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old dragoons, have cuts across the head;

       Essays so dark Champollion might despair

       To guess what mummy of a thought was there,

       Where our poor English, striped with foreign phrase,

       Looks like a zebra in a parson's chaise;

       Lectures that cut our dinners down to roots,

       Or prove (by monkeys) men should stick to fruits—

       Delusive error, as at trifling charge

       Professor Gripes will certify at large;

       Mesmeric pamphlets, which to facts appeal,

       Each fact as slippery as a fresh-caught eel;

       And figured heads, whose hieroglyphs invite

       To wandering knaves that discount fools at sight:

       Such things as these, with heaps of unpaid bills,

       And candy puffs and homoeopathic pills,

       And ancient bell-crowns with contracted rim,

       And bonnets hideous with expanded brim,

       And coats whose memory turns the sartor pale,

       Their sequels tapering like a lizard's tale—

       How might we spread them to the smiling day,

       And toss them, fluttering like the new-mown hay,

       To laughter's light or sorrow's pitying shower,

       Were these brief minutes lengthened to an hour.

      The narrow moments fit like Sunday shoes—

       How vast the heap, how quickly must we choose!

       A few small scraps from out his mountain mass

       We snatch in haste, and let the vagrant pass.

       This shrunken CRUST that Cerberus could not bite,

       Stamped (in one corner) "Pickwick copyright,"

       Kneaded by youngsters, raised by flattery's yeast,

       Was once a loaf, and helped to make a feast.

       He for whose sake the glittering show appears

       Has sown the world with laughter and with tears,

       And they whose welcome wets the bumper's brim

       Have wit and wisdom—for they all quote him.

       So, many a tongue the evening hour prolongs

       With spangled speeches—let alone the songs;

       Statesmen grow merry, lean attorneys laugh,

       And weak teetotals warm to half and half,

       And beardless Tullys, new to festive scenes,

       Cut their first crop of youth's precocious greens,

       And wits stand ready for impromptu claps,

       With loaded barrels and percussion caps,

       And Pathos, cantering through the minor keys,

       Waves all her onions to the trembling breeze;

       While the great Feasted views with silent glee

       His scattered limbs in Yankee fricassee.

      Sweet is the scene where genial friendship plays

       The pleasing game of interchanging praise.

       Self-love, grimalkin of the human heart,

       Is ever pliant to the master's art;

       Soothed with a word, she peacefully withdraws

       And sheathes in velvet her obnoxious claws,

       And thrills the hand that smooths her glossy fur

       With the light tremor of her grateful purr.

      But what sad music fills the quiet hall,

       If on her back a feline rival fall!

       And oh, what noises shake the tranquil house

       If old Self-interest cheats her of a mouse.

      Thou, O my country, hast thy foolish ways,

       Too apt to purr at every stranger's praise;

       But if the stranger touch thy modes or laws,

       Off goes the velvet and out come the claws!

       And thou, Illustrious! but too poorly paid

       In toasts from Pickwick for thy great crusade,

       Though, while the echoes labored with thy name,

       The public trap denied thy little game,

       Let other lips our jealous laws revile—

       The marble Talfourd or the rude Carlyle—

       But on thy lids, which Heaven forbids to close

       Where'er the light of kindly nature glows,

       Let not the dollars that a churl denies

       Weigh like the shillings on a dead man's eyes!

       Or, if thou wilt, be more discreetly blind,

       Nor ask to see all wide extremes combined.

       Not in our wastes the dainty blossoms smile

       That crowd the gardens of thy scanty isle.

       There white-cheeked Luxury weaves a thousand charms;

       Here sun-browned Labor swings his naked arms.

       Long are the furrows he must trace between

       The ocean's azure and the prairie's green;

       Full many a blank his destined realm displays,

       Yet sees the promise of his riper days

       Far through yon depths the panting engine moves,

       His chariots ringing in their steel-shod grooves;

       And Erie's naiad flings her diamond wave

       O'er the wild sea-nymph in her distant cave!

       While tasks like these employ his anxious hours,

       What if his cornfields are not edged with flowers?

       Though bright as silver the meridian beams

       Shine through the crystal of thine English streams,

       Turbid and dark the mighty wave is whirled

       That drains our Andes and divides a world!

      But lo! a PARCHMENT! Surely it would seem

       The sculptured impress speaks of power supreme;

       Some grave design the solemn page must claim

       That shows so broadly an emblazoned name.

       A sovereign's promise! Look, the lines afford

       All Honor gives when Caution asks his word:

       There sacred Faith has laid her snow-white hands,

       And awful Justice knit her iron bands;

       Yet every leaf is stained with treachery's dye,

       And every letter crusted with a lie.

       Alas! no treason has degraded yet

       The Arab's salt, the Indian's calumet;

       A simple rite, that bears the wanderer's pledge,

       Blunts the keen shaft and turns the dagger's edge;

       While jockeying senates stop to sign and seal,

       And freeborn statesmen legislate to steal.

       Rise, Europe, tottering with thine Atlas load,

       Turn thy proud eye to Freedom's blest abode,

       And round her forehead, wreathed with heavenly flame,

       Bind the dark garland of her daughter's shame!

       Ye ocean clouds, that

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