U

HUMOROUS POEMS.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. | And thence I date my contempt for Asses,

And my deep respect for the Devil's Tail !
WHERE, 0, where are the visions of morning,
Fresh as the dews of our prime ?

II.
Gone, like tenants that quit without warning, I shall never forget the exquisite feeling
Down the back entry of time.

Of elevation, sans thought, sans care,

When I twisted my tail round the wood's bough. Where, 0, where are life's lilies and roses,

ceiling, Nursed in the golden dawn's smile ?

And swung, meditatively, in the air. — Dead as the bulrushes round little Moses,

There's an advantage !- Fairer shapes can On the old banks of the Nile.

Aspire, yearn upward, tremble and glow, Where are the Marys, and Anns, and Elizas,

But, by means of their posteriority, apes can

Look down on aspirants that walk below!
Loving and lovely of yore?
Look in the columns of old Advertisers, –

III.
Married and dead by the score.

There was a life for a calm philosopher,

Self-supplied with jacket and trousers and Where the gray colts and the ten-year-old fillies,

socks, Saturday's triumph and joy?

Nothing to learn, no hopes to get cross over, Gone like our friend Tóðas waús Achilles, A head that resisted the hardest knocks, Homer's ferocious old boy.

Liquor and meat in serene fruition,

A random income from taxes free, Die-away dreams of ecstatic emotion,

No cares at all, and but one ambition, Hopes like young eagles at play,

To swing by the Tail to the bough of a tree ! Vows of unheard-of and endless devotion,

IV. How ye have faded away!

Whence I firmly believe, to the consternation Yet, though the ebbing of Time's mighty river Of puppies who think monkeyosophy sin, Leave our young blossoms to die,

In gradual human degeneration Let him roll smooth in his current forever, And a general apely origin. Till the last pebble is dry.

Why, the simple truth 's in a nutshell or thimble,

Though it rouses the monkey in ignorant elves;
And the Devil's Tail is a delicate symbol

Of apehood predominant still in ourselves.
METEMPSYCHOSIS.

V.
ROSALIND. Look here what I found on a palm-tree: I was Pure class government, family glory,
never so be-rhymed since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish
rat, which I can hardly remember.- AS YOU LIKE IT.

My politics were serenely Tory,

And I claimed old descent from Heaven knows I DISTINCTLY remember(and who dares doubt me?)

what : Having been (now, I care not who believes !) Whence I boast extraction loftier, nobler, An ape with a forest around about me,

Than the beggarly Poets one often meets, Prodigious trees and enormous leaves,

A boast I am happy to share with the cobbler Great bulks of flowers, gigantic grasses,

Who whisked his Tail out, – to whip John Boughs that bent not to any gale ;

Keats.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

i

I.

VI.

THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE There was a life, I assever! With reasons

KNIFE-GRINDER. That lead me to scorn every star-gazing Ass;

FRIEND OF HUMANITY. And because I loved it, at certain seasons 'T is a pleasure to gaze in the looking-glass.

NEEDY knife-grinder! whither are you going! When the bright sun beckons the spring, green

Rough is the road ; your wheel is out of order. dečkt, up,

Bleak blows the blast ; — your hat has got a hole The Ape swells within me ; whenever I see

in 't; Mortals look skyward, walking erect up,

So have your breeches ! . I long for a Tail and a large strong Tree!

Weary knife-grinder ! little think the proud ones, ROBERT BUCHANAN.

Who in their coaches roll along the turnpikeroad, what hard work 't is crying all day - Knives

and THE UNIVERSITY OF GOTTINGEN.

Scissors to grind 0!'
BY ONE ELEVEN YEARS IN PRISON.
SONG BY ROGERO IN "THE ROVERS."

Tell me, knife-grinder, how came you to grind WHENE'ER with haggard eyes I view

knives? This dungeon that I'm rotting in,

Did some rich man tyrannically use you? I think of those companions true

Was it the squire ? or parson of the parish ? Who studied with me at the U.

Or the attorney ?
niversity of Gottingen,
niversity of Gottingen.

Was it the squire for killing of his game ? or

Covetous parson for his tithes distraining? (Weeps, and pulls out a blue kerchief, with which he wipes

Des Or roguish lawyer made you lose your little his eyes; gazing tenderly at it, he proceeds:]

• All in a lawsuit ? Sweet kerchief, checked with heavenly blue,

Which once my love sat knotting in — |(Have you not read the Rights of Man, by Tom Alas, Matilda then was true !

Paine ?) At least I thought so at the U.

Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids, niversity of Gottingen, Ready to fall as soon as you have told your niversity of Gottingen.

Pitiful story. Barbs ! barbs ! alas ! how swift you flew,

KNIFE-GRINDER. Her neat post-wagon trotting in !

Story! God bless you ! I have none to tell, sir; Ye bore Matilda from my view;

| Only, last night, a-drinking at the Chequers, Forlorn I languished at the U. niversity of Gottingen, 1"

| This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were

Torn in a scuffle. niversity of Gottingen. This faded form ! this pallid hue !

Constables came up for to take me into This blood my veins is clotting in !

Custody ; they took me before the justice; My years are many, — they were few

Justice Oldmixon put me in the parishWhen first I entered at the U.

stocks for a vagrant. niversity of Gottingen, I should be glad to drink your honor's health in niversity of Gottingen.

A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence; There first for thee my passion grew,

| But for my part, I never love to meddle Sweet, sweet Matilda Pottingen!

With politics, sir. Thou wast the daughter of my tutor, law-professor at the U.

FRIEND OF HUMANITY. niversity of Gottingen, I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned niversity of Gottingen.

first, -

| Wretch ! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to Sun, moon, and thou, vain world, adieu,

vengeance, That kings and priests are plotting in;

Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded, Here doomed to starve on water gru

Spiritless outcast ! el, never shall I see the U.

niversity of Gottingen,

noon [Kicks the knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, anderi

", in a transport of republican enthusiasm and universal niversity of Gottingen. philanthropy.)

GEORGE CANNING.

GEORGE CAXNING