There was gorging Jack and guzzling Jimmy, Says gorging Jack to guzzling Jimmy, 'I am extremely hungaree.' 46 To gorging Jack says guzzling Jimmy, 66 Says gorging Jack to guzzling Jimmy. With one another we shouldn't agree! There's little Bill, he's young and tender, We're old and tough, so let's eat he. "Oh! Billy, we're going to kill and eat you, "First let me say my catechism, Which my poor mammy taught to me." "Make haste, make haste," says guzzling Jimmy, While Jack pulled out his snickersnee. So Billy went up to the main-top-gallant mast, And down he fell on his bended knee. He scarce had come to the twelfth commandment When up he jumps. • There's land I see: "Jerusalem and Madagascar, And North and South Amerikee: There's the British flag a riding at anchor, With Admiral Napier, K.C.B." So when they got aboard of the Admiral's But as for little Bill he made him THE END OF THE PLAY. THE play is done; the curtain drops, And looks around, to say farewell. And, when he's laughed and said his say, One word, ere yet the evening ends, Good night!-I'd say, the griefs, the joys, Are but repeated in our age. I'd say, your woes were not less keen, Your hopes more vain, than those of men; Your pangs or pleasures of fifteen At forty-five played o'er again. These verses were printed at the end of a Christmas Book (1848-9), "Dr. Birch and his Young Friends." I'd say, we suffer and we strive, As erst at twelve in corduroys. We learned at home to love and pray, Pray Heaven that early Love and Truth May never wholly pass away. And in the world, as in the school, I'd say, how fate may change and shift ; The prize be sometimes with the fool, The race not always to the swift. The strong may yield, the good may fall, The great man be a vulgar clown, The knave be lifted over all, The kind cast pitilessly down. Who knows the inscrutable design? Blessed be He who took and gave! Why should your mother, Charles, not mine, Be weeping at her darling's grave? * We bow to Heaven that will'd it so, That darkly rules the fate of all, That sends the respite or the blow, That's free to give, or to recall. This crowns his feast with wine and wit: Who brought him to that mirth and state? His betters, see, below him sit, Or hunger hopeless at the gate. Who bade the mud from Dives' wheel C. B. ob. 29th November, 1848, æt. 42. So each shall mourn, in life's advance, Pray God the heart may kindly glow, Come wealth or want, come good or ill, And bear it with an honest heart, Be each, pray God, a gentleman. A gentleman, or old or young! And peace on earth to gentle men. My song, save this, is little worth ; And wish you health, and love, and mirth, As fits the holy Christmas birth, Be this, good friends, our carol stillBe peace on earth, be peace on earth, To men of gentle will. VANITAS VANITATUM. How spake of old the Royal Seer? O Student of this gilded Book, If truer words were ever spoke By ancient or by modern sages? The various authors' names but note,* French, Spanish, English, Russians, Germans And in the volume polyglot Sure you may read a hundred sermons ! What histories of life are here, More wild than all romancers' stories; What theme for sorrow or for scorn! Of chances, changes, ruins, rises! Of thrones upset, and sceptres broke, Of brave desert unkindly smitten. *Between a page by Jules Janin, and a poem by the Turkish Ambassador, in Madame de R -'s album, containing the autographs of kings, princes, poets, marshals, musicians, diplomatists, statesmen, artists, and men of letters of all nations. |