XXII.

  Anon, he turns to that Homeric war,
  How Troy was sieged like Londonderry town;
  And stout Achilles, at his jaunting-car,
  Dragged mighty Hector with a bloody crown;
  And eke the bard, that sung of their renown,
  In garb of Greece, most beggar-like and torn,
  He paints, with colly, wand’ring up and down,
  Because, at once, in seven cities born;
And so, of parish rights, was, all his days, forlorn.

XXIII.

  Anon, through old Mythology he goes,
  Of Gods defunct, and all their pedigrees,
  But shuns their scandalous amours, and shows
  How Plato wise, and clear-ey’d Socrates,
  Confess’d not to those heathen hes and shes;
  But thro’ the clouds of the Olympic cope
  Beheld St. Peter, with his holy keys,
  And own’d their love was naught, and bow’d to Pope,
Whilst all their purblind race in Pagan mist did grope!

XXIV.

  From such quaint themes he turns, at last, aside,
  To new philosophies, that still are green,
  And shows what railroads have been track’d, to guide
  The wheels of great political machine;
  If English corn should grow abroad, I ween,
  And gold be made of gold, or paper sheet;
  How many pigs be born to each spalpeen;
  And, ah! how man shall thrive beyond his meat,—­
With twenty souls alive, to one square sod of peat!

XXV.

  Here, he makes end; and all the fry of youth,
  That stood around with serious look intense,
  Close up again their gaping eyes and mouth,
  Which they had opened to his eloquence,
  As if their hearing were a threefold sense. 
  But now the current of his words is done,
  And whether any fruits shall spring from thence,
  In future time, with any mother’s son,
It is a thing, God wot! that can be told by none.

XXVI.

  Now by the creeping shadows of the noon,
  The hour is come to lay aside their lore;
  The cheerful Pedagogue perceives it soon,
  And cries, “Begone!” unto the imps,—­and four
  Snatch their two hats and struggle for the door,
  Like ardent spirits vented from a cask,
  All blithe and boisterous,—­but leave two more,
  With Reading made Uneasy for a task,
To weep, whilst all their mates in merry sunshine bask,

XXVII.

  Like sportive Elfins, on the verdant sod,
  With tender moss so sleekly overgrown,
  That doth not hurt, but kiss, the sole unshod,
  So soothly kind is Erin to her own! 
  And one, at Hare and Hound, plays all alone,—­
  For Phelim’s gone to tend his step-dame’s cow;
  Ah!  Phelim’s step-dame is a canker’d crone! 
  Whilst other twain play at an Irish row,
And, with shillelah small, break one another’s brow!