XVI

Teach Lady Barrymore, if, teaching, you

That peerless Peeress can absolve from dolour;

Teach her it is not virtue to pursue

Ruin of blue, or any other colour;

Teach her it is not Virtue's crown to rue,

Month after month, the unpaid drunken dollar;
Teach her that "flooring Charleys" is a game
Unworthy one that bears a Christian name.

XVII

O come and teach our children-that ar'n't ours—
That heaven's straight pathway is a narrow way,
Not Broad St. Giles's, where fierce Sin devours
Children, like Time-or rather they both prey
On youth together-meanwhile Newgate low'rs
Ev'n like a black cloud at the close of day,
To shut them out from any more blue sky :
Think of these hopeless wretches, Mrs. Fry!

XVIII

You are not nice-go into their retreats,

And make them Quakers, if you will.-'Twere best
They wore straight collars, and their shirts sans pleats;
That they had hats with brims,-that they were drest
In garbs without lappels-than shame the streets
With so much raggedness.-You may invest
Much cash this way—but it will cost its price,
To give a good, round, real cheque to Vice!

XIX

In brief,—Oh teach the child its moral rote,
Not in the way from which 'twill not depart,-
But out-out-out! Oh, bid it walk remote !
And if the skies are clos'd against the smart,
Ev'n let him wear the single-breasted coat,
For that ensureth singleness of heart.-
Do what you will, his every want supply,
Keep him-but out of Newgate, Mrs. Fry!

ODE TO RICHARD MARTIN, ESQ.,

M.P. FOR GALWAY

"Martin in this has proved himself a very good man!"-Boxiana.

I

How many sing of wars,

Of Greek and Trojan jars-
The butcheries of men!

The Muse hath a "Perpetual Ruby Pen!"
Dabbling with heroes and the blood they spill;
But no one sings the man

That, like a pelican,

Nourishes Pity with his tender Bill!

II

Thou Wilberforce of hacks!
Of whites as well as blacks,
Pyebald and dapple gray,
Chestnut and bay—

No poet's eulogy thy name adorns !

But oxen, from the fens,

Sheep-in their pens,

Praise thee, and red cows with their winding horns! Thou art sung on brutal pipes!

Drovers may curse thee,

Knackers asperse thee,

And sly M.P.'s bestow their cruel wipes;

But the old horse neighs thee,

And zebras praise thee,—

Asses, I mean-that have as many stripes!

III

Hast thou not taught the Drover to forbear,
In Smithfield's muddy, murderous, vile environ,-
Staying his lifted bludgeon in the air!

Bullocks don't wear

Oxide of iron !

The cruel Jarvy thou hast summon'd oft,
Enforcing mercy on the coarse Yahoo,
That thought his horse the courser of the two—
Whilst Swift smiled down aloft !—

O worthy pair! for this, when ye inhabit
Bodies of birds-(if so the spirit shifts

From flesh to feather)—when the clown uplifts
His hands against the sparrow's nest, to grab it,-
He shall not harm the MARTINS and the Swifts!

IV

Ah! when Dean Swift was quick, how he enhanc'd The horse!—and humbled biped man like Plato! But now he's dead, the charger is mischanc'dGone backward in the world-and not advanc'd,Remember Cato!

Swift was the horse's champion-not the King's,
Whom Southey sings,

Mounted on Pegasus-would he were thrown!
He'll wear that ancient hackney to the bone,
Like a mere clothes-horse airing royal things!
Ah well-a-day! the ancients did not use
Their steeds so cruelly !-let it debar men
From wanton rowelling and whip's abuse-
Look at the ancients' Muse!

Look at their Carmen!

V

O, Martin! how thine eye

That one would think had put aside its lashes,— That can't bear gashes

Thro' any horse's side, must ache to spy

That horrid window fronting Fetter-lane,

For there's a nag the crows have pick'd for victual, Or some man painted in a bloody vein

Gods! is there no Horse-spital!

That such raw shows must sicken the humane!
Sure Mr. Whittle

Loves thee but little,

To let that poor horse linger in his

VI

pane!

O build a Brookes's Theatre for horses!
O wipe away the national reproach—
And find a decent Vulture for their corses !
And in thy funeral track

Four sorry steeds shall follow in each coach!
Steeds that confess "the luxury of wo!"
True mourning steeds, in no extempore black,
And many a wretched hack

Shall sorrow for thee,-sore with kick and blow
And bloody gash-it is the Indian knack-
(Save that the savage is his own tormentor)—
Banting shall weep too in his sable scarf-
The biped woe the quadruped shall enter,
And Man and Horse go half and half,
As if their griefs met in a common Centaur!

A

ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN

"O breathe not his name!"-Moore.

I

THOU Great Unknown!

I do not mean Eternity, nor Death,

That vast incog!

For I suppose thou hast a living breath,
Howbeit we know not from whose lungs 'tis blown,
Thou man of fog!

Parent of many children-child of none !
Nobody's son !

Nobody's daughter-but a parent still!
Still but an ostrich parent of a batch
Of orphan eggs,-left to the world to hatch.
Superlative Nil!

A vox and nothing more,-yet not Vauxhall;
A head in papers, yet without a curl!

Not the Invisible Girl!

No hand-but a handwriting on a wall-
A popular nonentity,

Still call'd the same,-without identity!
A lark, heard out of sight,-
A nothing shin'd upon,-invisibly bright,
"Dark with excess of light!"

Constable's literary John-a-nokes—
The real Scottish wizard-and not which,
Nobody—in a niche;

Every one's hoax!

Maybe Sir Walter Scott-
Perhaps not!

Why dost thou so conceal and puzzle curious folks?