'T was past the whole philosophy
Of Newton, or of Bacon;
Never by compass, till that hour
Such latitudes were taken!
With fearful speech, each after each
Took turns in the inspection;
They found no gun-no iron--none
To vary its direction;
It seemed a new magnetic case
Of Poles in Insurrection!
Farewell to wives, farewell their lives,
And all their household riches;
Oh! while they thought of girl or boy,
And dear domestic niches,
All down the side which holds the heart,
That needle gave them stitches.
With deep amaze, the Stranger gazed
To see them so white-livered :
And walked abaft the binnacle,
To know at what they shivered;
But when he stood beside the card,
St. Josef! how it quivered!
No fancy-motion, brain-begot,
In eye of timid dreamer—
The nervous finger of a sot
Ne'er showed a plainer tremor;
To every brain it seemed too plain,
There stood th' Infernal Schemer!
Mixed brown and blue each visage grew,
Just like a pullet's gizzard;
Meanwhile the captain's wandering wit,
From tacking like an izzard,
Bore down in this plain course at last,
"It's Michael Scott-the Wizard!"
A smile past o'er the ruddy face,
"To see the poles so falter
I'm puzzled, friends, as much as you,
For with no fiends I palter;
Michael I'm not—although a Scott—
My Christian name is Walter."
Like oil it fell, that name, a spell
On all the fearful faction;
The captain's head (for he had read)
Confessed the Needle's action,
And bowed to HIM in whom the North
Has lodged its main attraction!
"PLEASE TO RING THE BELLE."
I'll tell you a story that's not in Tom Moore:-
Young Love likes to knock at a pretty girl's door :
So he called upon Lucy-'t was just ten o'clock—
Like a spruce single man, with a smart double knock.
Now a hand-maid, whatever her fingers be at,
Will run like a puss when she hears a rat-tat:
So Lucy ran up-and in two seconds more
Had questioned the stranger and answered the door.
The meeting was bliss; but the parting was woe:
For the moment will come when such comers must go;
So she kissed him, and whispered-poor innocent thing—
"The next time you come, love, pray come with a ring."
"A little learning is a dangerous thing."
O HEAVY day! oh day of woe!
To misery a poster,
Why was I ever farrowed-why
Not spitted for a roaster?
In this world, pigs, as well as men,
Must dance to fortune's fiddlings,
But must I give the classics up,
For barley-meal and middlings?
Of what avail that I could spell
And read, just like my betters,
If I must come to this at last,
To litters, not to letters?
O, why are pigs made scholars of?
It baffles my discerning,
What griskins, fry, and chitterlings,
Can have to do with learning.
Alas! my learning once drew cash,
But public fame's unstable,
So I must turn a pig again,
And fatten for the table.
To leave my literary line
My eyes get red and leaky;
But Giblett does n't want me blue,
But red and white, and streaky.
Old Mullins used to cultivate
My learning like a gard'ner;
But Giblett only thinks of lard,
And not of Dr. Lardner!
He does not care about my brain
The value of two coppers,
All that he thinks about my head
Is, how I'm off for choppers.
Of all my literary kin
A farewell must be taken, Good-bye to the poetic Hogg! The philosophic Bacon!
Day after day my lessons fade,
My intellect gets muddy ;
A trough I have, and not a desk,
A sty-and not a study!
Another little month, and then
My progress ends, like Bunyan's;
The seven sages that I loved
Will be chopped up with onions!
Then over head and ears in brine
They'll souse me, like a salmon,
My mathematics turned to brawn,
My logic into gammon.
My Hebrew will all retrograde,
Now I'm put up to fatten ;
My Greek, it will all go to grease;
The Dogs will have my Latin!
Farewell to Oxford !-and to Bliss!
To Milman, Crowe, and Glossop
I now must be content with chats,
Instead of learned gossip!
Farewell to "Town!" farewell to "Gown!”
I've quite outgrown the latter-
Instead of Trencher-cap my head
Will soon be in a platter
O why did I at Brazen-Nose
Rout up the roots of knowledge?
A butcher that can't read will kill
A pig that's been to college!
For sorrow I could stick myself,
But conscience is a clasher;
A thing that would be rash in man,
In me would be a rasher!
One thing I ask—when I am dead
And past the Stygian ditches—
And that is, let my schoolmaster
Have one of my two flitches:
'T was he who taught my letters so
I ne'er mistook or missed 'em;
Simply by ringing at the nose,
According to Bell's system.
|