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THE POET'S LOT.

WHAT is a poet's love?—

To write a girl a sonnet,

To get a ring, or some such thing,
And fustianize upon it.

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Sad hints about his reason,

And sadder praise from garreteers,

To be returned in season.

Where

go the poet's lines?

Answer, ye evening tapers!

Ye auburn locks, ye golden curls,

Speak from your folded papers!

Child of the ploughshare, smile;

Boy of the counter, grieve not,

Though muses round thy trundle-bed

Their broidered tissue weave not.

The poet's future holds

No civic wreath above him;

Nor slated roof, nor varnished chaise,

Nor wife nor child to love him.

Maid of the village inn,

Who workest woe on satin,

(The grass in black, the graves in green, The epitaph in Latin,)

Trust not to them who say

In stanzas, they adore thee;

O rather sleep in church-yard clay,

With urns and cherubs o'er thee!

DAILY TRIALS.

BY A SENSITIVE MAN.

O THERE are times

When all this fret and tumult that we hear
Do seem more stale than to the sexton's ear
His own dull chimes.

Ding dong! ding dong!

The world is in a simmer like a sea

Over a pent volcano, woe is me

All the day long!

From crib to shroud!

Nurse o'er our cradles screameth lullaby,

And friends in boots tramp round us as we die, Snuffling aloud.

At morning's call

The small-voiced pug-dog welcomes in the sun,
And flea-bit mongrels, wakening one by one,
Give answer all.

When evening dim

Draws round us, then the lonely caterwaul

Tart solo, sour duet, and general squall,

These are our hymn.

Women, with tongues

Like polar needles, ever on the jar,—

-

Men, plugless word-spouts, whose deep fountains are Within their lungs.

Children, with drums

Strapped round them by the fond paternal ass,

Peripatetics with a blade of grass

Between their thumbs.

Vagrants, whose arts

Have caged some devil in their mad machine,

Which grinding, squeaks, with husky groans between, Come out by starts.

Cockneys that kill

Thin horses of a Sunday,-men, with clams, Hoarse as young bisons roaring for their dams From hill to hill.

Soldiers, with guns

Making a nuisance of the blessed air,
Child-crying bellmen, children in despair
Screeching for buns.

Storms, thunders, waves!

Howl, crash, and bellow till ye get your fill; Ye sometimes rest; men never can be still But in their graves.

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