IF YOU HAVE SEEN

GOOD reader! if you e'er have seen,
When Phoebus hastens to his pillow,
The mermaids, with their tresses green,
Dancing upon the western billow:
If you have seen, at twilight dim,
When the lone spirit's vesper hymn

Floats wild along the winding shore:
If you have seen, through mist of eve,
The fairy train their ringlets weave,
Glancing along the spangled green;-
If you have seen all this and more,
God bless me! what a deal you've seen!

Thomas Moore.

CIRCUMSTANCE

THE ORANGE

Ir ripen'd by the river banks,

Where, mask and moonlight aiding, Dons Blas and Juan play their pranks, Dark Donnas serenading.

By Moorish damsel it was pluck'd,
Beneath the golden day there;

By swain 'twas then in London suck'd-
Who flung the peel away there.

He could not know in Pimlico,
As little she in Seville,

That I should reel upon that peel,

And-wish them at the devil!

Frederick Locker-Lampson.

Optimism

ELEGY

THE jackals prowl, the serpents hiss
In what was once Persepolis.
Proud Babylon is but a trace
Upon the desert's dusty face.
The topless towers of Ilium
Are ashes. Judah's harp is dumb.
The fleets of Nineveh and Tyre
Are down with Davy Jones, Esquire
And all the oligarchies, kings,
And potentates that ruled these things
Are gone! But cheer up; don't be sad;
Think what a lovely time they had!

445

Arthur Guiterman.

OUR TRAVELLER

If thou would'st stand on Etna's burning brow,
With smoke above, and roaring flame below;
And gaze adown that molten gulf reveal'd,
Till thy soul shudder'd and thy senses reel'd:
If thou wouldst beard Niag'ra in his pride,
Or stem the billows of Propontic tide;
Scale all alone some dizzy Alpine haut,
And shriek "Excelsior!" among the snow:

Would'st tempt all deaths, all dangers that may be-
Perils by land, and perils on the sea;

This vast round world, I say, if thou wouldst view it— Then, why the dickens don't you go and do it?

Henry Cholmondeley-Pennell.

OPTIMISM

Be brave, faint heart,

The dough shall yet be cake;

Be strong, weak heart,

The butter is to come.

Some cheerful chance will right the apple-cart,

The devious pig will gain the lucky mart,

Loquacity be dumb,

Collapsed the fake.

Be brave, faint heart!

Be strong, weak heart,

The path will be made plain;

Be brave, faint heart,

The bore will crawl away.

The upside down will turn to right side up,
The stiffened lip compel that slipping cup,
The doldrums of the day

Be brave, faint heart,

The jelly means to jell;

Be strong, weak heart,

The hopes are in the malt.

The wrong side in will yet turn right side out,
The long-time lost come down yon cormorant spout.
Life still is worth her salt:

What ends well's well.

Be brave, faint heart!

Newton Mackintosh.

THE DECLARATION

"TWAS late, and the gay company was gone,
And light lay soft on the deserted room
From alabaster vases, and a scent

Of orange-leaves, and sweet verbena came
Through the unshutter'd window on the air.
And the rich pictures with their dark old tints
Hung like a twilight landscape, and all things
Seem'd hush'd into a slumber. Isabel,

The dark-eyed, spiritual Isabel

Was leaning on her harp, and I had stay'd
To whisper what I could not when the crowd
Hung on her look like worshipers. I knelt,

He Came to Pay

And with the fervor of a lip unused

To the cool breath of reason, told my love.
There was no answer, and I took the hand
That rested on the strings, and press'd a kiss
Upon it unforbidden-and again

Besought her, that this silent evidence
That I was not indifferent to her heart,
Might have the seal of one sweet syllable.
I kiss'd the small white fingers as I spoke,
And she withdrew them gently, and upraised
Her forehead from its resting-place, and look'd
Earnestly on me-She had been asleep!

447

N. P. Willis.

HE CAME TO PAY

THE editor sat with his head in his hands
And his elbows at rest on his knees;
He was tired of the ever-increasing demands
On his time, and he panted for ease.

The clamor for copy was scorned with a sneer,
And he sighed in the lowest of tones:

"Won't somebody come with a dollar to cheer
The heart of Emanuel Jones?"

Just then on the stairway a footstep was heard
And a rap-a-tap loud at the door,

And the flickering hope that had been long deferred
Blazed up like a beacon once more;

And there entered a man with a cynical smile
That was fringed with a stubble of red,

Who remarked, as he tilted a sorry old tile

To the back of an average head:

"I have come here to pay "-Here the editor cried:

"You're as welcome as flowers in spring!

Sit down in this easy armchair by my side,
And excuse me awhile till I bring

A lemonade dashed with a little old wine

And a dozen cigars of the best . . .
Ah! Here we are! This, I assure you, is fine;
Help yourself, most desirable guest."

The visitor drank with a relish, and smoked

Till his face wore a satisfied glow,

And the editor, beaming with merriment, joked
In a joyous, spontaneous flow;

And then, when the stock of refreshments was gone,
His guest took occasion to say,

In accents distorted somewhat by a yawn, "My errand up here is to pay-"

But the generous scribe, with a wave of his hand,
Put a stop to the speech of his guest,
And brought in a melon, the finest the land
Ever bore on its generous breast;

And the visitor, wearing a singular grin,

Seized the heaviest half of the fruit,

And the juice, as it ran in a stream from his chin, Washed the mud of the pike from his boot.

Then, mopping his face on a favorite sheet
Which the scribe had laid carefully by,

The visitor lazily rose to his feet

With the dreariest kind of a sigh,

And he said, as the editor sought his address,

In his books to discover his due:

"I came here to pay-my respects to the press, And to borrow a dollar of you!"

Parmenas Mix.