They fought by good St. Catharine, 't was a fearsome sight to see

The coal-black crest, the glowering orbs, of one gigantic He!

Like bow by some tall bowman bent at Hastings or Poictiers,

His huge back curved, till none observed a vestige of his ears:

He stood, an ebon crescent, flouting yon ivory

moon;

Then raised the pibroch of his race, the Song without a Tune:

Gleamed his white teeth, his mammoth tail waved darkly to and fro,

As with one complex yell he burst, all claws, upon the foe.

It thrills me now, that final Miaow-that weird unearthly din:

Lone maidens heard it far away, and leaped out of their skin.

A pot-boy from his den o'erhead peeped with a scared, wan face;

Then sent a random brickbat down, which knocked me into space.

The farmer's daughter hath ripe red lips
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese);
If you try to approach her, away she skips
Over tables and chairs with apparent ease.

The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese); And I met with a ballad, I can't say where, Which wholly consisted of lines like these.

PART II.

She sat with her hands 'neath her dimpled cheeks
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese),
And spake not a word. While a lady speaks
There is hope, but she didn't even sneeze.

She sat with her hands 'neath her crimson checks
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese);
She gave up mending her father's breeks,

And let the cat roll in her best chemise.

She sat with her hands 'neath her burning cheeks (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese), And gazed at the piper for thirteen weeks;

Then she followed him out o'er the misty leas.

Her sheep followed her, as their tails did them
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese);
And this song is considered a perfect gem,
And as to the meaning, it's what you please.

THE SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD WITH HIS SON.

O WHAT harper could worthily harp it,
Mine Edward! this wide-stretching wold
(Look out wold) with its wonderful carpet
Of emerald, purple, and gold!
Look well at it-also look sharp, it
Is getting so cold.

The purple is heather (erica);

The yellow, gorse-called sometimes "whin."
Cruel boys on its prickles might spike a
Green beetle as if on a pin.

You may roll in it, if you would like a
Few holes in your skin.

You would n't? Then think of how kind you
Should be to the insects who crave
Your compassion-and then, look behind you
At yon barley-ears! Don't they look brave
As they undulate?-(undulate, mind you,
From unda, a wave).

The noise of those sheep-bells, how faint it
Sounds here-(on account of our height)!
And this hillock itself-who could paint it,
With its changes of shadow and light?
Is it not-(never, Eddy, say "ain't it ")-
A marvellous sight?

Then yon desolate eerie morasses,

The haunts of the snipe and the hern (I shall question the two upper classes On aquatiles when we return)

Why, I see on them absolute masses Of filix or fern.

How it interests e'en a beginner

(Or tyro) like dear little Ned! Is he listening? As I am a sinner

He's asleep-he is wagging his head. Wake up! I'll go home to my dinner, And you to your bed.

The boundless ineffable prairie;

The splendor of mountain and lake With their hues that seem ever to vary; The mighty pine-forests which shake In the wind, and in which the unwary May tread on a snake;

And this wold with its heathery garment-
Are themes undeniably great.

But although there is not any harm in 't-
It's perhaps little good to dilate
On their charms to a dull little varmint
Of seven or eight.

UNDER THE TREES.

663

"UNDER the trees!" Who but agrees
That there is magic in words such as these?
Promptly one sees shake in the breeze
Stately lime-avenues haunted of bees:
Where, looking far over butter-cupped leas,
Lads and "fair shes" (that is Byron, and he's
An authority) lie very much at their ease;
Taking their teas, or their duck and green peas,
Or, if they prefer it, their plain bread and cheese:
Not objecting at all, though it's rather a squeeze
And the glass is I dare say at eighty degrees.
Some get up glees, and are mad about Ries
And Sainton, and Tamberlik's thrilling high Cs;
Or if painter, hold forth upon Hunt and Maclise,
And the tone and the breadth of that landscape
of Lee's;

Or if learned, on nodes and the moon's apogees,
Or, if serious, on something of AKHB's,

Or the latest attempt to convert the Chaldees; Or in short about all things, from earthquakes to fleas.

Some sit in twos or (less frequently) threes, With their innocent lamb's-wool or book on their

SHE laid it where the sunbeams fall
Unscanned upon the broken wall.
Without a tear, without a groan,
She laid it near a mighty stone,
Which some rude swain had haply cast
Thither in sport, long ages past,
And Time with mosses had o'erlaid,
And fenced with many a tall grass-blade,
And all about bid roses bloom
And violets shed their soft perfume.
There, in its cool and quiet bed,
She set her burden down and fled:
Nor flung, all eager to escape,
One glance upon the perfect shape
That lay, still warm and fresh and fair,
But motionless and soundless there.

No human eye had marked her pass
Across the linden-shadowed grass
Ere yet the minster-clock chimed seven :
Only the innocent birds of heaven-
The magpie, and the rook whose nest
Swings as the elm-tree waves his crest-
And the lithe cricket, and the hoar

And huge-limbed hound that guards the door,
Looked on when, as a summer wind
That, passing, leaves no trace behind,

All unaparelled, barefoot all,

She ran to that old ruined wall
To leave upon the chill dank earth
(For ah! she never knew its worth)
'Mid hemlock rank, and fern, and ling,
And dews of night, that precious thing!

And there it might have lain forlorn
From morn till eve, from eve to morn:
But that, by some wild impulse led,
The mother, ere she turned and fled,
One moment stood erect and high;
Then poured into the silent sky
A cry so jubilant, so strange,
That Alice-as she strove to range
Her rebel ringlets at her glass-
Sprang up and gazed across the grass;
Shook back those curls so fair to see,
Clapped her soft hands in childish glee;
And shrieked-her sweet face all aglow,
Her very limbs with rapture shaking-
"My hen has laid an egg, I know;

And only hear the noise she's making!"

FLIGHT.

O MEMORY! that which I gave thee
To guard in thy garner yestreen-
Little deeming thou e'er couldst behave thee
Thus basely-hath gone from thee clean!
Gone, fled, as ere autumn is ended

The yellow leaves flee from the oak-
I have lost it forever, my splendid
Original joke.

What was it? I know I was brushing
My hair when the notion occurred:
I know that I felt myself blushing

As I thought, "How supremely absurd! How they'll hammer on floor and on table As its drollery dawns on them-how They will quote it "-I wish I were able To quote it just now.

I had thought to lead up conversation
To the subject-it's easily done-
Then let off, as an airy creation

Of the moment, that masterly pun.
Let it off, with a flash like a rocket's;
In the midst of a dazzled conclave,
While I sat, with my hands in my pockets,
The only one grave.

I had fancied young Titterton's chuckles,
And old Bottleby's hearty guffaws
As he drove at my ribs with his knuckles,
His mode of expressing applause:
While Jean Bottleby-queenly Miss Janet-
Drew her handkerchief hastily out,
In fits at my slyness-what can it
Have all been about?

Did it hinge upon "parting asunder?"
No, I don't part my hair with my brush.
Was the point of it "hair?" Now I wonder!
Stop a bit-I shall think of it-hush!
There's hare, a wild animal.-Stuff!
It was something a deal more recondite:
Of that I am certain enough;

And of nothing beyond it.

Hair locks! There are probably many
Good things to be said about those.
Give me time-that's the best guess of any-
"Lock" has several meanings, one knows.

Iron locks-iron-gray locks-a "deadlock"

That would set up an every-day wit: Then of course there's the obvious" wedlock;" But that was n't it.

No! mine was a joke for the ages;

Full of intricate meaning and pith; A feast for your scholars and sagesHow it would have rejoiced Sydney Smith! 'Tis such thoughts that ennoble a mortal; And, singling him out from the herd, Fling wide immortality's portal

But what was the word?

Ah me! 't is a bootless endeavor.

As the flight of a bird of the air

Is the flight of a joke-you will never

See the same one again, you may swear.

'T was my first-born, and oh! how I prized it!
My darling, my treasure, my own!
This brain and none other devised it-
And now it has flown,

LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION.

IN moss-pranked deils which the sunbeams flatter (And heaven it knoweth what that may mean; Meaning, however, is no great matter),

Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween;

Through God's own heather we wonned together, I and my Willie (O love my love):

I need hardly remark it was glorious weather, And flitterbats wavered alow, above:

Boats were curtseying, rising, bowing,
(Boats in that climate are so polite),
And sands were a ribbon of green endowing,
And oh, the sun-dazzle on bark and bight!

Through the rare red heather we danced together,
(0 love my Willie!) and smelt for flowers:
I must mention again it was gorgeous weather,
Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours:

By rises that flushed with their purple favors, Through becks that brattled o'er grasses sheen We walked or waded, we two young shavers, Thanking our stars we were both so green.

We journeyed in parallels, I and Willie,
In fortunate parallels! Butterflies,
Hid in weltering shadows of daffodilly
Or marjoram, kept making peacock-eyes:

Song-birds darted about, some inky

As coal, some snowy (I ween) as curds; Or rosy as pinks, or as roses pinky

They reck of no eerie To-come, those birds!

But they skim over bents which the mill-stream

washes,

Or hand in the lift 'neath a white cloud's hem; They need no parasols, no goloshes;

And good Mrs. Trimmer she feedeth them.

665

You see this pebble-stone? It's a thing I bought
Of a bit of a chit of a boy i' the mid o' the day-
I like to dock the smaller parts-o'-speech,
As we curtail the already cur-tailed cur
(You catch the paronomasia, play o' words?)-
Did, rather, i' the pre-Landseerian days.
Well, to my muttons. I purchased the concern,
And clapped it i' my poke, and gave for same
By way, to wit, of barter or exchange-
Chop"

was my snickering dandiprat's own

term

One shilling and fourpence, current coin o' the realm.

O-n-e one and f-o-u-r four

Pence, one and fourpence-you are with me,

sir?

What hour it skills not: ten or eleven o' the

clock,

One day (and what a roaring day it was!)
In February, eighteen sixty-nine,
Alexandrina Victoria, Fidei-

Hm-hm-how runs the jargon?-being on throne.

Such, sir, are all the facts, succinctly put, The basis or substratum-what you willOf the impending eighty thousand lines.