For what is Hope, if Truth be not its stay? 
    And what were Love, if Truth forsook it quite? 
  And what were all the Sky,—­if Falsehood gray
  Behind it like a Dream of Darkness lay,
    Ready to quench its stars in endless, endless night?

New Monthly Magazine.

* * * * *

SCENE FROM “THE FROGS OF ARISTOPHANES”

Translated in the Quarterly Review.

We are not at present breathing the air either of Christ Church meadow or Trinity gardens; and if our version of a piece of mere pleasantry, which involves nothing in it beyond a moment’s laugh, should be so happy as to satisfy the ‘general reader,’ we shall affect ‘for the nonce,’ to know nothing of the objections which more scientific persons, the students of the brilliant Hermann, and acute Reisigius, might be supposed to make to our arrangement of this little extravaganza.

Scene, the Acherusian Lake.  BACCHUS at the oar in Charon’s Boat; CHARON;—­CHORUS OF FROGS; in the background a view of Bacchus’s Temple or Theatre, from which are heard the sound of a scenical entertainment.

  Semi-chorus.  Croak, croak, croak.

  Semi-chorus.  Croak, croak, croak.

  (In answer, and with the music an octave lower.)

  Full Chorus.  Croak, croak, croak.

  LEADER of the Chorus.  When[1] flagons were foaming,
  And roisterers were roaming,
  And bards flung about them their gibe and their joke;
    The holiest song
    Still was found to belong
  To the sons of the marsh, with their

  Full Chorus Croak, croak.

  LEADER.  Shall we pause in our strain,
  Now the months bring again
  The pipe and the minstrel to gladden the folk? 
  Rather strike on the ear
  With a note strong and clear,
  A chant corresponding of—­

  Chorus.  Croak, croak.

  BACCHUS (mimicking.) Croak, croak, by the gods I shall choke,
  If you pester and bore my ears any more
  With your croak, croak, croak.

LEADER.  Rude companion and vain, Thus to carp at my strain; (To Chor) But keep in the vein, And attack him again With a croak, croak, croak.

  Chorus (crescendo.) Croak, croak, croak.

  BACCHUS (mimicking.) Croak, croak, vapour and smoke,
  Never think it, old Huff,
  That I care for such stuff,
  As your croak, croak, croak.

  Chorus (fortissimo.) Croak, croak, croak.

  BACCHUS.  Now fires light on thee,
  And waters soak;
  And March winds catch thee
  Without any cloak. 
  For within and without,
  From the tail to the snout,
  Thou’rt nothing but croak, croak, croak.