THE MUSIC GRINDERS.
THERE are three ways in which men take One's money from his purse;
And very hard it is to tell
Which of the three is worse;
But all of them are bad enough
To make a body curse.
You're riding out some pleasant day,
And counting up your gains;
A fellow jumps from out a bush
And take your horse's reins,
Another hints some words about
A bullet in your brains.
It's hard to meet such pressing friends
In such a lonely spot;
It's very hard to lose your cash,
But harder to be shot;
And so you take your wallet out,
Though you would rather not.
Perhaps you're going out to dine,-
Some filthy creature begs
You'll hear about the cannon ball
That carried off his pegs,
And says it is a dreadful thing
For men to lose their legs.
He tells you of his starving wife,
His children to be fed-
Poor little lovely innocents,
All clamorous for bread,-
And so you kindly help to put
A bachelor to bed.
You're sitting on your window-seat,
Beneath a cloudless moon;
You hear a sound that seems to wear
The semblance of a tune,
As if a broken fife should strive
To drown a cracked bassoon.
And nearer, nearer still, the tide
Of music seems to come—
There's something like a human voice,
And something like a drum;
You sit in speechless agony,
Until your ear is numb.
Poor “home, sweet home" should seem to be
A very dismal place;
Your "auld acquaintance” all at once
Is altered in the face;
Their discords sting through BURNS and MOORE,
Like hedgehogs dressed in lace
You think they are crusaders, sent
From some infernal clime,
To pluck the eyes of Sentiment,
And dock the tail of Rhyme,
To crack the voice of Melody,
And break the legs of Time.
But hark! the air again is still,
The music all is ground,
No!-Pay the dentist when he leaves
A fracture in your jaw,
pay the owner of the bear
That stunned you with his paw,
And buy the lobster that has had
Your knuckles in his claw ;-
But if you are a portly man,
Put on your fiercest frown,
And talk about a constable
To turn them out of town;
Then close your sentence with an oath,
And shut the window down!
And if you are a slender man,
Not big enough for that,
Or, if you cannot make a speech,
Because you are a flat,
Go very quietly and drop
A button in the hat!
DEPARTED DAYS.
YES. dear departed, cherished days,
Could Memory's hand restore
Your Morning light, your evening rays,
From Time's gray urn once more,-
Then might this restless heart be still,
This straining eye might close,
And Hope her fainting pinions fold,
While the fair phantoms rose,
But, like a child in ocean's arms,
We strive against the stream,
Each moment farther from the shore
Where life's young fountains gleam ;-
Each moment fainter wave the fields,
And wider rolls the sea;
The mist grows dark,-the sun goes down-
Day breaks, and where are we?
A story of the Assyrian Desert.
HE black-eyed children of the Desert drove
Their flocks together at the set of sun.
The tents were pitched; the weary camels bent
Their suppliant necks, and knelt upon the sand;
The hunters quartered by the kindled fires;
The wild boars of the Tigris they had slain,
And all the stir and sound of evening ran
Throughout the Shammer camp. The dewy air
Bore its full burden of confused delight
Across the flowery plain; and while afar,
The snows of Koordish mountains in the ray
Flashed roseate amber, Nimroud's ancient mound
Rose broad and black against the burning West.
The shadows deepened and the stars came out,
Sparkling in violet ether; one by one
Glimmered the ruddy camp-fires on the plain,
And shapes of steed and horseman moved among
The dusky tents with shout and jostling cry,
And neigh and restless prancing. Children ran
To hold the thongs while every rider drove
His quivering spear in the earth, and by his door
Tethered the horse he loved. In midst of all
Stood Shammeriyah, whom they dared not touch,--
The foal of wondrous Kubleh, to the Sheik
A dearer wealth than all his Georgian girls.
But when their meal was o'er,—when the red fires
Blazed brighter, and the dogs no longer bayed,—
When Shammar hunters with the boys sat down
To cleanse their bloody knives, came ALIMAR,
The poet of the tribe, whose songs of love
Are sweeter than Bássora's nightingales,—
Whose songs of war can fire the Arab blood
Like war itself: who knows not ALIMAR ?
Then asked the men-
-“O poet, sing of Kubleh!”
And boys laid down the knives half burnished, saying
"Tell us of Kubleh, whom we never saw-
Of wondrous Kubleh." Closer flocked the group
With eager eyes about the flickering fire,
While ALIMAR, beneath the Assyrian stars,
Sang to the listening Arabs :
C Arabs, never yet since MAHMOUD rode
The sands of Yemen, and by Mecca's gate
The winged steed bestrode, whose mane of f
Blazed up the zenith, when, by ALLAH called
He bore the Prophet to the walls of heaven,
Was like to Kubleh, SOFUK's wondrous mare:
Not all the milk-white barbs, whose hoofs dashed flams
In Bagdad's stables, from the marble floor-
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