“HERE’S A GO!—­STRASBOURG IN RUINS—­TRADE DESTROYED—­O DEAR!  DEAR!  WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO FOR OUR PATTY DEE FOY GRASS NOW!”]

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POEMS OF THE CRADLE.

CANTO X.

    There was a man in our town, and he was wondrous wise,
    He jumped into a bramble bush and scratched out both his eyes;
    And when he saw what he had done, with all his might and main,
    He jumped into another bush, and scratched them in again.

Some people have a very curious way of doing things.  Nowadays when the world has advanced by prodigious strides almost to the limit of civilization, and having no further to go, is debating within itself whether it shall lie down and take a rest, a man don’t go to so much trouble to have his eyes out.  The age is a fast one, you know; so, when the man feels like having his glims doused, he just jumps into the midst of a crowd of real b’hoys, runs his head, good-naturedly, you know, against a pair of knuckles, and the business is settled with “neatness and despatch,” as the job-printers say.

How different our poet’s description.  He must have been a man of wonderful experience; and foresight, let us add, since from his simple yet wonderfully powerful sketches there is gained an insight into all the mysterious workings of humanity, from the lulling of the babe in the cradle, the ruthless disruption of the apron-string that he is led with, because some naughty little boys laughed at him, to the tolling of the bell by the old sexton over another dead.

Well, there is no use in moralizing.  The tale is before us, graphically drawn; and to the reader is left naught but the pleasure of contemplating its beauties.  In his pithy way the poet describes a man who, though possessed of some good qualities, evidently did not know how to use them.  Though the poet has never yet touched upon politics, yet the careful reader will find that the hero of the sketch must have been a young Democrat, since he is made to appear very nimble, and has a fondness, partial to himself, of getting into rather thorny places.  What led him into those dangerous places we have very little chance of knowing.  “He was wondrous wise,” saith the poet, and forsooth he jumps into a bramble-bush, the last place in the world where a wise man is to be found.  But then, perhaps, a tincture of irony flew from our poet’s pen; the hero was wise in his own esteem, perhaps; or was wise in the opinion of his friends, whose wisdom seemed to be consummated in doing something ridiculous.

It is very fortunate for the social welfare of community that all its actions should not be sublime.  Mankind would become too serious and morose and cynical, and life would be a burden.  The ridiculous makes it enjoyable, but at the expense of those who cause the ridicule.  Man must laugh, no matter what the cost to the object laughed at.

Ordinary intelligence would have decided the fate of the wise individual who found no other use for his eyes but to scratch them out in a bramble-bush.  But our poet dealeth otherwise with his portraits.  He shows us the fate of an overwrought, badly instilled wisdom; yet when that wisdom has been deserted by its cause, the promptings of a heart, pure at the core, hold up to contempt the mad teachings of the sophist.