Just quit its noise, its whirl, its strife,

And try the “ Marlow cure.
You ’ll smooth the wrinkles on your brow,

And scare away each frown,
Feel young again once more, I vow,

At quaint old Marlow town.

Here Shelley dream'd and thought and

wrote, And wander'd o'er the leas; And sung

and drifted in his boat
Beneath the Bisham trees.
So let me sing, although I'm no

Great poet of renown,
Of hours that much too quickly go

At good old Marlow town!

A PORTRAIT

On, Bisham Banks are fresh and fair,

And Quarry Woods are green,
And pure and sparkling is the air,

Enchanting is the scene !
I love the music of the weir,

As swift the stream runs down,
For oh, the water's deep and clear

That flows by Marlow town !
When London's getting hot and dry,

And half the season 's done,
To Marlow you should quickly fly,

And bask there in the sun.
There pleasant quarters you may find, -

The “ Angler" or the “ Crown” Will suit you well, if you're inclin'd

To stay in Marlow town.
I paddle up to Harleyford,

And sometimes I incline
To cushions take with lunch aboard,

And play with rod and line ;
For in a punt I love to laze,

And let my face get brown ; And dream away the sunny days

By dear old Marlow town. I go to luncheon at the Lawn,

I muse, I sketch, I rhyme ;
I headers take at early dawn,

I list to All Saints' cbime.
And in the river, flashing bright,

Dull care I strive to drown,
And get a famous appetite

At pleasant Marlow town.
So when no longer London life

You feel you can endure,

In sunny girlhood's vernal life

She caused no small sensation,
But now the modest English wife

To others leaves flirtation.
She's young still, lovely, debonair,

Although sometimes her features
Are clouded by a thought of care

For those two tiny creatures.
Each tiny, toddling, mottled mite

Asserts with voice emphatic,
In lisping accents, “Mite is right,

Their rule is autocratic :
The song becomes, that charm'd mankind,

Their musical narcotic,
And baby lips than Love, she 'll find,

Are even more despotic.

Soft lullaby when singing there,

And castles ever building,

Of beakless things, who have no wings,

Exact no heavy toll.
If this my song its theme should wrong,

The theme itself is sweet ;
Let others rhyme the unborn time,

I sing the Obsolete.
And first, I praise the nobler traits

Of birds preceding Noah,
The giant clan, whose meat was Man,

Dinornis, Apteryx, Moa. These, by the hints we get from prints

Of feathers and of feet, Excell'd in wits the later tits,

And so are obsolete.

Doublet and hose, and powder'd beaux ?

Where are thy songs, whose passion Turn'd thought to fire in knight and

squire, While hearts of ladies beat ? Where thy sweet style, ours, ours

while ? All this is obsolete.

ere

In Auvergne low potatoes grow

Upon volcanoes old ; The moon, they say, had her young day,

Though now her heart is cold ;
Even so our earth, sorrow and mirth,

Seasons of snow and heat,
Check'd by her tides in silence glides

To become obsolete.

I sing each race whom we displace

In their primeval woods,
While Gospel Aid inspires Free-Trade

To traffic with their goods.
With Norman Dukes the still Sioux

In breeding might compete ;
But where men talk the tomahawk

Will soon grow obsolete.
I celebrate each perish'd State ;

Great cities plough'd to loam ; Chaldæan kings; the Bulls with wings;

Dead Greece, and dying Rome.
The Druids' shrine may shelter swine,

Or stack the farmer's peat; 'Tis thus mean moths treat finest cloths,

Mean men the obsolete.

The astrolabe of every babe

Reads, in its fatal sky, “Man's largest room is the low tomb —

Ye all are born to die.”
Therefore this theme, O Birds, I deem

The noblest we may treat ;
The final cause of Nature's laws
Is to
grow

obsolete.

IN PRAISE OF GILBERT WHITE

Shall nought be said of theories dead ?

The Ptolemaic system ?
Figure and phrase, that bent all ways

Duns Scotus lik'd to twist 'em ? Averrhoes' thought ? and what was taught

In Salamanca's seat ? Sihons and Ogs? and showers of frogs ?

Sea-serpents obsolete?

IF Transmigration e'er compel

A bird to live with human heart,
I pray that bird have choice to dwell

From human ills apart.
When swallows through the world went

forth, And watch'd affairs in every nation, They found for ever, south and north,

Vanity and Vexation.

So let him dwell not in the Town

There Trade and Penury roar and weep: But 'neath the silence of a down

Disturb'd by grazing sheep.

Pillion and pack have left their track ;

Dead is “the Tally-ho ;”
Steam rails cut down each festive crown

Of the old world and slow;
Jack-in-the-Green no more is seen,

Nor Maypole in the street ;
No mummers play on Christmas-day ;

St. George is obsolete.
O fancy, why hast thou let die

So many a frolic fashion ?