122

ODE TO A PIG.

(WHILE HIS NOSE WAS BEING BORED- ·)

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

HARK! hark! that pig! the hideous note,
More loud and dissonant, each moment grows,
Would one not think the knife was in his throat!
And yet they are only boring through his nose.

You foolish beast so rudely to withstand

Your master's will, to feel such foolish fears! Why, pig, there's not a lady in the land

Who has not also bored and ringed her ears.

Pig! 'tis your master's pleasure-then be still,
And hold your nose to let the iron through!
Dare you resist your lawful sovereign's will?
Rebellious swine! you know not what

you

do!

To man o'er every beast the power was given, Pig, hear the truth and never murmur more! Would you rebel against the will of Heaven? You impious beast, be still and let them bore.

The social pig resigns his natural rights

When first with man he covenants to live; He barters them for safer stye delights,

For grains and wash, which man alone can give.

Sure is provision on the social plan

Secure the comforts that to each belong:
Oh, happy swine! the impartial sway of man
Alike protects the weak pig and the strong.

And you resist! you struggle now because
Your master has thought fit to bore your nose!
You grunt in flat rebellion to the laws

Society finds needful to impose.

Go to the forest, piggy, and deplore
The miserable lot of savage swine!

See how the young pigs fly from the great boar,
And see how coarse and scantily they dine!

Behold their hourly danger, when who will
May hunt, or snare, or seize them for his food!
O happy pig! whom none presume to kills
'Till your protecting master thinks it good!

And when, at last, the closing hour of life
Arrives (for pigs must die as well as man),
When in your throat you feel the long sharp knife,
And the blood trickles to the pudding pan,

And when, at last, the death wound yawning wide,
Fainter and fainter grows the expiring cry,
Is there no grateful joy, no loyal pride,

To think that for your master's good you die?

THE RAVEN.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

Underneath a huge oak tree
There was, of swine, a huge company,
That grunted as they crunched the mast;
For that was ripe, and fell full fast.

Then they trotted away, for the wind grew high;
One acorn they left, and no more might you spy.
Next came a Raven, that liked not such folly;
He belong'd, it was said, to the Witch Melancholy!
Blacker was he than blackest jet,

Flew low in the rain, and his feathers not wet.
He pick'd up the acorn and buried it strait
By the side of a river both deep and great.
Where then did the raven go ?

He went high and low,

Over hill, over dale, did the black Raven go.

Many autumns, many springs,
Travell'd he with wandering wings;
Many summers, many winters-

I can't tell half his adventures.

At length he came back, and with him a she,
And the acorn was grown to a tall oak tree.
They built them a nest on the topmost bough,
And young ones they had, and were happy enow.
But soon came a woodman, in leathern guise,
His brow, like a pent-house, hung over his eyes.
He'd an ax in his hand, not a word he spoke,
But with many a hem! and a sturdy stroke,

At length he brought down the poor Raven's own oak.
His young ones were kill'd, for they could not depart;
And their mother did die of a broken heart.

The boughs from the trunk the woodman did sever
And they floated it down on the course of the river.
They saw'd it in planks, and its bark they did strip,
And with this tree and others they made a good ship.
The ship, it was launch'd; but in sight of the land
Such a storm there did rise as no ship could withstand.
It bulg'd on a rock, and the waves rushed in fast;
The old Raven flew round and round, and caw'd to the
blast.

He heard the last shriek of the perishing souls--
See! see! o'er the topmast the mad water rolls!

Right glad was the Raven, and off he went fleet,
And Death riding home on a cloud he did meet,
And he thank'd him again and again for this treat,
They had taken his all, and revenge was sweet.
We must not think so, but forget and forgive,
And what heaven gives life to we'll still let it live.

THE BALLAD OF THE KING'S DAUGIIter.

BESSY RAYNER PARKES.

[Miss Bessie Rayner Parkes, one of the most gifted of the fair sisterhood of song, was born 1829, and is the daughter of the late Joseph Parkes, Esq., of the Court of Chancery. Her poems indicate a close study of the imaginative school of Shelley (to whose

memory one of her volumes is dedicated), and abound in fine thoughts and well-turned metaphors. Her works are "Poems" (1855), "Gabriel" (1856), "Essays on Woman's Work," and a prose story, full of fine fancies and quiet humour, "The History of our Cat, Aspasia” (1856), &c.]

[How the king's daughter, having married me, a peasant, for love, heareth of the death of her only brother, and taketh her little son to the king.]

I.

SHE twisted up her royal lengths

Of fallen hair with a silver pin,

Her eyes were frowning, molten depths

Which stirred to flame when I looked within:

Dressed in a gown of velvet black,

With a diamond clasp, and a silver band,
She walked from the door with a stately step,
And our young son held by his mother's hand.
Walter ran by his mother's side,

More like in his eyes to her than me:

The queen would have bartered her ivory throne
For such a blossom of royalty.

Heavily over the far hill-tops

Booms the bell in the minster-tower, From city to city between the hills

Echo the bells at the burial hour:

"Amen!" saith the bough in the ten-mile forest; "Amen!" saith the sea from its cavernous bed; "Amen!" saith the people, when bowed at the sorest: "Who is dead?" said the rooks, "who is dead? who is dead?"

The young man is dead, in his strength, in his beauty,
His curls lie loose on his white-fringed pall;

Loud cry the people and priests at the altar;
Soft wails the requiem over them all.

Low in the midst of the Church of the Merciful
Lieth the young man, gone to his rest,

His sword is sheathed and his coronet broken,
Flowers of yesterday cover his breast.

"Babe, child, brave youth!" wept the Queen, in her closet;

"Heir of my name !" sighed the King on his throne; "Who leads us to battle?" cried they of the market; "My lover!" looked one face as cold as a stone.

Slow tolled the bells from the north to the southern sea, Winds caught them up with a desolate cry:

Solemn he lies under darkening arches,

The hand of eternity pressed on each eye.

II.

The market-cross with its sculptured Christ, 'Mid the crush and the trample stood steady and strong;

The welded masses of voiceless folk

As a sea at midnight rolled along.

Booming bells, as they struck the ear,
Died away in the silent skies;
Gossiping women were dumb with fear,

And each gabled house was alive with eyes.

But lo! in the distance a shadowy file,

They move to the beat of a muffled drum;

The waves recede as for Israel's march,

And the thick crowd mutters, "They come, they come!"

Where the bier was borne by the central fount,

She stood as still as the carven stone,

Saying, "O King, behold my boy:

His smile is the dead's, and his eye is

your own."

"From my broad domain in one true man's heart,
From the home I chose of mine own free will,
I give you my jewel to wear in your crown."
Then snatching him back for one last long fill

Of his rippling smiles, they heard her say,
With a haughty glance at her marriage-ring,