LINES TO A STUPID PICTURE

"the music of the moon

Sleeps in the plain eggs of the nightingale."

-AYLMER'S FIELD.

IVE geese,-a landscape damp and wild,A stunted, not too pretty, child, Beneath a battered gingham; Such things, to say the least, require A Muse of more-than-average Fire Effectively to sing 'em.

And yet-Why should they? Souls of mark
Have sprung from such;-e'en Joan of Arc
Had scarce a grander duty;

Not always ('tis a maxim trite)
From righteous sources comes the right,—
From beautiful, the beauty.

Who shall decide where seed is sown?
Maybe some priceless germ was blown
To this unwholesome marish;

(And what must grow will still increase,
Though cackled round by half the geese
And ganders in the parish.)

Maybe this homely face may hide
A Staël before whose mannish pride
Our frailer sex shall tremble;
Perchance this audience anserine

May hiss (O fluttering Muse of mine!)——
May hiss a future Kemble!

Or say the gingham shadows o'er
An undeveloped Hannah More!—
A latent Mrs. Trimmer!!

Who shall affirm it ?-who deny ?—
Since of the truth nor you nor I
Can catch the faintest glimmer?

So then-Caps off, my Masters all;
Reserve your final word,—recall

Your all-too-hasty strictures;
Caps off, I say, for Wisdom sees
Undreamed potentialities

In most unhopeful pictures

A FAIRY TALE

"On court, hélas! après la vérité;

Ah! croyez-moi, l'erreur a son mérite."

-VOLTAIRE.

URLED in a maze of dolls and bricks,

CURLE

I find Miss Mary, atat six,

Blonde, blue-eyed, frank, capricious, Absorbed in her first fairy book,

From which she scarce can pause to look, Because it's "so delicious!"

"Such marvels, too.

A wondrous Boat,

In which they cross a magic Moat,
That's smooth as glass to row on-
A Cat that brings all kinds of things;
And see, the Queen has angel wings-

Then OGRE comes "-and so on.

What trash it is! How sad to find
(Dear Moralist!) the childish mind,
So active and so pliant,

Rejecting themes in which you mix
Fond truths with pleasing facts, to fix
On tales of Dwarf and Giant!

In merest prudence men should teach
That cats mellifluous in speech

Are painful contradictions;
That science ranks as monstrous things
Two pairs of upper limbs; so wings-
E'en angels' wings!—are fictions;

That there's no giant now but Steam; That life, although "an empty dream," Is scarce a "land of Fairy."

"Of course I said all this?" Why, no; I did a thing far wiser, though,—

I read the tale with Mary.

How

OW shall I sing you, Child, for whom
So many lyres are strung;

Or how the only tone assume
That fits a Maid so young?

What rocks there are on either hand!
Suppose 'tis on the cards-

You should grow up with quite a grand
Platonic hate for bards!

How shall I then be shamed, undone,
For ah! with what a scorn

Your eyes must greet that luckless One
Who rhymed you, newly born,—

Who o'er your "helpless cradle" bent,
His idle verse to turn;

And twanged his tiresome instrument
Above your unconcern!