Ah perishable clay!

Her charms had dropt away

One by one:

But if she heaved a sigh

With a burthen, it was, "Thy
Will be done."

In travail, as in tears,

With the fardel of her years

Overprest,

In mercy she was borne

Where the weary and the worn

Are at rest.

O if you now are there,

And sweet as once you were,

Grandmamma,

This nether world agrees

You'll all the better please

Grandpapa.

BEGGARS.

They eat, and drink, and scheme, and plod,

They go to church on Sunday;

And many are afraid of God-
And more of Mrs. Grundy.

I am pacing the Mall in a rapt reverie,

I am thinking if Sophy is thinking of me,

When I'm roused by a ragged and shivering wretch,

Who seems to be well on his way to Jack Ketch.

He's got a bad face, and a shocking bad hat;

A comb in his fist, and he sees I'm a flat,

For he says, "Buy a comb, it's a fine un to wear;
On'y try it, my Lord, through your whiskers and 'air."

He eyes my gold chain, as if greedy to crib it;
He looks just as if he'd been blown from a gibbet.
I pause.
! I pass on, and beside the club fire

I settle that Sophy is all I desire.

As I stroll from the club, and am deep in a strophè
That rolls upon all that's delightful in Sophy,
I'm humbly addressed by an "object" unnerving,
So tatter'd a wretch must be "highly deserving."

She begs, I am touch'd, but I've great circumspection;
I stifle remorse with the soothing reflection
That cases of vice are by no means a rarity—
The worst vice of all's indiscriminate charity.

Am I right? How I wish that my clerical guide
Would settle this question—and others beside.
For always one's heart to be hardening thus,
If wholesome for Beggars, is hurtful for us,

A few minutes later I'm happy and free

To sip "Its own Sophykins'" five o'clock tea;

Her table is loaded, for when a girl marries,

What bushels of rubbish they send her from Barry's!

'There's a present for you, Sir!" Yes, thanks to her thrift,

My Pet has been able to buy me a gift;

And she slips in my hand, the delightfully sly Thing,

A paper-weight form'd of a bronze lizard writhing.

"What a charming cadeau! and so truthfully moulded;
But perhaps you don't know, or deserve to be scolded,
That in casting this metal a live, harmless lizard
Was cruelly tortured in ghost and in gizzard?”

'Po-oh!"-says my Lady, (she always says "Pooh " When she's willful, and does what she oughtn't to do!) "Hopgarten protests they've no feeling, and so It was only their muscular movement, you know!"

Thinks I (when I've said au revoir, and depart-
A Comb in my pocket, a Weight-at my heart),
And when wretched Mendicants writhe, there's a notion
That begging is only their "muscular motion."

Soon the wan, the wistful stars,
Fading, will forsake her;
Elves of light, on beamy bars,
Whisper then, and wake her.

Let this friendly pebble plead
At her flowery grating.
If she hear me will she heed?
Mabel, I am waiting.

Mabel will be deck'd anon,
Zoned in bride's apparel;
Happy zone!-O hark to yon
Passion-shaken carol!

Sing thy song, thou trancèd thrush, Pipe thy best, thy clearest ;— Hush, her lattice moves, O hush

Dearest Mabel!-dearest ....

Whither leads the path

To ampler fates that leads?

Not down through flowery meads,

To reap an aftermath

Of youth's vainglorious weeds,

But up the steep, amid the wrath

And shock of deadly-hostile creeds.

Where the world's best hope and stay

By battle's flashes gropes a desperate way,
And every turf the fierce foot clings-to bleeds.
Peace hath her not ignoble wreath,

Ere yet the sharp, decisive word

Light the black lips of cannon, and the sword
Dreams in its easeful sheath;

But some day the live coal behind the thought,
Whether from Baäl's stone obscene,

Or from the shrine serene

Of God's pure altar brought,

Bursts up in flame; the war of tongue and pen