But this thought came ere yet I spake, And froze the sentence on my lips : "They err who marry wives that make Those little slips."

It came like some familiar rhyme, Some copy to my boyhood set; And that's perhaps the reason I'm Unmarried yet.

Would she have own'd how pleas'd she was,
And told her love with widow's pride?
I never found out that, because
I never tried.

Be kind to babes and beasts and birds,
Hearts may be hard though lips are cora! ;
And angry words are angry words:
And that's the moral.

A MARLOW MADRIGAL Оя, Bisham Banks are fresh and fair, And Quarry Woods are green, And pure and sparkling is the air, Enchanting is the scene!

I love the music of the weir,

As swift the stream runs down,
For oh, the water 's deep and clear
That flows by Marlow town!

When London's getting hot and dry,
And half the season 's done,
To Marlow you should quickly fly,
And bask there in the sun.
There pleasant quarters you may find,-
The "Angler" or the "Crown"
Will suit you well, if you're inclin'd
To stay in Marlow town.

I paddle up to Harleyford,

And sometimes I incline

To cushions take with lunch aboard,
And play with rod and line;
For in a punt I love to laze,

And let my face get brown;
And dream away the sunny days
By dear old Marlow town.

I go to luncheon at the Lawn,
I muse, I sketch, I rhyme;
I headers take at early dawn,
I list to All Saints' chime.
And in the river, flashing bright,
Dull care I strive to drown, -
And get a famous appetite
At pleasant Marlow town.

So when no longer London life
You feel you can endure,

I sing each race whom we displace
In their primeval woods,
While Gospel Aid inspires Free-Trade
To traffic with their goods.

With Norman Dukes the still Sioux
In breeding might compete;
But where men talk the tomahawk
Will soon grow obsolete.

I celebrate each perish'd State ;

Great cities plough'd to loam; Chaldæan kings; the Bulls with wings; Dead Greece, and dying Rome. The Druids' shrine may shelter swine, Or stack the farmer's peat;

'Tis thus mean moths treat finest cloths, Mean men the obsolete.

Shall nought be said of theories dead?
The Ptolemaic system?
Figure and phrase, that bent all ways
Duns Scotus lik'd to twist 'em?
Averrhoes' thought? and what was taught
In Salamanca's seat?

Sihons and Ogs? and showers of frogs?
Sea-serpents obsolete ?

Pillion and pack have left their track ;
Dead is "the Tally-ho;"
Steam rails cut down each festive crown
Of the old world and slow;
Jack-in-the-Green no more is seen,
Nor Maypole in the street;
No mummers play on Christmas-day;
St. George is obsolete.

O fancy, why hast thou let die
So many a frolic fashion?

Doublet and hose, and powder'd beaux ? Where are thy songs, whose passion Turn'd thought to fire in knight and squire,

While hearts of ladies beat? Where thy sweet style, ours, ours erewhile?

All this is obsolete.

In Auvergne low potatoes grow
Upon volcanoes old;

The moon, they say, had her young day,
Though now her heart is cold;
Even so our earth, sorrow and mirth,
Seasons of snow and heat,

Check'd by her tides in silence glides
To become obsolete.

The astrolabe of every babe
Reads, in its fatal sky,

"Man's largest room is the low tombYe all are born to die."

Therefore this theme, O Birds, I deem
The noblest we may treat ;
The final cause of Nature's laws

Is to grow obsolete.

IN PRAISE OF GILBERT WHITE

IF Transmigration e'er compel

I

A bird to live with human heart, pray that bird have choice to dwell From human ills apart.

When swallows through the world went forth,

And watch'd affairs in every nation,
They found for ever, south and north,
Vanity and Vexation.

So let him dwell not in the Town -
There Trade and Penury roar and weep:
But 'neath the silence of a down
Disturb'd by grazing sheep.

There, like his brook, his life shall glide,
Far from State-party, plot, and treason,
Nor feel the flow of Fortune's tide,
Beyond the change of season.

There he shall Learning woo, and Art,
Without a rival to unthrone;
Nor seek to pain another's heart,
Since he may please his own.