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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,
Mine ever most depends

On the kind wishes wafted me
From far-off, long-loved friends.

Think, then, with what a joy
I read thy greeting rare,—

A joy caused less by what my eye
Than what my heart found there.

Once more I seem to be

Watching thy tell-tale sigh;
Once more I mark with ecstasy
The love-light in thine eye,—

Thy wealth of golden hair,

And O, thy witching face!—

To me time makes no change whate'er
In their exceeding grace.

I own it not o'erwise

To speak this way,—but then,
I ne'er forget the gulf that lies

Myself and thee between,

A gulf not yet o'erwide

To make it sinful be

To thus recall, with loving pride,
All thou wert once to me.

TO THE SAME FRIEND

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION.

A GREETING wafted o'er the sea
I always value dearly,

Though only when 'tis one from thee
The joy upsets me fairly.

The long ago revives again—
I cannot help but feel

That, spite of fate, not all in vain
I loved thee-love thee still!

Again I seem to hear that voice
Which once could so enthral me;

Again a thousand graces choice
To love and rapture call me.

Thus, basking in thy maiden charms,
To crown my sum of blisses,
Fond fancy paints thee in my arms,
Half-smothered by my kisses!

But I forget myself, I fear,

Thus of past memories chiming;
So, lest my muse should further err,
I now must end my rhyming.

THE WELLINGTON ST. PEACOCK.

A MIDNIGHT-SOLILOQUY.

If there's a torture one may deem
Transcending Dante's wildest dream,
It is to hear the horrid scream

Of my near neighbour's Peacock.

I often wish that "goblin damned "
With poison to the throat was crammed,
Or in some fox's jaws well jammed :
The d-l take that Peacock!

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,
Or howling wolf or hooting owl;
Such noise were music to my soul,
Matched with this fiendish Peacock.

Hark! there he comes! In vain I try
To shut my ears that villain nigh;
As for the shutting of an eye

None thinks of near that Peacock.

From roof to roof, close o'er one's nose,
"Making night hideous" he goes;
Enough to break the dead's repose
Were that unhallowed Peacock.

Vain torturer! he minds me well
Of many a would-be-vocal swell
Who thinks himself a nightingale
When only but a Peacock.

At dawning's, hour 'tis no rare case
To see the "Chief" and Mac a space
Out in their night-gowns in full chase
And swearing at that Peacock.

For all the wealth of all the Jews

I would not stand in that man's shoes
O'er whose head hangs each curse they use,
Stone-pelting that dread Peacocck.

O, for one hour where Maxwell* rare
Doth law's dread thunderbolts prepare,
And Jove-like hurls!-then quick nowhere
Would be that wretched Peacock.

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,
All-delighting Tandys!

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!

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