poor pauper defunct! he has made some approach
To gentility, now that he 's stretched in a coach!
He's taking a drive in his carriage at last;
But it will not be long, if he goes on so fast.

Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns !
You bumpkins, who stare at your brother conveyed,
Behold what respect to a cloddy is paid !

And be joyful to think, when by death you 're laid low,
You've a chance to the grave like a gemman to go!

Rattle his bones over the stones!
IIe 's only a pauper, whom nobody owns !

But truce to this strain; for my soul it is sad,
To think that a heart in humanity clad
Should make, like the brutes, such a desolate end,
And depart from the light without leaving a friend.

Bear soft his bones over the stones !
Though a pauper, he 's one whom his Maker yet owns !

Tuomas NOEL.

Florence Vane.

I LOVED thee long and dearly,

Florence Vane;
My life's bright dream and early

Hath come again ;
I renew in my fond vision

My heart's dear pain,
My hopes and thy derision,

Florence Vane!

The ruin, lone and hoary,

The ruin old,
Where thou didst hark my story,

At even told,
That spot, the hues elysian

Of sky and plain
I treasure in my vision,

Florence Vane!

Thou wast lovelier than the roses

In their prime;
Thy voice excelled the closes

Of sweetest rhyme;

THE DULE 'S I' THIS BONNET O' MINE.

191

Thy heart was as a river

Without a main,
Would I had loved thee never,

Florence Vane.

But fairest, coldest wonder!

Thy glorious clay
Lieth the green sod under;

Alas the day!
And it boots not to remember

Thy disdain,
To quicken love's pale ember,

Florence Vane!

The lilies of the valley

By young graves weep,
The daisies love to dally

Where maidens sleep,
May their bloom, in beauty vying,

Never wane
Where thine earthly part is lying,
Florence Vane.

PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE.

The Dule 's i' this Bonnet O' Mine.

The dule 's i' this bonnet o mine:

My ribbins 'll never be reet; Here, Mally, aw 'm like to be fine,

For Jamie 'll be comin' to-neet; He met me i'th' lone t’ other day

(Aw wur gooin' for wayter to th' well), An' he begged that aw 'd wed him i' May,

Bi th' mass, if he'll let me, aw will!

When he took my two honds into his,

Good Lord, heaw they trembled between!

An' aw durst n't look up in his face,

Becose on him seein' my e'en.
My cheek went as red as a rose;

There 's never a mortal con tell
Heaw happy aw felt,-for, thae knows,

One could n't ha' axed him theirsel'.

But th' tale wur at th' end o' my tung:

To let it eawt would n't be reet,
For aw thought to seem forrud wur wrong;

So aw towd him aw 'd tell him to-neet.
But, Mally, thae knows very weel,

Though it is n't a thing one should own, Iv aw 'd th' pikein' o'th' world to mysel',

Aw'd oather ha' Jamie or noan.

Neaw, Mally, aw 've towd thae my mind;

What would to do iv 't wur thee? “Aw 'd tak him just while he 's inclined,

An' a farrantly bargain he 'll be;
For Jamie 's as greadly a lad

As ever stept eawt into th' sun.
Go, jump at thy chance, an' get wed;

An' mak th' best o'th' job when it 's done!”

Eh, dear! but it's time to be gwon:

Aw should n't like Jamie to wait; Aw connut for shame be too soon,

An' aw would n't for th’ wuld be too late. Aw 'm o' ov a tremble to th' heel:

Dost think 'at my bonnet 'll do? “Be off, lass,—thae looks very weel; He wants noan o'th' bonnet, thae foo!”

Edwin WAUGH. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

193

Abraham Lincoln.

FIRST PUBLISHED IN PUNCH.

You lay a wreath on murdered Lincoln's bier,

You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace, Broad for the self-complacent British sneer,

His length of shambling limb, his furrowed face,

His gaunt, gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling hair,

His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease, His lack of all we prize as debonair,

Of power or will to shine, of art to please;

You, whose smart pen backed up the pencil's laugh,

Judging each step as though the way were plain; Reckless, so it could point its paragraph,

Of chief's perplexity or people's pain,

Beside this corpse, that bears for winding-sheet

The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew, Between the mourners at his head and feet,

Say, scurrile jester, is there room for you?

Yes: he had lived to shame me from my sneer,

To lame my pencil and confute my pen; To make me own this hind of princes peer,

This rail-splitter, a true-born king of men.

My shallow judgment I had learned to rue,

Noting how to occasion's height he rose;
How his quaint wit made home-truth seem more true;

How, iron-like, his temper grew by blows;

How humble, yet how hopeful he could be;

How in good fortune and in ill the same; Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he, Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame.