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III.

A PROPHECY.

THERE is a mighty dawning on the earth

Of human glory; dreams unknown before

Fill the mind's boundless world, and wondrous birth

Is given to great thought; and deep-drawn lore,

But late a hidden fount, at which a few

Quaffed and were glad, is now a flowing river,
Which the parched nations may approach and view,
Kneel down and drink, or float on it forever ;
The bonds of spirit are asunder broken,

And matter makes a very sport of distance;
On

every side appears a silent token

Of what will be hereafter, when existence
Shall even become a pure and equal thing,

And earth sweep high as heaven, on solemn wing.

IV.

CALVUS.

BOLD mortal! thou dost ape the skeleton
That satirizes man and all his doings

From every opened grave; and shouldst seem one,
But for the glow-worm which is in thine eyes,

And certain airs that from thy lips arise:
Why, now to see thee at thine amorous cooings,
Or gravely preaching immortality,

To which thy living death's-head gives the lie,
Would make the shadow that all life receiveth
Shake his dim sides with horrible derision.
Tell us, old Calvus! what about thee cleaveth,
To make distinction still between the vision
Of a death's-head and thine? Get thee false hair,
For thy sole privilege to upper air.

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THOMAS JAMES JUDKIN.

I.

SPECIAL PLEADING.

(Craving the Critic's Notice.)

GENTLE, it is my wont, when newly writ
A sonnet, madrigal, or ode, to show
The same to Emily, that I may know
By her sweet face (taste's dial) if in it
Be aught unworthy of a poet's fit;

And with the knittings of her altered brow,
Or with the playful smiles that come and go,

I hold no parle, but instantly commit,

Or not, such brain-work to the flames. Thus, Sir,
I now beseech, in Courtesy's good name,

Where there is need thou wilt but gently blame,
Seeing that half the fault belongs to her ;

Yet speak thy best praise freely when 't is due,
Since one kind word for her, to me is two.

"By-Gone Moods; or, Hues of Fancy and Feeling, from the Spring to the Autumn of Life. By the Rev. T. J. Judkin, M. A., formerly of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. London, 1856.”

II.

EUREKA!"

"EUREKA!" still "Eureka!" was my cry;
While Echo shouts of answering joyance sent,
As through the garden door, on mischief bent,
I flung myself upon the sward close by
The startled Kate, who sat with musing eye,

On some old poet's charmful verse intent; "Eureka?- what by such strange word is meant?" "I've found it,'—yes; e'en that which thousands try, And try in vain, to find within the pages

Aforetime written by the white-haired sages, Or by long communings with present men, Native or foreign, through life's varied stages, — TRUTH!" "Where?"-" In woman's lips." kissing then

Kate's lips, I laughing spake the word again.

- And

*"I have found it!”. the famous exclamation of Archimedes when he discovered the means of finding the quantum of alloy in the crown of Hiero, King of Sicily.

III.

A CHARACTER, DRAWN FROM THE LIFE.*

AN old man with a fiddle in his hand,
Which oft on village green, at wake, or fair,
Gave motion to the feet of many a pair
Of hand-linked swains; the roamer of a band,
Who, holding neither right in house or land,
Live by the hedges in the open air;
He, with a stooping body ghostly spare,
A guileful eye, and rutted cheek long tanned
By sun, dew, wind, and rain, to sallow brown,
Besought our passing dole. "T is hard," he said,
"At fourscore years to struggle up and down
This awesome country for one's daily bread."
Then, scraping from his crazy instrument
A sprightly air, in sadness on he went.

* Entitled by the author, "A Travelling Incident, - Cumberland." The only doubt perhaps of the truth of this excellent picture is suggested by the word "sadness" in the concluding line. It is not improbable that the man of the "guileful eye" had his pocket full of money at the time, and that the look of sadness in his face was a trick of trade.

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