To-morrow came, and with to-morrow's sun
A little daughter to this world of sins,-
Miss-fortunes never come alone-so one
Brought on another, like a pair of twins:
Twins! female twins !-it was enough to stun
Their little wits and scare them from their skins To hear their father stamp, and curse, and swear, Pulling his beard because he had no heir.
Then strove their stag-eyed mother to calm down
This his paternal rage, and thus addrest:
"O! Most Serene! why dost thou stamp and frown,
And box the compass of the royal chest?
Ah! thou wilt mar that portly trunk, I own
I love to gaze on !-Pr'ythee, thou hadst best
Pocket thy fists. Nay, love, if you so thin
Your beard, you'll want a wig upon your chin!"
But not her words, nor e'en her tears, could slack
The quicklime of his rage, that hotter grew :
He call'd his slaves to bring an ample sack
Wherein a woman might be poked—a few
Dark grimly men felt pity and look'd black
At this sad order; but their slaveships knew When any dared demur, his sword so bending Cut off the "head and front of their offending."
For Ali had a sword, much like himself,
A crooked blade, guilty of human goreThe trophies it had lopp'd from many an elf Were stuck at his head-quarters by the scoreNor yet in peace he laid it on the shelf, But jested with it, and his wit cut sore; So that (as they of Public Houses speak) He often did his dozen butts a week.
Therefore his slaves, with most obedient fears,
Came with the sack the lady to enclose;
In vain from her stag-eyes "the big round tears
Coursed one another down her innocent nose";
In vain her tongue wept sorrow in their ears;
Though there were some felt willing to oppose,
Yet when their heads came in their heads, that minute,
Though 'twas a piteous case, they put her in it.
And when the sack was tied, some two or three
Of these black undertakers slowly brought her
To a kind of Moorish Serpentine; for she
Was doom'd to have a winding sheet of water.
Then farewell, earth-farewell to the green tree-
Farewell, the sun-the moon-each little daughter!
She's shot from off the shoulders of a black,
Like bag of Wall's-End from a coalman's back.
The waters oped, and the wide sack full-fill'd
All that the waters oped, as down it fell;
Then closed the wave, and then the surface rill'd
A ring above her, like a water-knell ;
A moment more, and all its face was still'd,
And not a guilty heave was left to tell
That underneath its calm and blue transparence
A dame lay drowned in her sack, like Clarence.
But Heaven beheld, and awful witness bore,-
The moon in black eclipse deceased that night,
Like Desdemona smother'd by the Moor-
The lady's natal star with pale affright
Fainted and fell—and what were stars before,
Turn'd comets as the tale was brought to light;
And all look'd downward on the fatal wave,
And made their own reflections on her grave.
Next night, a head- a little lady head,
Push'd through the waters a most glassy face,
With weedy tresses, thrown apart and spread,
Comb'd by 'live ivory, to show the space
Of a pale forehead, and two eyes that shed
A soft blue mist, breathing a bloomy grace
Over their sleepy lids-and so she rais'd
Her aqualine nose above the stream, and gazed.
She oped her lips-lips of a gentle blush,
So pale it seem'd near drowned to a white,She oped her lips, and forth there sprang a gush Of music bubbling through the surface light; The leaves are motionless, the breezes hush
To listen to the air-and through the night There come these words of a most plaintive ditty, Sobbing as they would break all hearts with pity:
Farewell, farewell, to my mother's own daughter,
The child that she wet-nursed is lapp'd in the wave ;
The Mussulman coming to fish in this water,
Adds a tear to the flood that weeps over her grave.
This sack is her coffin, this water's her bier,
This greyish bath cloak is her funeral pall;
And, stranger, O stranger! this
Is her epitaph, elegy, dirges, and all!
Farewell, farewell, to the child of Al Hassan,
My mother's own daughter-the last of her raceShe's a corpse, the poor body! and lies in this basin, And sleeps in the water that washes her face.
ALACK! 'tis melancholy theme to think
How Learning doth in rugged states abide,
And, like her bashful owl, obscurely blink,
In pensive glooms and corners, scarcely spied;
Not, as in Founders' Halls and domes of pride,
Served with grave homage, like a tragic queen,
But with one lonely priest compell'd to hide,
In midst of foggy moors and mosses green,
In that clay cabin hight the College of Kilreen!
This College looketh South and West alsoe,
Because it hath a cast in windows twain ;
Crazy and crack'd they be, and wind doth blow
Thorough transparent holes in every pane,
Which Dan, with many paines, makes whole again
With nether garments, which his thrift doth teach
To stand for glass, like pronouns, and when rain
Stormeth, he puts, once more unto the breach,"
Outside and in, tho' broke, yet so he mendeth each.
And in the midst a little door there is,
Whereon a board that doth congratulate
With painted letters, red as blood I wis,
Thus written,
"CHILDREN TAKEN IN TO BATE":
And oft, indeed, the inward of that gate,
Most ventriloque, doth utter tender squeak,
And moans of infants that bemoan their fate,
In midst of sounds of Latin, French, and Greek,
Which, all i' the Irish tongue, he teacheth them to speak.
For some are meant to right illegal wrongs,
And some for Doctors of Divinitie,
Whom he doth teach to murder the dead tongues,
And soe win academical degree;
But some are bred for service of the sea,
Howbeit, their store of learning is but small,
For mickle waste he counteth it would be
To stock a head with bookish wares at all,
Only to be knock'd off by ruthless cannon-ball.
Six babes he sways,-some little and some big,
Divided into classes six ;-alsoe,
He keeps a parlour boarder of a pig,
That in the College fareth to and fro,
And picketh up the urchins' crumbs below,
And eke the learned rudiments they scan,
And thus his A, B, C, doth wisely know,-
Hereafter to be shown in caravan,
And raise the wonderment of many a learned man.
Alsoe, he schools some tame familiar fowls,
Whereof, above his head, some two or three
Sit darkly squatting, like Minerva's owls,
But on the branches of no living tree,
And overlook the learned family;
While, sometimes, Partlet, from her gloomy perch,
Drops feather on the nose of Dominie,
Meanwhile, with serious eye, he makes research
In leaves of that sour tree of knowledge-now a birch.
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