Better bones than belly ache,
Sinews bend than spirit break.
Biped wolf! thief-beggar bold !
Sell thy rags, and well they're sold,
If for perspirated gold;
Live anew, if live thou wilt-
Live by labour, free from guilt;
All are brothers, every one—
Mankind merging in the man;
Then a useful unit be,
Fit for man's society.
Persevere, persevere !
Kindred lab'rour in the mental;
Thou'rt the "good time's" pioneer,
Imaged in the transcendental :
Thine's a spirit-sceptr'd sway,
Dawning into perfect day;
Reason-ruled in empire mind-
Empire, Deity designed-
Empire from the Holiest fraught
With the oracles of thought.
Think and speak, thou seer sage!
Shadow forth a brighter age;
Bid the transcripts of thy pen
Echo every thought again :
And while leading in the van,
Point the upward path to man.
Wisdom culminates above,
Centres in the fount of love;
Then to wisdom's acme strain,
Worship at its spirit-fane;
And aspiring to its sphere,
Swell the watchword; let the cry
Vibrate to posterity--
Onward-forward-persevere !
Here, Cora, here my trusty one!
Come to my side,
In all thy knowing pride,
Thou frisking hulk of fat!
And let me kindly pat
The glossy crop of curling brown
Upon thy shapeless carcass grown.
Ha! well I knew I'd but to wish,
Nor speak it out, but look it in thine eyes;
And thou, with neither bribe of bone or dish,
Or other luring guise,
Would'st come at once, and round me fawn and play,
Or leap my height with loud and happy bay.
Down, Cora, down, and wipe thy paws
Upon the mat!
Such manners! why, I tell thee flat,
Thou hast outraged the too indulgent laws
"Twixt quadrupedal pets and man. Away! begone!
See! what thy dirty digits just have done :
My breech and vest,
And those my very best,
Soil'd-spoil'd, and almost past, I ween,
The renovators art to clean.
Obedient dog! thou to thy sex-thy race-
Art quite a pattern, for I see full well
Heartfelt repentance written in thy face;
And still more palpable,
I see thee follow out my stern behest-
Thy gentle penance, but half-timorous, lest
Thou lack'st one whit, and forfeit my esteeni :
Sure, causeless doubter! past experience
Might'st well have taught thy more than common sense,
That oft, while in the tantalising vein,
A hasty act, or angry frown, I feign,
But then at heart I am not what I seem.
Cora! to those who know thee not
Thou'rt but a common dog, I guess,
A useless cur-useless, unless
Created, kept, and fatten'd, to be shot
At full maturity; but they are those
Who daily cant in sentimental whine
On speaking eyes, pretending to disclose
Their hidden secrets; but, alas ! they fail
To mark the wisdom in those eyes of thine,
Or read the mystic language of thy tail.
Belov'd one! affection deep and true,
As never lover knew,
Upwelleth from thy brimming heart for me—
So constant, too, for should I part from thee,
E'en but a single day, thy sudden grief
Gives way at once, and vainly courts relief
In restless whinings, fasting, frequent sighs,
And fitful list'nings for my welcome tread:
But when we meet, away thy sorrow flies,
And boundless rapture fills thy heart instead.
Beloved Cora! true the adage proves
In us that love begetteth kindred loves;
And while through life's short day we jointly trudge,
Thy tax of "eight and nine" I'll ne'er begrudge.
Those hours are sweet, when friend conjoins with friend
To pay a willing homage at the shrine
Of sterling friendship. Yea, those hours are sweet,
And o'er all other hours of pleasure meet
For man's estate of mundane happiness-
Be it to gladden childhood's sense of joy,
To fire the ardour of exulting youth,
Or rouse the flagging energies of age.
O! we remember well the latest time
We met beneath the roof-tree of a friend,
To spend one of those gloomy winter eves
Whose slow-paced hours too oft hang heavily
Upon the hands of gleesome villagers;
And then and there we met with early friends,
And stranger ones whose strangership full soon
Through friendship's bland infection grew so brief,
That, from the cherub seated by the hearth
Lisping "mamma," the range of all her speech,
To him whose locks bore out the rime of age,
We form'd in truth one happy family.
Thrice happy hours, to sinless pleasure lent !
Come, let us live, in fancy, o'er again
Your rapt delights, which faithful mem'ry limns
In razeless outline on our mental eye.
Lo! youth and beauty round the festive board,
Beaming from eye to eye their wealth of smiles,
In all the winning witchery of love-
That love which levels petty prejudice-
Which scouts the starchery of the would-be ones,
And kindly sees in each a part of all.
Hear how the loud and lusty laugh rings out,
Like merry changes rung on marriage bells ;
And hear break in upon its dying tones
The playful badinage of beau and belle,
Birthing on either's cheek the tell-tale blush,
At soft insinuation of their loves :
Again the laugh-again the table talk,
But of more sober sort the sharp exchange
Of noble sentiment—the repartee
Of ready wit, pointed and slyly apt,
Till some quaint joke, munch'd from the toothless jaws Of waggish grandsire, hitherto reserved,
Call out the laughter doubly eloquent.
But hark! Terpsichore, with music sweet,
Invites us to the dance-the joyous dance—
Where virtue welds the bond of purity,
And friendship rules the patron of the hour;
Instinctively, at such congenial strains,
With restless feet we range us for the dance,
And lightly trip it, till the pearling dews
Drip from our brows in seeming sympathy;
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