Ah, good it is to sit and trace
The shadow of the cross;
It moves so still from place to place
O’er marble, bronze
and moss;
With graves to mark upon its arc
Our time’s eternal loss.
And sweet it is to watch the bee
That reve’s in the rose,
And sense the fragrance floating free
On every breeze that blows
O’er many a mound, where, safe and
sound,
Mine enemies repose.
CREATION.
God dreamed—the suns sprang
flaming into place,
And sailing worlds with many a venturous
race!
He woke—His smile alone illumined
space.
BUSINESS.
Two villains of the highest rank
Set out one night to rob a bank.
They found the building, looked it o’er,
Each window noted, tried each door,
Scanned carefully the lidded hole
For minstrels to cascade the coal—
In short, examined five-and-twenty
Good paths from poverty to plenty.
But all were sealed, they saw full soon,
Against the minions of the moon.
“Enough,” said one: “I’m
satisfied.”
The other, smiling fair and wide,
Said: “I’m as highly
pleased as you:
No burglar ever can get through.
Fate surely prospers our design—
The booty all is yours and mine.”
So, full of hope, the following day
To the exchange they took their way
And bought, with manner free and frank,
Some stock of that devoted bank;
And they became, inside the year,
One President and one Cashier.
Their crime I can no further trace—
The means of safety to embrace,
I overdrew and left the place.
A POSSIBILITY.
If the wicked gods were willing
(Pray it never may be true!)
That a universal chilling
Should ensue
Of the sentiment of loving,—
If they made a great undoing
Of the plan of turtle-doving,
Then farewell all poet-lore,
Evermore.
If there were no more of billing
There would be no more of
cooing
And we all should be but owls—
Lonely fowls
Blinking wonderfully wise,
With our great round eyes—
Sitting singly in the gloaming and no
longer two and two,
As unwilling to be wedded as unpracticed
how to woo;
With regard to being mated,
Asking still with aggravated
Ungrammatical acerbity: “To
who? To who?”
TO A CENSOR.
“The delay granted by the weakness
and good nature of
our judges is responsible for half the
murders.”—Daily Newspaper.