ODE TO RICHARD MARTIN, ESQUIRE,

M. P. FOR GALWAY.*

"Martin, in this, has proved himself a very good Man!"

How many sing of wars,

Of Greek and Trojan jars-
The butcheries of men!

ΒΟΧΙΑΝΑ.

The Muse hath a "Perpetual Ruby Pen!"
Dabbling with heroes and the blood they spill;
But no one sings the man
That, like a pelican,

Nourishes Pity with his tender Bill!

Thou Wilberforce of hacks!
Of whites as well as blacks,
Piebald and dapple gray,
Chestnut and bay-

No poet's eulogy thy name adorns!

But oxen, from the fens,

Sheep-in their pens,

[horns;

Praise thee, and red cows with their winding

Thou art sung on brutal pipes!

Drovers may curse thee,

Knackers asperse thee,

And sly M.P.'s bestow their cruel wipes;

But the old horse neighs thee,

And zebras praise thee,

Asses, I mean-that have as many stripes!

Hast thou not taught the Drover to forbear,

In Smithfield's muddy, murderous, vile environStaying his lifted bludgeon in the air!

*The author of the act of Parliament for the prevention of cruelty to animals.

Bullocks don't wear

Oxide of iron!

The cruel Jarvy thou hast summoned oft,
Enforcing mercy on the coarse Yahoo,
That thought his horse the courser of the two--
Whilst Swift smiled down aloft !———

O worthy pair! for this, when ye inhabit
Bodies of birds-(if so the spirit shifts

From flesh to feather)—when the clown uplifts
His hands against the sparrows nest, to grab it-
He shall not harm the MARTINS and the Swifts!

Ah! when Dean Swift was quick, how he enhanced
The horse!—and humbled biped man like Plato!
But now he's dead, the charger is mischanced-
Gone backward in the world-and not advanced-
Remember Cato!

Swift was the horse's champion-not the King's
Whom Southey sings,

Mounted on Pegasus-would he were thrown!
He'll wear that ancient hackney to the bone,
Like a mere clothes-horse airing royal things!
Ah well-a-day! the ancients did not use
Their steeds so cruelly !-let it debar men
From wonted rowelling and whip's abuse-
Look at the ancients' Muse!

Look at their Carmen !

O, Martin! how thine eye

That one would think had put aside its lashes-
That can't bear gashes

Thro' any horse's side, must ache to spy
That horrid window fronting Fetter-lane-
For there's a nag the crows have picked for victual,
Or some man painted in a bloody vein-
Gods! is there no Horse-spital!

That such raw shows must sicken the humane!
Sure Mr. Whittle

Loves thee but little,

To let that poor horse linger in his pane !

O build a Brookes's Theatre for horses!
O wipe away the national reproach-

And find a decent Vulture for their corses !
And in thy funeral track

Four sorry steeds shall follow in each coach!
Steeds that confess "the luxury of woe!"
True mourning steeds, in no extempore black,
And many a wretched hack

Shall sorrow for thee-sore with kick and blow
And bloody gash-it is the Indian knack-
(Save that the savage is his own tormentor)-
Banting shall weep too in his sable scarf-
The biped woe the quadruped shall enter,
And Man and Horse go half and half,
As if their griefs met in a common Centaur !

ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN.

"O breathe not his name! "-MOORE.

THOU Great Unknown!

I do not mean Eternity, nor Death,
That vast incog!

For I suppose thou hast a living breath,
Howbeit we know not from whose lungs 'tis blown,
Thou man of fog!

Parent of many children-child of none !
Nobody's son!

Nobody's daughter-but a parent still!
Still but an ostrich parent of a batch
Of orphan eggs-left to the world to hatch.
Superlative Nil!

A vox and nothing more—yet not Vauxhall;
A head in papers, yet without a curl !
Not the Invisible Girl!

No hand-but a handwriting on a wall—

A popular nonentity,

Still called the same-without identity!
A lark, heard out of sight-

A nothing shined upon-invisibly bright,
“Dark with excess of light!"

Constable's literary John-a-nokes-
The real Scottish wizard-and not witch.
Nobody-in a niche;
Every one's hoax!

Maybe Sir Walter Scott-
Perhaps not!

Why dost thou so conceal and puzzle curious folks?

Thou-whom the second-sighted never saw,
The Master Fiction of fictitious history!
Chief Nong tong paw!

No mister in the world-and yet all mystery!
The "tricksy spirit" of a Scotch Cock Lane-
A novel Junius puzzling the world's brain-
A man of Magic-yet no talisman!

A man of clair obscure-not he o' the moon!
A star at noon.

A non-descriptus in a caravan,

A private-of no corps-a northern light
In a dark lantern-Bogie in a crape-
A figure-but no shape;

A vizor-and no knight;

The real abstract hero of the age;
The staple Stranger of the stage;

A Some One made in every man's presumption,
Frankenstein's monster-but instinct with gump-

tion;

Another strange state captive in the north,
Constable-guarded in an iron mask—
Still let me ask,

Hast thou no silver-platter,

No door-plate, or no card-or some such matter, To scrawl a name upon, and then cast forth? Thou Scottish Barmecide, feeding the hunger

Of Curiosity with airy gammon !
Thou mystery-monger,

Dealing it out like middle cut of salmon,

That people buy and can't make head or tail of it;
(Howbeit that puzzle never hurts the sale of it ;)
Thou chief of authors mystic and abstractical,
That lay their proper bodies on the shelf-
Keeping thyself so truly to thyself,

Thou Zimmerman made practical!

Thou secret fountain of a Scottish style,
That, like the Nile,

Hideth its source wherever it is bred,
But still keeps disemboguing
(Not disembroguing)

Thro' such broad sandy mouths without a head!
Thou disembodied author-not yet dead-
The whole world's literary Absentee!
Ah! wherefore hast thou fled,
Thou learned Nemo-wise to a degree,
Anonymous LL. D. !

Thou nameless captain of the nameless gang
That do-and inquests cannot say who did it!
Wert thou at Mrs. Donatty's death-pang?
Hast thou made gravy of Weare's watch-or hid it?
Hast thou a Blue-Beard chamber?

bid it!

Heaven for

I should be very loth to see thee hang!

I hope thou hast an alibi well planned,
An innocent, altho' an ink-black hand.

Tho' thou hast newly turned thy private bolt on
The curiosity of all invaders-

I hope thou art merely closeted with Colton, Who knows a little of the Holy Land,

Writing thy next new novel-The Crusaders!

Perhaps thou wert even born

To be Unknown.-Perhaps hung, some foggy morn, At Captain Coram's charitable wicket,