I've murdered insects with mock thunder:
Conscience, for that, in men don't quail.
I've made bread from the bump of wonder:
That's my business, and there's my tale.
Fashion and rank all praised the professor:
Ay! and I've had my smile from the Queen: “
Bravo, Jerry! she meant: God bless her!
Ain't this a sermon on that scene?

I've studied men from my topsy-turvy
Close, and, I reckon, rather true.

Some are fine fellows: some, right scurvy:
Most, a dash between the two.

But it's a woman, old girl, that makes me
Think more kindly of the race:

And it's a woman, old girl, that shakes me
When the Great Juggler I must face.

We two were married, due and legal:
Honest we've lived since we've been one.
Lord! I could then jump like an eagle:
You danced bright as a bit o' the sun.
Birds in a May-bush we were! right merry!
All night we kiss'd, we juggled all day.
Joy was the heart of Juggling Jerry!
Now from his old girl he's juggled away.

It's past parsons to console us:

No, nor no doctor fetch for me:

I can die without my bolus; 5

Two of a trade, lass, never agree!

Parson and Doctor!-don't they love rarely,
Fighting the devil in other men's fields!
Stand up yourself and match him fairly:
Then see how the rascal yields!

5. Bolus. A large pill, as for a horse. without the aid of a doctor.

4

He means he can die

I, lass, have lived no gipsy, flaunting
Finery while his poor helpmate grubs:
Coin I've stored, and you won't be wanting:
You sha'n't beg from the troughs and tubs.
Nobly you've stuck to me, though in his kitchen
Many a Marquis would hail you Cook!
Palaces you could have ruled and grown rich in,
But your old Jerry you never forsook.

Hand up the chirper! ripe ale winks in it;
Let's have comfort and be at peace.

Once a stout draught made me light as a linnet.
Cheer up the Lord must have his lease.
May be for none see in that black hollow—
It's just a place where we're held in pawn,
And, when the Great Juggler makes as to swallow,
It's just the sword-trick-I ain't quite gone.

Yonder came smells of the gorse, so nutty,
Gold-like and warm: it's the prime of May.
Better than mortar, brick, and putty,
Is God's house on a blowing day.

Lean me more up the mound; now I feel it:
All the old heath-smells! Ain't it strange?
There's the world laughing, as if to conceal it!
But He's by us, juggling the change.

I mind it well, by the sea-beach lying,

Once-it's long gone-when two gulls we beheld, Which, as the moon got up, were flying

Down a big wave that sparked and swelled. Crack went a gun: one fell: the second

-

Wheeled round him twice, and was off for new luck: There in the dark her white wing beckon'd:Drop me a kiss-I'm the bird dead-struck!

6. Chirper. A vessel containing ale.

74

PAN IN WALL STREET 1

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN

Just where the Treasury's marble front
Looks over Wall Street's 2 mingled nations;
Where Jews and Gentiles most are wont
To throng for trade and last quotations;
Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold
Outrival, in the ears of people,
The quarter-chimes, serenely tolled

3

From Trinity's undaunted steeple,

Even there I heard a strange, wild strain
Sound high above the modern clamor,
Above the cries of greed and gain,

The curbstone war, the auction's hammer;
And swift, on Music's misty ways,
It led, from all this strife for millions,
To ancient, sweet-do-nothing days
Among the kirtle-robed Sicilians.

And as it stilled the multitude,

And yet more joyous rose, and shriller,
I saw the minstrel where he stood

At ease against a Doric pillar:
One hand a droning organ played,

The other held a Pan's-pipe (fashioned
Like those of old) to lips that made

The reeds give out that strain impassioned.

1. Pan. The Greek god of pastures, flocks, and forests; usually represented with the head and body of a man and the horns, ears, and legs of a goat.

2. Wall Street. The chief financial center of the United States. 3. Trinity. A church almost in the, heart of the financial district of New York.

'T was Pan himself had wandered here
A-strolling through this sordid city,
And piping to the civic ear

The prelude of some pastoral ditty!
The demigod had crossed the seas,-

From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr,
And Syracusan times,-to these

Far shores and twenty centuries later.

A ragged cap was on his head;
But-hidden thus-there was no doubting
That, all with crispy locks o'erspread,

His gnarlèd horns were somewhere sprouting;
His club-feet, cased in rusty shoes,

Were crossed, as on some frieze you see them,
And trousers patched of divers hues,

Concealed his crooked shanks beneath them.

He filled the quivering reeds with sound,
And o'er his mouth their changes shifted,
And with his goat's-eyes looked around
Where'er the passing current drifted;
And soon, as on Trinacrian hills 4

The nymphs and herdsmen ran to hear him,
Even now the tradesmen from their tills,

With clerks and porters, crowded near him.

6

The bulls 5 and bears together drew

From Jauncey Court and New Street Alley,
As erst, if pastorals be true,

Came beasts from every wooded valley;

4. Trinacrian hills. The hills of Sicily.

5. Bulls. A term applied to those who push prices up in the stock market

0. bears. Those who try to lower the price of stocks.

And random passers stayed to list,—
A boxer Egon, rough and merry,
A Broadway Daphnis, on his tryst
With Nais at the Brooklyn Ferry.

8

A one-eyed Cyclops 10 halted long
In tattered cloak of army pattern,
And Galatea 11 joined the throng,—

A blowsy apple-vending slattern;
While old Silenus 12 staggered out

From some new-fangled lunch-house handy,
And bade the piper, with a shout,

To strike up Yankee Doodle Dandy!

A newsboy and a peanut-girl

Like little Fauns 13 began to caper;
His hair was all in tangled curl,

Her tawny legs were bare and taper;
And still the gathering larger grew,
And gave its pence and crowded nigher,
While aye the shepherd-minstrel blew
His pipe, and struck the gamut higher.

O heart of Nature, beating still

With throbs her vernal passion taught her,—
Even here, as on the vine-clad hill,

Or by the Arethusan 14 water!

7. Aegon. A fabulous giant.

Daphnis. A beautiful Sicilian shepherd.

Nais. A water nymph.

3.

9.

Savage, one-eyed giants.

11. Galatea. A sea nymph.

12. Silenus.

The foster father of Bacchus, god of wine and revelry.

13. Fauns. Rural deities, half goat, half man.

Arethusan.

14. into a stream.

From Arethusa, a wood nymph who was changed