TO A FAIR FRIEND IN A FOREIGN LAND. (Written in response to a Yule-time greeting received from her after a silence of many years.) OF all good Yule-time glee, On the kind wishes wafted me Think, then, with what a joy A joy caused less by what my eye Once more I seem to be Watching thy tell-tale sigh; Thy wealth of golden hair, And O, thy witching face!— To me time makes no change whate'er I own it not o'erwise To speak this way,—but then, Myself and thee between, A gulf not yet o'erwide To make it sinful be To thus recall, with loving pride, TO THE SAME FRIEND ON A SIMILAR OCCASION. A GREETING wafted o'er the sea Though only when 'tis one from thee The long ago revives again— That, spite of fate, not all in vain Again I seem to hear that voice Again a thousand graces choice Thus, basking in thy maiden charms, But I forget myself, I fear, Thus of past memories chiming; THE WELLINGTON ST. PEACOCK. A MIDNIGHT-SOLILOQUY. If there's a torture one may deem Of my near neighbour's Peacock. I often wish that "goblin damned " Sure they who own this midnight grief Must be most hopelessley stone-deaf, Else, to their neighbours' great relief, They'd quickly cook that Peacock. Talk not to me of shrieking ghoul, Hark! there he comes! In vain I try None thinks of near that Peacock. From roof to roof, close o'er one's nose, Vain torturer! he minds me well At dawning's, hour 'tis no rare case For all the wealth of all the Jews I would not stand in that man's shoes O, for one hour where Maxwell* rare May 6th, 1873. *The then City Magistrate of Kingston. THE TANDYS. (The following poetical tribute to the Canadian vocalists, popularly known as "The Tandy Brothers," was written for, and read at a concert at which they were the leading singers.) EARTH'S purest pleasure, and I trow, that of the worlds beyond us, Is music in its sweetest flow-such music as the Tandy's. CHORUS,―The ever, ever charming, clever, As fit and right, let's all to-night Sing honour to the Tandys! To some, a joy-I know not why-the Babel of a band is, But give to me the ecstacy of listening to the Tandys. I love right well the Pipe's grand swell, as each truehearted man does, Yet must I own, though "Mac" may frown, tis nothing to the Tandys. What would our brightest concerts seem without the aid they lend us? The play of Hamlet wanting him would be to miss the Tandys. All will agree that Kennedy at Scotch songs extra grand is, But for a feast of all things best, there's none to match the Tandys! |