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Long scrolls of paper solemnly he waves,
With characters and figures dire inscribed,
Grievous to mortal eyes, (ye gods, avert

Finds no relief, nor heavy eyes repose:
But if a slumber haply does invade
My weary limbs, my fancy, still awake,

Such plagues from righteous men !) Behind him Thoughtful of drink, and eager, in a dream,

stalks

Another monster, not unlike itself,

Sullen of aspect, by the vulgar called

A Catchpole, whose polluted hands the gods
With force incredible, and magic charms,
First have endued: if he his ample palm
Should haply on ill-fated shoulder lay
Of debtor, straight his body to the touch
Obsequious (as whilom knights were wont)
To some enchanted castle is conveyed,

1

Tipples imaginary pots of ale;

In vain ; — awake I find the settled thirst

Still gnawing, and the pleasant phantom curse.
Thus do I live, from pleasure quite debarred,
Nor taste the fruits that the sun's genial rays
Mature, john-apple, nor the downy peach,
Nor walnut in rough-furrowed coat secure,
Nor medlar fruit delicious in decay;
Afflictions great! yet greater still remain.
My galligaskins, that have long withstood

Where gates impregnable, and coercive chains,The winter's fury and encroaching frosts,
In durance strict detain him, till, in form
Of money, Pallas sets the captive free.

Beware, ye debtors! when ye walk, beware,
Be circumspect; oft with insidious ken
The caitiff eyes your steps aloof, and oft
Lies perdue in a nook or gloomy cave,
Prompt to enchant some inadvertent wretch
With his unhallowed touch. So (poets sing)
Grimalkin to domestic vermin sworn
An everlasting foe, with watchful eye
Lies nightly brooding o'er a chinky gap,
Portending her fell claws, to thoughtless mice
Sure ruin. So her disembowelled web
Arachne, in a hall or kitchen, spreads
Obvious to vagrant flies: she secret stands
Within her woven cell; the humming prey,
Regardless of their fate, rush on the toils
Inextricable, nor will aught avail
Their arts, or arms, or shapes of lovely hue.
The wasp insidious, and the buzzing drone,
And butterfly proud of expanded wings
Distinct with gold, entangled in her snares,
Useless resistance make; with eager strides,
She towering flies to her expected spoils :
Then with envenomed jaws the vital blood
Drinks of reluctant foes, and to her cave
Their bulky carcasses triumphant drags.

So pass my days. But when nocturnal shades
This world envelop, and the inclement air
Persuades men to repel benumbing frosts
With pleasant wines and crackling blaze of wood,
Me, lonely sitting, nor the glimmering light
Of make-weight candle, nor the joyous talk
Of loving friend, delights; distressed, forlorn,
Amidst the horrors of the tedious night,
Darkling I sigh, and feed with dismal thoughts
My anxious mind; or sometimes mournful verse
Indite, and sing of groves and myrtle shades,
Or desperate lady near a purling stream,
Or lover pendent on a willow-tree.
Meanwhile I labor with eternal drought,
And restless wish, and rave; my parched throat

By time subdued, (what will not time subdue !}
An horrid chasm disclose with orifice
Wide, discontinuous; at which the winds
Eurus and Auster and the dreadful force
Of Boreas, that congeals the Cronian waves,
Tumultuous enter with dire chilling blasts,
Portending agues. Thus a well-fraught ship,
Long sails secure, or through the Egean deep,
Or the Ionian, till cruising near

The Lilybean shore, with hideous crush
On Scylla or Charybdis (dangerous rocks)
She strikes rebounding; whence the shattered
oak,

So fierce a shock unable to withstand,
Admits the sea. In at the gaping side
The crowding waves gush with impetuous rage,
Resistless, overwhelming; horrors seize
The mariners; Death in their eyes appears,
They stare, they lave, they pump, they swear,

they pray:

(Vain efforts!) still the battering waves rush in,
Implacable, till, deluged by the foam,
The ship sinks foundering in the vast abyss.

JOHN PHILIPS.

ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG

GOOD people all, of every sort,
Give ear unto my song;
And if you find it wondrous short,
It cannot hold you long.

In Islington there was a man

Of whom the world might say,
That still a godly race he ran

Whene'er he went to pray.

A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes:
The naked every day he clad

When he put on his clothes.

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That

good or ill - befell,

Since Adam's sons macadamized

The highways into hell: -

And the Devil-whose mirth is never loud

Laughs with a quiet mirth,

As he thinks how well his serpent-tricks
Have been mimicked upon earth;

Of Eden and of England, soiled
And darkened by the foot

Of those who preach with adder-tongues,
And those who eat the fruit;

Of creeping things, that drag their slime
Into God's chosen places,

And knowledge leading into crime,
Before the angels' faces;

Of lands from Nineveh to Spain -
That have bowed beneath his sway,
And men who did his work,
To Viscount Castlereagh!

- from Cain

THOMAS KIBBLE HERVEY.

THE NOSE AND THE EYES.

BETWEEN Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose ; The spectacles set them, unhappily, wrong; The point in dispute was, as all the world knows, To whom the said spectacles ought to belong.

So Tongue was the lawyer, and argued the cause, With a great deal of skill, and a wig full of learning,

While chief baron Ear sat to balance the laws, So famed for his talent in nicely discerning.

"In behalf of the Nose, it will quickly appear (And your lordship," he said, "will undoubtedly find)

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pen again)

That the visage or countenance had not a Nose, Pray, who would, or who could, wear spectacles then?

"On the whole, it appears, and my argument shows,

With a reasoning the court will never condemn, That the spectacles, plainly, were made for the Nose,

And the Nose was, as plainly, intended for them."

Then shifting his side (as a lawyer knows how),
He pleaded again in behalf of the Eyes:
But what were his arguments, few people know,
For the court did not think them equally wise.
solemn

So his lordship decreed, with a grave,
tone,

Decisive and clear, without one if or but, That whenever the Nose put his spectacles on, By daylight or candlelight, -Eyes should be

shut.

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O' a' the numerous human dools,
Ill har'sts, daft bargains, cutty-stools,
Or worthy friends raked i' the mools,
Sad sight to see !

The tricks o' knaves or fash o' fools,
Thou bear'st the gree.

Where'er that place be priests ca' hell,
Whence a' the tones o' mis'ry yell,
And ranked plagues their numbers tell,
In dreadfu' raw,

Thou, Toothache, surely bear'st the bell,
Among them a';

O thou grim mischief-making chiel,
That gars the notes of discord squeal,
Till daft mankind aft dance a reel
In gore a shoe-thick!

Gie a' the faes o' Scotland's weal
A fowmond's Toothache!

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