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 environ-
Staying his lifted bludgeon in the air!

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 wo!"
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 hand-writing 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 which,
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 gumption;
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,

This 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 L. L. 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? Heaven forbid it! 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,