To those who on the hills around Some vast, stupendous sacrifice! His nether bulk embraced; Then jacket thick, of red or blue, Whose massy shoulder gave to view The badge of each respective crew, In tin or copper traced. The engines thundered through the street, The Hand-in-Hand the race began, The Eagle, where the new; With these came Rumford, Bumford, Cole, Crump from St. Giles's Pound: Before the plug was found. Of Bridewell's gloomy mound! For fear the roof should fall. Back, Robins, back! Crump, stand aloof! And Eagle firemen knew 'T was Joseph Muggins, name revered, And poured the hissing tide: He tottered, sunk, and died! Did none attempt, before he fell, His brother chief to save; Served but to share his grave! But sulphury stench and boiling drench, Still o'er his head, while Fate he braved, A fireman, and afraid of bumps!· What are they feared on? fools! 'od rot 'em!" Were the last words of Higginbottom. Touched by the lamplighter's Promethean art, At first, while vacant seats give choice and ease, Now the full benches to late-comers doom No room for standing, miscalled standing room. Hark! the check-taker moody silence breaks, And bawling "Pit full!" gives the check he takes; Yet onward still the gathering numbers cram, Contending crowders shout the frequent damn, And all is bustle, squeeze, row, jabbering, and jam. See to their desks Apollo's sons repair,' - Till, like great Jove, the leader, figuring in, Bankers from Paper Buildings here resort, more; Till some Samaritan the twopence spares, Critics we boast who ne'er their malice balk, But talk their minds, we wish they'd mind their talk; Big-worded bullies, who by quarrels live,— Yet here, as elsewhere, Chance can joy bestow, For scowling Fortune seemed to threaten woe. John Richard William Alexander Dwyer Was footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire; But when John Dwyer listed in the Blues, Emanuel Jennings polished Stubbs's shoes. Now all seems hushed, but, no, one fiddle will Emanuel Jennings brought his youngest boy Give, half ashamed, a tiny flourish still. Perchance, while pit and gallery cry "Hats off!" And awed Consumption checks his chided cough, Some giggling daughter of the Queen of Love He who, in quest of quiet, "Silence!" hoots, What various swains our motley walls contain!Fashion from Moorfields, honor from Chick Lane; Up as a corn-cutter, a safe employ ; In Holy-well Street, St. Pancras, he was bred (At number twenty-seven, it is said), Facing the pump, and near the Granby's Head; He would have bound him to some shop in town, But with a premium he could not come down. a red-haired youth, Pat was the urchin's name, Fonder of purl and skittle grounds than truth. Silence, ye gods! to keep your tongues in awe, The Muse shall tell an accident she saw. Pat Jennings in the upper gallery sat, But, leaning forward, Jennings lost his hat: Down from the gallery the beaver flew, How shall he act? Pay at the gallery-door And spurned the one to settle in the two. Two shillings for what cost, when new, but four! Or till half-price, to save his shilling, wait, And gain his hat again at half past eight? Now, while his fears anticipate a thief, John Mullens whispers, "Take my handkerchief." "Thank you," cries Pat; "but one won't make a line." "Take mine," cried Wilson; and cried Stokes, "Take mine." A motley cable soon Pat Jennings ties, THE CATARACT OF LODORE. DESCRIBED IN RHYMES FOR THE NURSERY. "How does the water Come down at Lodore?" My little boy asked me Thus, once on a time; And moreover he tasked me To tell him in rhyme. Anon at the word, There first came one daughter, And then came another, To second and third The request of their brother, Comes down at Lodore, For their recreation From its sources which well In the tarn on the fell; From its fountains Through moss and through brake, It runs and it creeps And away it proceeds, Helter-skelter, Hurry-skurry. Here it comes sparkling, And there it lies darkling; Now smoking and frothing Its tumult and wrath in, Till in this rapid race On which it is bent, It reaches the place Of its steep descent. The cataract strong Its caverns and rocks among; Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound. Collecting, projecting, And rattling and battling, And glittering and frittering, And gathering and feathering, And whitening and brightening, And quivering and shivering, And thundering and floundering ; Dividing and gliding and sliding, And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling, Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting, Delaying and straying and playing and spraying, Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing, Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling, And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming, And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing, And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping, Wildly he started, for there in the heavens before him Fluttered and flew the original star-spangled banner. Two objections are in the way of the acceptance of this anthera by the committee: in the first place, it is not an anthem at all; sec. ondly, it is a gross plagiarism from an old Sclavonic war-song of the primeval ages. Next we quote from a NATIONAL ANTHEM. BY THE HON. EDWARD E, OF BOSTON. PONDEROUS projectiles, hurled by heavy hands, Her temple's propylon was shatter-ed ; Yet, thanks to saving Grace and Washington, Her incubus was from her bosom hurled; And, rising like a cloud-dispelling sun, She took the oil with which her hair was curled To grease the "hub" round which revolves the world. This fine production is rather heavy for an "anthem," and contains too much of Boston to be considered strictly national. To set such an "anthem" to music would require a Wagner; and even were it And curling and whirling and purling and really accommodated to a tune, it could only be whistled by the twirling, And thumping and plumping and bumping and populace. We now come to a NATIONAL ANTHEM. BY JOHN GREENLEAF W. My native land, thy Puritanic stock Preserv-ed Fish, the Deacon stern and true, The sectional bias of this "anthem" renders it unsuitable for use in that small margin of the world situated outside of New England. Hence the above must be rejected. Here we have a very curious NATIONAL ANTHEM. BY DR. OLIVER WENDELL H BACK in the years when Phlagstaff, the Dane, A DIAGNOSIS of our history proves was monarch Our native land a land its native loves; Over the sea-ribbed land of the fleet-footed Its birth a deed obstetric without peer, Norsemen, Once there went forth young Ursa to gaze at the heavens, Ursa, the noblest of all Vikings and horsemen. Its growth a source of wonder far and near. To love it more, behold how foreign shores Sink into nothingness beside its stores. Hyde Park at best though counted ultra grand — Musing he sat in his stirrups and viewed the The "Boston Common" of Victoria's landhorizon, The committee must not be blamed for rejecting the above after Where the Aurora lapt stars in a north-polar reading thus far, for such an "anthem" could only be sung by a manner; college of surgeons or a Beacon Street tea-party. Turn we now to a NATIONAL ANTHEM. BY N. P. W. ONE hue of our flag is taken From the cheeks of my blushing pet, And its stars beat time and sparkle Like the studs on her chemisette. Its blue is the ocean shadow And still for a Union flies. Several members of the committee find that this anthem has too much of the Anacreon spice to suit them. We next peruse a NATIONAL ANTHEM. BY THOMAS BAILEY A. THE little brown squirrel hops in the corn, The cricket quaintly sings; The emerald pigeon nods his head, And the shad in the river springs ; The dainty sunflower hangs its head On the shore of the summer sea; And better far that I were dead, If Maud did not love me. I love the squirrel that hops in the corn, I love the dainty sunflower, too, I love them all; but I love - I love - This is certainly very beautiful, and sounds somewhat like Tennyson. Though it may be rejected by the committee, it can never lose its value as a piece of excellent reading for children. It is calculated to fill the youthful mind with patriotism and natural his tory, beside touching the youthful heart with an emotion palpitat ing for all. We close the list with the following: |