ETON BUREAU. To throw between me and my fear, Then blessings on the mute live thing, Stay with me, mild and holy seer, Make thou my silent hours more dear, That hangs among the trees, With music when I please; Come, when my sickened heart thinks ill Of nature and mankind, Uplift me to thy better will, Show me thy humbler mind. I do not honour thee too much, A heart-worn clasp of inmost touch, That were to err-but if I love To feel that thou art near, It hinders not that from above Comes aid more strong, more dear; I only summon thee, sweet thing, Might call the genius of the ring To break a short annoy; To deck my spirit's diadem, Or fill my lips with pleasure. And so may thou my thoughts illume AN ENIGMA. I am a singular character, so indefinite in my nature, that to define me you must change my form. I delight in anomalies and contrasts, more than in consistency and truth; I ever take refuge in falsehood, yet my name is one of the first taught to lisping childhood; though I am neither mind nor conscience, and know not love, my throne is in the centre of the heart of every creature living. When floating between two liquids I become a substance which, it is said, cannot be purchased in England. All I say is, look at the Elections! I am totally independent of opinion, and can stand without support. In all quarters of the globe but Europe I have played a conspicuous part, and not a statesman has ever existed who was not indebted to me for name and reputation. I partake of the nature of platina, yet I abhor gold, silver, tin, and copper; but as I am in the tail of a certain politician, you may be sure that I am not deficient in brass. "ONCE MORE UPON THE THAMES." Oh welcome me, thou broad white river! Be for an hour, what thou hast been-the giver Of charms that a breath on the mirror can break. Greet me-for I was thy playmate of yore; Under the shade of thy willowy fringe, Gems the shower from the blade with a merry flush. Soft is the laugh of the lapping stream, Kind are the sighs of the reedy cove; River, oh! river, lend me a dream, Weave me the fancies my boyhood wove. Fondly bend over me, drowsy trees; Cradle me, waves, as I lie afloat; Fetch me the meadow-hay's scent, young breeze, While I lay me down in my resting boat. The river is empty-the slant sun hath wester'd, CONSUMPTION. She lay to breathe the summer air, The zephyr sighed "Thou wilt be nought "I may not greet thy smile again." Ere yet another summer came, Ere yet that summer well had fled, Had number'd Mary with the dead- CHARADE. The wind it howled, and the hour was late Of night in her ebon chair, When my First he came to the castle gate, And craved admittance there. "Now our good Ladye be with you," he cried, "As she oft hath been with me, "For a traveller I, both far and wide "Have wandered o'er land and sea." The porter looked here, and the porter looked there, He looked both high and low ; And he saw that my Second had silvered his hair, And that care was on his brow. "Come in," he said, " for it were shame "To refuse thee, so dark a night; "Foul fall the name of fair Torquilstone's dame, "If she judge not my deed aright.” The feast was high in the castle hall, For the baron is back again, He has finished my Third, and right jovial "And here's to that dolt of a porter," each cries, "Forby, good truth, that he came in disguise, EDITORIANA. Congratulations to thee, O reader, on another Fourth of June, welcome as ever, and not the less so that it possesses the additional charm of being ushered into the world in company with the Fifth Number of the Eton Bureau. Twin favourites, as ye are of the Eton world, you shine forth doubly bright, the one rescued from the threatened deluge of muddy water, the other from the illnatured predictions of malicious calumniators! O that we could bring beneath that evil eye, that would have blasted our success in its very birth, the heaps on heaps of letters, whose inanimate paper itself is almost stirred into life and eloquence from the important nature of its contents, threatening us with the contempt and derision of the whole literary world for this unwarrantable delay of No. V. Judge, reader, from the following selections, of the interest with which we are regarded by considerate friends. First, there is the mercenary gentleman, who kindly and humanely (not that he would presume to give advice. to the Editor of the Eton Bureau! O no, not he!) suggests the prudence of getting out the new number immediately after the holidays, while the money lasts. As if people |