reached the bounds of tolerance and Adam yet unborn.  As down the early centuries of pre-historic time He tracked important principles and quoted striking rhyme, And Whisky Bill, prosaic soul! proclaiming him a jay, Had risen and like an earthquake, “reeled unheededly away,” And a late lamented cat, when opportunity should serve, Was preparing to embark upon her parabolic curve, A noise arose outside—­the door was opened with a bang And old Ebenezer Fink was heard ejaculating “G’lang!” Straight into that assembly gravely marched without a wink An ancient ass—­the property it was of Mr. Fink.  Its ears depressed and beating time to its infestive tread, Silent through silence moved amain that stately quadruped!  It stopped before the orator, and in the lamplight thrown Upon its tail they saw that member weighted with a stone.  Then spake old Ebenezer:  “Gents, I heern o’ this debate On w’ether v’ice or y’ears is best the mind to elevate.  Now ’yer’s a bird ken throw some light uponto that tough theme:  He has ’em both, I’m free to say, oncommonly extreme.  He wa’n’t invited for to speak, but he will not refuse (If t’other gentleman ken wait) to exposay his views.”

  Ere merriment or anger o’er amazement could prevail;
  He cut the string that held the stone on that canary’s tail. 
  Freed from the weight, that member made a gesture of delight,
  Then rose until its rigid length was horizontal quite. 
  With lifted head and level ears along his withers laid,
  Jack sighed, refilled his lungs and then—­to put it mildly—­brayed! 
  He brayed until the stones were stirred in circumjacent hills,
  And sleeping women rose and fled, in divers kinds of frills. 
  ’T is said that awful bugle-blast—­to make the story brief—­
  Wafted William Perry Peters through the window, like a leaf!

  Such is the tale.  If anything additional occurred
  ’Tis not set down, though, truly, I remember to have heard
  That a gentleman named Peters, now residing at Soquel,
  A considerable distance from the town of Muscatel,
  Is opposed to education, and to rhetoric, as well.

TO MY LAUNDRESS.

  Saponacea, wert thou not so fair
    I’d curse thee for thy multitude of sins—­
    For sending home my clothes all full of pins—­
  A shirt occasionally that’s a snare
  And a delusion, got, the Lord knows where,
  The Lord knows why—­a sock whose outs and ins
    None know, nor where it ends nor where begins,
  And fewer cuffs than ought to be my share. 
  But when I mark thy lilies how they grow,
    And the red roses of thy ripening charms,
      I bless the lovelight in thy dark eyes dreaming. 
  I’ll never pay thee, but I’d gladly go
    Into the magic circle of thine arms,
      Supple and fragrant from repeated steaming.

  FAME.