66

Dash the Wine-cup Away!

143

Stay! stay!" cried Nebar. Dakin paused to hear. "Since Heaven has willed that you my beast should take,

I wish you joy; but tell no man, for fear

Another who was really starved might make Appeal in vain; for some, remembering me, Would fail to do an act of charity."

Oh, sharp as steel to Dakin seemed remorse,
He paused a moment, then sprang to the ground,
And with bowed head brought Nebar back his horse;
And falling on his honest breast, he wound
His arms about his neck for true amends,
And ever afterwards the two were friends.

If all of us, whene'er we suffer wrong,

Should bear it mildly, since God wills it so, Nor lend our speech to anger, like the song

The morning stars sang, life would pass below; For he who lightly draws the sword of wrath,

Wounds most himself, and crowds with strife his path.

DASH THE WINE-CUP AWAY!

DASE

W. H. BURLEIGH.

ASH the wine-cup away! though its sparkle
should be

More bright than the gems that lie hid in the sea;
For a syren unseen by thine eyes, lurking there,
Would lure thee thro' pleasure, to woe and despair.

Believe not the tempter who tells thee of joy
In the bright flushing goblet that lives to destroy;
Nor barter thy birthright, nor give up thy soul,
For a moment's mad bliss, to the fiend of the bowl.

Oh! the mighty have fallen, the strong and the proud
To the thrall of the wine cup have abjectly bowed;
For its maddening delights flung their glory away,
And yielded insanely their souls to its sway.

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Dash the Wine-cup Away!

The wise and the learned in the lore of the schools
Have drunk and become the derision of fools;
And the light that made radiant the spirit divine
Hath often been quenched in a goblet of wine.

Youth and beauty, while yet in their strength and
their glow,

Have been marked by the fiend and in ruin laid low;
And the priest and the statesman together have

kneeled

To the wine god obscene, till in madness they reeled.

Oh, the earth in her woe for her children hath wept,
To the grave of the drunkard in hecatombs swept;
While the demon, enthroned o'er her sunniest climes,
Hath unleashed in his wrath all his woes and his
crimes.

And the altars of devils still smoke with the blood
Of our sires and our sons--once the wise and the

good;

While dark and more dark gather over our path
The clouds that are charged with Jehovah's dread

wrath.

Shall we wait till they burst, and from mountain to

sea

Old earth like the Valley of Hinnon shall be,

And sternly o'er all desolation shall reign,

While the vulture sits gorged over heaps of the slain?

Nay, up to the rescue, the land must be torn
From the grasp of the demon whose fetters we've
worn;

Our home by his touch be no longer profaned,
Our souls in his thraldom no more be enchained.

Dash the wine cup away, we will henceforth be free,
Earth's captives their morn of redemption shall see;
And the foul fiend that bound them be thrust back

to hell,

While the songs of our triumph exultingly swell.

The Man and his Pond.

THE MAN AND HIS POND.

DR. BYROM.

ONCE or had a pond of water in his ground:

NCE on a time, a certain man was found

A fine large pond of water fresh and clear,
Enough to serve his turn for many a year.
Yet so it was a strange, unhappy dread
Of wanting water seized the fellow's head.

Upon this pond continually intent,

In cares and pains his anxious life he spent ;
Consuming all his time and strength away,
To make his pond rise higher every day :

145

He worked and slaved, and-oh! how slow it fills!
Poured in by pailfuls, and took out by gills.

The sun still found him, as he rose or set
Always in quest of matters that were wet;
Betime he rose to sweep the morning dew,
And rested late to catch the evening too;
With soughs and troughs he laboured to enrich
The rising pond from every neighbouring ditch.

With soughs, and troughs, and pipes, and cuts and sluices,
From growing plants he drained the very juices;
Made every stick upon the hedges

Of good behaviour to deposit pledges;

He left, in short, for his beloved plunder,

No stone unturned that could have water under.

Sometimes-when forced to quit his awkward toil,
And-sore against his will-to rest awhile,
Then straight he took his book and down he sat
To calculate th' expenses he was at ;

How much he suffered, at a moderate guess,
From all those ways by which the pond grew less.

(For as to those by which it still grew bigger,
For them he reckoned-not a single figure;
He knew a wise old saying which maintained
That 'twas bad luck to count what one had gained.)

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66

The Man and his Pond.

First, for myself my daily charges here
Cost a prodigious quantity a year:

Although, thank heaven, I never boil my meat,
Nor am I such a sinner as to sweat:

But things are come to such a pass indeed
We spend ten times the water that we need.

"Not but I could be well enough content
With what, upon my own account, is spent ;
But those large articles from whence I reap
No kind of profit, strike me on a heap:
What a vast deal each moment, at a sup,
This ever thirsty earth itself drinks up!

"Such holes! and gaps! Alas! my pond provides
Scarce for its own unconscionable sides:
Nay, how can one imagine it should thrive,
So many creatures as it keeps alive!

That creep from every nook and corner, marry!
Filching as much as ever they can carry.

"Then all the birds that fly along the air

Light at my pond, and come in for a share :
Item, at every puff of wind that blows,
Away, at once, the surface of it goes:
The rest, in exhalation to the sun-

Ore month's fair weather-and I am undone !"

This life he led for many a year together;
Grew old and grey in watching of the weather:
Meagre as death itself, till this same Death
Stopped, as the saying is, his vital breath;
For, as he once was carrying to his field
A heavier burden than he well could wield,
He missed his footing, or somehow he fumbled
In tumbling of it in--but in he tumbled.

Mighty desirous to get out again,

He screamed and scrambled, but 'twas all in vain :
The place was grown so very deep and wide,

Nor bottom of it could he feel, nor side,

And so-in the middle of his pond-he died.

Little Ella.

What think ye now, from this imperfect sketch, My friends, of such a miserable wretch?

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"Why, 'tis a wretch, we think, of your own making ;
No fool can be supposed in such a taking;
Your own warm fancy.' Nay, but warm or cool,
The world abounds with many such a fool:
The choicest ills, the greatest torments, sure
Are those, which numbers labour to endure.
"What for a pond?" Why call it AN ESTATE :
You change the name, but realise the fate.