of day,
  Then from the Earth passed unperceived away. 
      Now all is changed:  the musty maxim fails,
  And dead men do repeat the queerest tales! 
  Alas, that here, as in the books, we see
  The travelers clash, the doctors disagree! 
  Alas, that all, the further they explore,
  For all their search are but confused the more! 
      Ye great departed!—­men of mighty mark,—­
  Bacon and Newton, Adams, Adam Clarke,
  Edwards and Whitefield, Franklin, Robert Hall,
  Calhoun, Clay, Channing, Daniel Webster,—­all
  Ye great quit-tenants of this earthly ball,—­
  If in your new abodes ye cannot rest,
  But must return, O, grant us this request: 
  Come with a noble and celestial air,
  To prove your title to the names ye bear! 
  Give some clear token of your heavenly birth;
  Write as good English as ye wrote on earth! 
  Show not to all, in ranting prose and verse,
  The spirit’s progress is from bad to worse;
  And, what were once superfluous to advise,
  Don’t tell, I beg you, such, egregious lies!—­
  Or if perchance your agents are to blame,
  Don’t let them trifle with your honest fame;
  Let chairs and tables rest, and “rap” instead,
  Ay, “knock” your slippery “Mediums” on the head!

* * * * *

=_395._= “Boys”

  “The proper study of mankind is man,”—­
    The most perplexing one, no doubt, is woman,
  The subtlest study that the mind can scan,
    Of all deep problems, heavenly or human!

  But of all studies in the round of learning,
    From nature’s marvels down to human toys,
  To minds well fitted for acute discerning,
    The very queerest one is that of boys!

  If to ask questions that would puzzle Plato,
    And all the schoolmen of the Middle Age,—­
  If to make precepts worthy of old Cato,
    Be deemed philosophy, your boy’s a sage!

  If the possession of a teeming fancy,
    (Although, forsooth, the younker doesn’t know it,)
  Which he can use in rarest necromancy,
    Be thought poetical, your boy’s a poet!

  If a strong will and most courageous bearing,
    If to be cruel as the Roman Nero;
  If all that’s chivalrous, and all that’s daring,
    Can make a hero, then the boy’s a hero!

  But changing soon with his increasing stature,
    The boy is lost in manhood’s riper age,
  And with him goes his former triple nature,—­
    No longer Poet, Hero, now, nor Sage!

* * * * *

=_396._= SONNET TO A CLAM.

  Inglorious friend! most confident I am
      Thy life is one of very little ease;
      Albeit men mock thee with their similes,
  And prate of being “happy as a clam!”
  What though thy shell protects thy fragile head
      From the sharp bailiffs of the briny sea?