What means that smile? What means that shiver? The landlord's limbs with rapture quiver, And triumph brightens up his face His finger yet shall win the race! The clock is on the stroke of nine And up he starts-""T is mine! 't is mine!" "What do you mean?" But you, "I mean the fifty! I never spent an hour so thrifty; "Who?" “The gentlemen—I mean the two Came yesterday—are they below?" "They galloped off an hour ago." 'Oh, purge me! blister! shave and bleed! For, hang the knaves, I'm mad indeed!” She Died in Beauty. JAMES NACK. SHE died in beauty,-like a rose She died in beauty,—like a lay She died in beauty,-like the song Of birds amid the brake. She died in beauty,-like the snow She died in beauty,—like a star Lost on the brow of day. She lives in glory,-like night's gems Amid the blue of June. CHARLES DOYNE SILLERY. The New Tale of a Tub. THE Orient day was fresh and fair, Where waters bubble as boiled in a pot, Unless, indeed, when the great Simoom Gets up from its bed with the voice of doom, Rise up and roar with a dreadful gust, No great Simoom rose up to-day, And that of such silent and voiceless play Had made more rustle Than it did among the trees. "T was not like the breath of a British vale, Where each Green acre is blessed with a Gale Whenever the natives please; But it was of that soft inviting sort That it tempted to revel in picnic sport Two Bengalese Resolved to seize The balmy chance of that cool-winged weather, To revel in Bengal ease together. One was tall, the other was stout, They were natives both of the glorious East, That off they roamed to a country plain, That during its visits brief, at least, It might blow upon their blow-out. The country plain gave a view as small Nothing at all!-Oh! what do I say?— With its "tiffin" I would n't quarrel)— It was a sort of hermaphrodite thing, Betwixt a tub and a barrel. It stood in the midst of that Indian plain, Two gentlemen anxiously marching. And the tub or barrel that stood beyond— For short we will call it Tub Contained with pride, In its jolly inside, The prize of which they were dotingly fond, 'Leave us alone-come man or come beast," Said the eldest, "We 'll soon have a shy at the feast." They are now at their picnic with might and with main. A jungle, a thicket of bush, weed, and grass, Not an ass, not an ass,—that could not come to pass; No donkey, no donkey, no donkey at all, But, superb in his slumber, a Royal Bengal. No such thing! He did n't rule lands from the Thames to the Niger, O'er that jungle and plain, And besides was a very magnificent Tiger. There he lay, in his skin so gay, His passions at rest, and his appetites curbed; In his proudest time, Asleep, was never more undisturbed; O, it's certain sure, in his dream demure, Only the Royal snore may creep The Bengalese, in cool apparel, Meanwhile have reached their picnic barrel; Out of their great provision Tub, And, standing it up for shelter, They make a pass to spread on the grass. They sit at ease, with their plates on their knees, And now their hungry jaws they appease, And now they turn to the glass; For Hodgson's ale Is genuine pale, And the bright champagne Flows not in vain, The most convivial souls to please Of these very thirsty Bengalese. Ha! one of the two has relinquished his fork, Blurting and spurting! List! O list! Perhaps the Tiger thinks he is hissed. As he 's roused from his dreams, That his visions have come to a thirsty stop, And resolves to moisten his throat with a drop. At all events, with body and soul, He gives in his jungle a stretch and a roll, With a temperate mind, For a beast of his kind, And a tail uncommonly long behind. |