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In such a stylish frame;

       Perhaps you were a favorite child,

       Perhaps an only one;

       Perhaps your friends were not aware

       You had your portrait done.

      Yet you must be a harmless soul;

       I cannot think that Sin

       Would care to throw his loaded dice,

       With such a stake to win;

       I cannot think you would provoke

       The poet's wicked pen,

       Or make young women bite their lips,

       Or ruin fine young men.

      Pray, did you ever hear, my love,

       Of boys that go about,

       Who, for a very trifling sum,

       Will snip one's picture out?

       I'm not averse to red and white,

       But all things have their place,

       I think a profile cut in black

       Would suit your style of face!

      I love sweet features; I will own

       That I should like myself

       To see my portrait on a wall,

       Or bust upon a shelf;

       But nature sometimes makes one up

       Of such sad odds and ends,

       It really might be quite as well

       Hushed up among one's friends!

THE COMET

       Table of Contents

      THE Comet! He is on his way,

       And singing as he flies;

       The whizzing planets shrink before

       The spectre of the skies;

       Ah! well may regal orbs burn blue,

       And satellites turn pale,

       Ten million cubic miles of head,

       Ten billion leagues of tail!

      On, on by whistling spheres of light

       He flashes and he flames;

       He turns not to the left nor right,

       He asks them not their names;

       One spurn from his demoniac heel—

       Away, away they fly,

       Where darkness might be bottled up

       And sold for "Tyrian dye."

      And what would happen to the land,

       And how would look the sea,

       If in the bearded devil's path

       Our earth should chance to be?

       Full hot and high the sea would boil,

       Full red the forests gleam;

       Methought I saw and heard it all

       In a dyspeptic dream!

      I saw a tutor take his tube

       The Comet's course to spy;

       I heard a scream—the gathered rays

       Had stewed the tutor's eye;

       I saw a fort—the soldiers all

       Were armed with goggles green;

       Pop cracked the guns! whiz flew the balls!

       Bang went the magazine!

      I saw a poet dip a scroll

       Each moment in a tub,

       I read upon the warping back,

       "The Dream of Beelzebub;"

       He could not see his verses burn,

       Although his brain was fried,

       And ever and anon he bent

       To wet them as they dried.

      I saw the scalding pitch roll down

       The crackling, sweating pines,

       And streams of smoke, like water-spouts,

       Burst through the rumbling mines;

       I asked the firemen why they made

       Such noise about the town;

       They answered not—but all the while

       The brakes went up and down.

      I saw a roasting pullet sit

       Upon a baking egg;

       I saw a cripple scorch his hand

       Extinguishing his leg;

       I saw nine geese upon the wing

       Towards the frozen pole,

       And every mother's gosling fell

       Crisped to a crackling coal.

      I saw the ox that browsed the grass

       Writhe in the blistering rays,

       The herbage in his shrinking jaws

       Was all a fiery blaze;

       I saw huge fishes, boiled to rags,

       Bob through the bubbling brine;

       And thoughts of supper crossed my soul;

       I had been rash at mine.

      Strange sights! strange sounds! Oh fearful dream!

       Its memory haunts me still,

       The steaming sea, the crimson glare,

       That wreathed each wooded hill;

       Stranger! if through thy reeling brain

       Such midnight visions sweep,

       Spare, spare, oh, spare thine evening meal,

       And sweet shall be thy sleep!

THE MUSIC-GRINDERS

       Table of Contents

      THERE are three ways in which men take

       One's money from his purse,

       And very hard it is to tell

       Which of the three is worse;

       But all of them are bad enough

       To make a body curse.

      You're riding out some pleasant day,

       And counting up your gains;

       A fellow jumps from out a bush,

       And takes your horse's reins,

       Another hints some words about

       A bullet in your brains.

      It's hard to meet such pressing friends

       In such a lonely spot;

       It's very hard to lose your cash,

       But harder to be shot;

       And so you take your wallet out,

       Though you would rather not.

      Perhaps you're going out to dine—

       Some odious creature begs

       You'll hear about the cannon-ball

       That carried off his pegs,

       And says it is a dreadful thing

       For men to lose their legs.

      He tells you of his starving

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