"Hold!" thunders out the warden,
Be pleased to pause a bit!
For seats celestial, let me say,
You're not apparelled fit :
Yonder's the brazen door that leads
Spectators to the pit !
"Whatever may be thought on earth,
We've other rules in heaven;
And only poverty confessed
Finds free admittance given !"
MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY.
HUMPTY DUMPTY.
"HUMPTY DUMPTY sat on a wall:
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall:
Not all the king's horses nor all the king's men
Could set Humpty Dumpty up again."
Full many a project that never was hatched
Falls down, and gets shattered beyond being
patched;
And luckily, too! for if all came to chickens,
Then things without feathers might go to the
dickens.
If each restless unit that moves among men
Might climb to a place with the privileged " ten,"
Pray tell us where all the commotion would stop!
Must the whole pan of milk, forsooth, rise to the
top?
If always the statesman attained to his hopes,
And grasped the great helm, who would stand by
the ropes ?
Or if all dainty fingers their duties might choose, Who would wash up the dishes, and polish the shoes?
Suppose every aspirant writing a book
Contrived to get published, by hook or by crook; Geologists then of a later creation
Would be startled, I fancy, to find a formation
Proving how the poor world did most woefully sink
Beneath mountains of paper, and oceans of ink!
Or even suppose all the women were married;
By whom would superfluous babies be carried?
Where would be the good aunts that should knit
all the stockings?
Or nurses, to do up the singings and rockings?
Wise spinsters, to lay down their wonderful rules,
And with theories rare to enlighten the fools,—
Or to look after orphans, and primary schools?
No! Failure's a part of the infinite plan;
Who finds that he can't, must give way to who
And as one and another drops out of the race,
Each stumbles at last to his suitable place.
So the great scheme works on,—though like eggs from the wall,
Little single designs to such ruin may fall,
That not the world's might, of its horses or men,
Could set their crushed hopes at the summit again.
SOLEMN he paced upon that schooner's deck,
And muttered of his hardships :-" I have been
Where the wild will of Mississippi's tide
Has dashed me on the sawyer ;—I have sailed
In the thick night, along the wave-washed edge
Of ice, in acres, by the pitiless coast
Of Labrador; and I have scraped my keel
O'er coral rocks in Madagascar seas-
And often in my cold and midnight watch,
Have heard the warning voice of the lee-shore
Speaking in breakers! Ay, and I have seen
The whale and sword-fish fight beneath my bows;
And, when they made the deep boil like a pot,
Have swung into its vortex; and I know
To cord my vessel with a sailor's skill,
And brave such dangers with a sailor's heart ;
-But never yet upon the stormy wave,
Or where the river mixes with the main,
Or in the chafing anchorage of the bay,
In all the rough experience of harm,
Met I-a Methodist meeting-house!
Cat-head, or beam, or davit has it none, Starboard nor larboard, gunwale, stem nor stern! It comes in such a "questionable shape,"
I cannot even speak it! Up jib, Josey,
And make for Bridgeport! There, where Strat
Long-Beach, Fairweather Island, and the buoy,
Are safe from such encounters, we'll protest!
And Yankee legends long shall tell the tale,
That once a Charleston schooner was beset,
Riding at anchor, by a Meeting-house."
“LE DERNIER JOUR D'UN CONDAMNÉ."
OLD coat, for some three or four seasons
We've been jolly comrades, but now
We part, old companion, forever ;
To fate, and the fashion, I bow.
You'd look well enough at a dinner,
I'd wear you with pride at a ball;
But I'm dressing to-night for a wedding-
My own-and you'd not do at all.
You've too many wine-stains about you,
You're scented too much with cigars,
When the gas-light shines full on your collar
It glitters with myriad stars,
That wouldn't look well at my wedding;
They'd seem inappropriate there—
Nell doesn't use diamond powder,
She tells me it ruins the hair.
You've been out on Cozzen's piazza
Too late, when the evenings were damp, When the moon-beams were silvering Cro'nest, And the lights were all out in the camp.
You've rested on highly-oiled stairways
Too often, when sweet eyes were bright,
And somebody's ball dress-not Nellie's-
Flowed 'round you in rivers of white.
There's a reprobate looseness about you;
Should I wear you to-night, I believe,
As I come with my bride from the altar,
You'd laugh in your wicked old sleeve,
When you felt there the tremulous pressure
Of her hand, in its delicate glove,
That is telling me shyly, but proudly,
Her trust is as deep as her love.
So, go to your grave in the wardrobe,
And furnish a feast for the moth,
Nell's glove shall betray its sweet secrets
To younger, more innocent cloth.
'Tis time to put on your successor―
It's made in a fashion that's new;
Old coat, I'm afraid it will never
Sit as easily on me as you.
THE night was thick and hazy
When the "Piccadilly Daisy"
Carried down the crew and Captain in the sea;
And I think the water drowned 'em,
For they never, never found 'em,
And I know they didn't come ashore with me.
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