Now murky shades surround the pole :
Darkness lords without control;
To the notes of buzzing owl,
Lions roar, and tygers howl,
Fright'ning from their azure shrine,
Stars that wont in orbs to shine:
Now the sailor's storm-tost bark
Knows no blest celestial mark,
While in the briny-troubled deep,
Dolphins change their sport for sleep:
Ghosts and frightful spectres gaunt,
Church-yards dreary footsteps haunt,
And brush with withered arms the dews
That fall upon the drooping yews.
THOSE rigid pedagogues and fools,
Who walk by self-invented rules,
Do often try, with empty head,
The emptier mortals to mislead,
And fain would urge that none but they
Could rightly teach the A, B, C ;
On which they've got an endless comment,
To trifling minds of mighty moment,
Throwing such barriers in the way
Of those who genius display,
As often, ah! too often teaze
Them out of patience, and of fees,
Before they're able to explode
Obstructions thrown on Learning's road.
May mankind all employ their tools
To banish pedantry from schools!
And may each pedagogue avail,
By listening to the after tale!
Wise Mr Birch had long intended
The alphabet should be amended,
And taught that H a breathing was ;
Ergo he saw no proper cause
Why such a letter should exist.
Thus in a breath was he dismissed,
With, "O beware, beware, O youth!
"Take not the villain in your mouth."
One day this alphabetic sinner
Was eager to devour his dinner,
When, to appease the craving glutton,
His boy Tom produced the mutton.
Was such disaster ever told?
Alas, the meat was deadly cold!
Here take and h-eat it, says the master;
Quoth Tom, that shall be done, and fast, Sir:
And few there are who will dispute it,
But he went instantly about it;
For Birch had scorned the H to say,
And blew him with a puff away.
The bell was rung with dread alarm.-
Bring me the mutton :-Is it warm ?"
Sir, you desired, and I have eat it.'
You lie, my orders were to heat it.”
Quoth Tom, I'll readily allow
That H is but a breathing now.
On being asked, Which of Three Sisters was the most beautiful?
WHEN Paris gave his voice, in Ida's grove,
For the resistless Venus, queen of love,
'Twas no great task to pass a judgment there,
Where she alone was exquisitely fair:
But here, what could his ablest judgment teach, When wisdom, power, and beauty, reign in each?
The youth, non-plused, behoved to join with
And wish the apple had been cut in three.
TOWN AND COUNTRY CONTRASTED;
In an Epistle to a Friend.
FROM noisy bustle, from contention free,
Far from the busy town I careless loll:
Not like swain Tityrus, or the bards of old,
Under a beechen, venerable shade,
But on a furzy heath, where blooming broom
And thorny whins the spacious plains adorn.
Here Health sits smiling on my youthful brow:
For ere the sun beams forth his earliest ray,
And all the east with yellow radiance crowns;
Ere dame Aurora, from her purple bed,
'Gins with her kindling blush to paint the sky;
The soaring lark, morn's cheerful harbinger,
And linnet joyful, fluttering from the bush,
Stretch their small throats in vocal melody,
To hail the dawn, and drowsy sleep exhale
From man, frail man! on downy softness.
stretched.
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