“Too bad!” the Woman cried; “Oh, why,
    Does slumber not benumb me? 
  A disposition!  Oh, I die
    To know if ’twill become me!”

  The Adversary said:  “No doubt
    ’Twill be extremely fine, ma’am,
  Though sure ’tis long to be without—­
    I beg to lend you mine, ma’am.”

  The Devil’s disposition when
    She’d got, of course she wore it,
  For she’d no disposition then,
    Nor now has, to restore it.

TWO ROGUES.

  Dim, grim, and silent as a ghost,
  The sentry occupied his post,
  To all the stirrings of the night
  Alert of ear and sharp of sight. 
  A sudden something—­sight or sound,
  About, above, or underground,
  He knew not what, nor where—­ensued,
  Thrilling the sleeping solitude. 
  The soldier cried:  “Halt!  Who goes there?”
  The answer came:  “Death—­in the air.” 
  “Advance, Death—­give the countersign,
  Or perish if you cross that line!”
  To change his tone Death thought it wise—­
  Reminded him they ’d been allies
  Against the Russ, the Frank, the Turk,
  In many a bloody bit of work. 
  “In short,” said he, “in every weather
  We’ve soldiered, you and I, together.” 
  The sentry would not let him pass. 
  “Go back,” he growled, “you tiresome ass—­
  Go back and rest till the next war,
  Nor kill by methods all abhor: 
  Miasma, famine, filth and vice,
  With plagues of locusts, plagues of lice,
  Foul food, foul water, and foul gases,
  Rank exhalations from morasses. 
  If you employ such low allies
  This business you will vulgarize. 
  Renouncing then the field of fame
  To wallow in a waste of shame,
  I’ll prostitute my strength and lurk
  About the country doing work—­
  These hands to labor I’ll devote,
  Nor cut, by Heaven, another throat!”

BEECHER.

  So, Beecher’s dead.  His was a great soul, too—­
    Great as a giant organ is, whose reeds
    Hold in them all the souls of all the creeds
  That man has ever taught and never knew.

  When on this mighty instrument He laid
    His hand Who fashioned it, our common moan
    Was suppliant in its thundering.  The tone
  Grew more vivacious when the Devil played.

  No more those luring harmonies we hear,
    And lo! already men forget the sound. 
    They turn, retracing all the dubious ground
  O’er which it led them, pigwise, by the ear.

NOT GUILTY.

  “I saw your charms in another’s arms,”
    Said a Grecian swain with his blood a-boil;
  “And he kissed you fair as he held you there,
    A willing bird in a serpent’s coil!”

  The maid looked up from the cinctured cup
    Wherein she was crushing the berries red,
  Pain and surprise in her honest eyes—­
    “It was only one o’ those gods,” she said.