SONG. THEY say I'm old, because I'm grey, We're not old yet, but mean to be. Though sixty years and ten may doom With sixty gone, and ten to come, We're not old yet, but mean to be. My eyes flash flame, my heart is glad, When poor men shake their sides with glee; And though they cry, "Come on, Old Lad!" We're not old yet, but mean to be. While soars the skylark high and higher, How morn can fill my veins with fire, Thou brightening cloud, that sail'st afar Where screams the falcon, wheeling free! Tell yonder fading, winking star, We're not old yet, but mean to be. OH, TELL US! COMPANION'D each by all and none, In nothing found, in all things shown, Where may it be, that dread Unknown? Oh, who, or what, so dreadly shown, Is that all-sought, all-known Unknown? RELIGION. WHAT is Religion? "Speak the truth in love." If wrong'd, forgive-that Hate may lose his sting. Be bless'd-like birds, that sing because they love; And bless-like rivers, singing to the sun, Giving and taking blessings, as they run; Or soft-voiced showers, that cool the answering grove, This is Religion! saith the bard of trade. SONNET. IN these days, every mother's son or daughter Writes verse, which no one reads except the writer, Although, unink'd, the paper would be whiter, And worth, per ream, a hare, when you have caught her. Hundreds of unstaunch'd Shelleys daily water Unanswering dust; a thousand Wordsworths scribble; By cant call'd other names, alone find buyers— And wisely print. Why don't my poems sell?" EPIGRAM. FREE Trade means work for beef, not bone; It means that men are brothers; That every man should have his own, And nobody another's. JOHN. SONNET. In the sound of that rebellious word To be call'd Jack's. By life's strange offs and ons! Since history first awaked where fable snored. John Cade, John Huss, John Hampden, and John Knox! Ay, these were names of fellows who had will. John Wilson's name, far sounded, sounds not ill; But how unlike John Milton's, or John Locke's ! sloth; And Johnson might have liked to gibbet both. SONNET. SOME famous authors trade in mental sleep, Dead drops th' immortal who is understood ! TAKE v. GIVE. SAID Play to Work, "Our tax on food Is useful, though I say it." "To you it may be," Work replied, "Or why force me to pay it ?" |