EVENING.

As these, thy puny brethren; and thy breath
Sweetened the fragrance of her spicy air;
But now thou seemest like a bankrupt beau,
Stripped of his gaudy hues and essences,
And growing portly in his sober garments.

Is that a swan that rides upon the water?
O no, it is that other gentle bird,

Which is the patron of our noble calling.
I well remember, in my early years,

When these young hands first closed upon a goose;
I have a scar upon my thimble finger,

Which chronicles the hour of young ambition.

My father was a tailor, and his father,

And my sire's grandsire, all of them were tailors ;
They had an ancient goose, - it was an heir-loom

From some remoter tailor of our race.

It happened I did see it on a time

When none was near, and I did deal with it,
And it did burn me, - oh, most fearfully!

It is a joy to straighten out one's limbs,
And leap elastic from the level counter,
Leaving the petty grievances of earth,

The breaking thread, the din of clashing shears,
And all the needles that do wound the spirit,
For such a pensive hour of soothing silence.
Kind Nature, shuffling in her loose undress,
Lays bare her shady bosom; I can feel
With all around me; I can hail the flowers
That sprig earth's mantle, - and yon quiet bird,
That rides the stream, is to me as a brother.
The vulgar know not all the hidden pockets,

41

Where Nature stows away her loveliness.
But this unnatural posture of the legs

Cramps my extended calves, and I must go

Where I can coil them in their wonted fashion.

I

NUX POSTCENATICA.

WAS sitting with my microscope, upon my parlor rug,
With a very heavy quarto and a very lively bug;

The true bug had been organized with only two antennæ,

But the humbug in the copper-plate would have them twice as many.

And I thought, like Dr. Faustus, of the emptiness of art,
How we take a fragment for the whole, and call the whole a part,
When I heard a heavy footstep that was loud enough for two,
And a man of forty entered, exclaiming,

"How d' ye do?"

He was not a ghost, my visitor, but solid flesh and bone;
He wore a Palo Alto hat, his weight was twenty stone;
(It's odd how hats expand their brims as riper years invade,
As if when life had reached its noon, it wanted them for shade!)

I lost my focus, dropped my book, the bug, who was a flea,
At once exploded, and commenced experiments on me.
They have a certain heartiness that frequently appalls, -
Those mediæval gentlemen in semilunar smalls!

NUX POSTCENATICA.

43

We're going to have a roaring time, with lots of fun and noise, Distinguished guests, et cetera, the JUDGE, and all the boys."

Not so, I said,

my temporal bones are showing pretty clear It's time to stop, -just look and see that hair above this ear; My golden days are more than spent, — and, what is very strange, If these are real silver hairs, I'm getting lots of change.

Besides

my prospects don't you know that people won't employ

A man that wrongs his manliness by laughing like a boy?
And suspect the azure blossom that unfolds upon a shoot,
As if wisdom's old potato could not flourish at its root?

It's a very fine reflection, when you 're etching out a smile
On a copper-plate of faces that would stretch at least a mile,
That, what with sneers from enemies, and cheapening shrugs of
friends,

It will cost you all the earnings that a month of labor lends!

It's a vastly pleasing prospect, when you 're screwing out a laugh,
That your very next year's income is diminished by a half,
And a little boy trips barefoot that Pegasus may go,

And the baby's milk is watered that your Helicon may flow!

No; the joke has been a good one, but I'm getting fond of

quiet,

And I don't like deviations from my customary diet;

So I think I will not go with you to hear the toasts and speeches, But stick to old Montgomery Place, and have some pig and peaches.

The fat man answered :— Shut your mouth, and hear the genuine

creed;

The true essentials of a feast are only fun and feed;

The force that wheels the planets round delights in spinning tops, And that young earthquake t' other day was great at shaking props.

I tell you what, philosopher, if all the longest heads

That ever knocked their sinciputs in stretching on their beds Were round one great mahogany, I'd beat those fine old folks With twenty dishes, twenty fools, and twenty clever jokes!

Why, if Columbus should be there, the company would beg
He'd show that little trick of his of balancing the egg!
Milton to Stilton would give in, and Solomon to Salmon,
And Roger Bacon be a bore, and Francis Bacon gammon !

And as for all the "patronage" of all the clowns and boors
That squint their little narrow eyes at any freak of yours,
Do leave them to your prosier friends, such fellows ought to die
When rhubarb is so very scarce and ipecac so high!

And so I come, - like Lochinvar, to tread a single measure,
To purchase with a loaf of bread a sugar-plum of pleasure,
To enter for the cup of glass that's run for after dinner,
Which yields a single sparkling draught, then breaks and cuts the
winner..

Ah, that's the way delusion comes, a glass of old Madeira,
A pair of visual diaphragms revolved by Jane or Sarah,
And down go vows and promises without the slightest question
If eating words won't compromise the organs of digestion!

And yet, among my native shades, beside my nursing mother,
Where every stranger seems a friend, and every friend a brother,
I feel the old convivial glow (unaided) o'er me stealing,
The warm, champagny, old-particular, brandy-punchy feeling.

THE STETHOSCOPE SONG.

45

We're all alike; Vesuvius flings the scoriæ from his fountain, But down they come in volleying rain back to the burning moun

tain;

We leave, like those volcanic stones, our precious Alma Mater, But will keep dropping in again to see the dear old crater.

THE STETHOSCOPE SONG.

A PROFESSIONAL BALLAD.

HERE was a young man in Boston town,

THI

He bought him a STETHOSCOPE nice and new,
All mounted and finished and polished down,
With an ivory cap and a stopper too.

It happened a spider within did crawl,
And spun a web of ample size,
Wherein there chanced one day to fall
A couple of very imprudent flies.

The first was a bottle-fly, big and blue,

The second was smaller, and thin and long;

So there was a concert between the two,

Like an octave flute and a tavern gong.

Now being from Paris but recently,

This fine young man would show his skill;

And so they gave him, his hand to try,

A hospital patient extremely ill.