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A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT.

H. G. BELL.

THEY'RE stepping off, the friends I knew,
They're going one by one:
They're taking wives to tame their lives-
Their jovial days are done;

I can't get one old crony now
To join me in a spree;

They've all grown grave domestic men;
They look askance on me.

I hate to see them sobered down-
The merry boys and true;

I hate to hear them sneering now
At pictures fancy drew;

I care not for their married cheer,
Their puddings and their soups,
And middle-aged relations round
In formidable groups.

And though their wife perchance may have A comely sort of face,

And at the table's upper end

Conduct herself with grace

I hate the prim reserve that reigns,
The caution and the state;
I hate to see my friend grow vain
Of furniture and plate.

How strange! they go to bed at ten,
And rise at half-past nine;
And seldom do they now exceed
A pint or so of wine:

They play at whist for sixpences,

They very rarely dance,

They never read a word of rhyme,

Nor open a romance,

They talk, indeed, of politics,
Of taxes, and of crops,

And very quietly, with their wives,
They go about to shops;

They get quite skilled in groceries,
And learned in butcher-meat,
And know exactly what they pay
For everything they eat.

And then they all have children, too,
To squall through thick and thin,
And seem quite proud to multiply
Small images of sin;

And yet you may depend upon't,
Ere half their days are told,
Their sons are taller than themselves,
And they are counted old.

Alas! alas! for years gone by,

And for the friends I've lost,
When no warm feeling of the heart
Was chilled by early frost.
If these be Hymen's vaunted joys,
I'd have him shun my door,
Unless he'll quench his torch, and live
Henceforth a bachelor.

TO A DROP OF DEW.

THE VERY REV. Henry Alford, D.D., Dean of Canterbury.

[Dr. Alford, justly celebrated as a Biblical critic and poet, was born near London in 1810. He was educated at Ilminster Grammar School, and Trinity College, Cambridge. His first volume of poems was published 1831; the second, "The School of the Heart, and other Poems," in 1835. From 1853 to 1857, Dr. Alford was officiating minister of Quebec-street Chapel, to which large congregations were attracted by his pulpit eloquence. In 1857 he was presented by the late Lord Palmerston to the Deanery of Canterbury. His grand work, his Greek Testament, in five volumes, was completed in 1861, the first having appeared in 1841. His poetry is elegant and glowing, and breathes a pure Christian spirit. An edition of his poems "for the million" has been published by Messrs. Rivington.]

SUN-BEGOTTEN, ocean-born,

Sparkling in the summer morn
Underneath me as I pass

O'er the hill-top on the grass,
All among thy fellow-drops
On the speary herbage-tops,

Round, and bright, and warm, and still,
Over all the northern hill;-

Who may be so blest as thee,
Of the sons of men that be?
Evermore thou dost behold
All the sunset bathed in gold;
Then thou listeneth all night long
To the leaves' faint undersong
From two tall dark elms that rise
Up against the silent skies:

Evermore thou drink'st the stream
Of the chaste moon's purest beam;
Evermore thou dost espy
Every star that twinkles by;
Till thou hearest the cock crow
From the barton far below;
Till thou seest the dawn streak
From the eastern night-clouds break;
Till the mighty king of light
Lifts his unsoiled visage bright,
And his speckled flocks has driven
To batten in the fields of heaven;
Then thus lightest up thy breast
With the lamp thou lovest best;
Many rays of one thou makest,
Giving three for one thou takest;
Love and constancy's best blue,
Sunny warmth of golden hue,
Glowing red, to speak thereby
Thine affection's ardency:-
Thus rejoicing in his sight,
Made a creature of his light,
Thou art all content to be
Lost in his immensity;

And the best that can be said,
When they ask why thou art fled,
Is, that thou art gone to share
With him the empire of the air.

(By permission of the Author.)

MR. SIMPKINSON'S MISADVENTURES AT

MARGATE.

THE REV. RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM.

"TWAS in Margate last July, I walk'd upon the pier, I saw a little vulgar boy-I said, "What make you here?

The gloom upon your youthful cheek speaks anything but joy;

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Again I said, "What make you here, you little vulgar

boy?

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He frowned, that little vulgar boy,-he deemed I meant to scoff

And when the little heart is big, a little "sets it off;" He put his finger in his mouth, his little bosom roseHe had no little handkerchief to wipe his little nose!

"Hark! don't you hear, my little man?-it's striking nine," I said,

"An hour when all good little boys and girls should be in bed.

Run home and get your supper, else your ma' will scold-oh! fie!

It's very wrong indeed for little boys to stand and cry!"

The tear-drop in his little eye again began to spring, His bosom throbb'd with agony, he cried like anything!

I stoop'd, and thus amidst his sobs I heard him

murmur-"Ah!

I haven't got no supper! and I haven't got no ma'!

"My father, he is on the seas-my mother's dead and gone!

And I am here, on this here pier, to roam the world

alone;

I have not had, this live-long day, one drop to cheer my

heart,

Nor brown' to buy a bit of bread with-let alone a

tart.

"If there's a soul will give me food, or find me in

employ,

By day or night, then blow me tight!" (he was a vulgar

boy ;)

"And now I'm here, from this here pier it is my

intent

fixed

To jump, as Mister Levi did from off the Monu-ment!"

"Cheer up! cheer up! my little man-cheer up!" I kindly said,

"You are a naughty boy to take such things into your

head:

If you should jump from off the pier, you'd surely break your legs,

Perhaps your neck-then Bogey'd have you, sure as eggs are eggs!

"Come home with me, my little man, come home with me and sup;

My landlady is Mrs. Jones- —we must not keep her upThere's roast potatoes at the fire,—enough for me and

you

Come home you little vulgar boy-I lodge at Number 2." I took him home to Number 2, the house beside "The

Foy,"

I bade him wipe his dirty shoes,-that little vulgar boy,

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