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UNIVERSAL FREEDOM.

A noisome creature-a bedraggled wreck,-
A dead dog with a halter round his neck;
And those who stood by mocked the object there,
And one said scoffing, "It pollutes the air!"
Another jeering asked, "How long to-night
Shall such a miscreant cur offend our sight?"
"Look at his torn hide," sneered a Jewish wit,
"You could not even cut a shoe from it,"

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And turned away.
"Behold his ears that bleed,"
A fourth chimed in, Ian unclean wretch indeed!
"He hath been hanged for thieving," they all cried,
And spurned the loathsome beast from side to side.
Then Jesus, standing by them in the street,
Looked on the poor, spent creature at his feet,
And, bending o'er him, spake unto the men,
"Pearls are not whiter than his teeth." And then
The people at each other gazed, asking,

"Who is this stranger pitying the vile thing?"

Then one exclaimed with awe-abated breath,

"This surely is the man of Nazareth,

This must be Jesus, for none else but he,

Something to praise in a dead dog could see!"
And, being ashamed, each scoffer bowed his head,
And from the sight of Jesus turned and fled.

261

TH

UNIVERSAL FREEDOM.-T. F. MEAGHER.

HE people of this country cannot be insensible to the aspirations for republican institutions in other lands. When there shall be an uprising of the nations-when the thunder chorus of France, that hymn, that magnificent hymn of liberty, shall again break out-while in Italy again the youth and gallant priesthood shall rear to victory a cross more radiant than that of Constantinewhilst Hungary, maligned, and mocked, and spat upon as she has been, shall again launch forth her stately chivalry upon the tide of war-while yet again along the Rhine, the German youths shall buckle on their basket-hilted swords, and, casting away their dreamful pipes, shall go forth and again invoke the sombre gen

262

TAXING BACHELORS.

ius of their native homes-in this grand gathering of the nations, radiant and joyous as it shall be with the descending beams of victory, I trust there shall not then be witnessed at the great feast of freedom a shrouded skeleton called Ireland; but that, with the shroud thrown off, and with fresh blood poured into her veins from this and other shores, she shall sit down in the fullness of pride and beauty among her sisterhood; another evidence to all men of that law, by which the dead leaves of the Fall reproduce themselves in the blossoms of the Spring-by which the eagle casts his feathers, but to renew them for a bolder flight upwards toward the sun-by which the tomb becomes peopled with young men, clothed in shining robes, and the mortal puts on immortality.

TAXING BACHELORS.

AX them, tax them, one and all,

TAX

With an income great or small-
Tax their mortgages and rents,
On each dollar sixty cents;
That's the toll they ought to pay,

For wearing out the "Bachelor's way;
Soon they'll cry instead of laugh,
Mourning for the "better half."

Tax them for the vows they've made,
Tax them for their vows unpaid—
For the drafts they're drawing still
On their conscience and their will;
Tax them for the debt they owe
To young Cupid and his bow,
For the use of silver darts,

And the loan of "treacherous arts."

Tax them for the precious time

Spent in writing silly rhyme
To the fair deluded girls,
Lost in blushes and in curls;
Tax them for dishonor paid
To the sunlight and the shade,--

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TAXING BACHELORS.

Swearing they were truer far
Than a sunbeam or a star.

Tax them for their wasted years,
Tax them for the bitter tears

Drawn from eyes that once were bright,
With a soft, confiding light;-

For the cheeks they've made so pale,

For the deep, pathetic wail,

Breathed from hearts that must endure

What no surgeon's art can cure.

Tax them for the hopes they've crossed,
Tax them for the dollars lost,
Buying Elixir and Balm,

Meant to keep their spirit calm,
When the lady fondly thought
The confession would be brought,
And the lover with his hand.
Would bestow his house and land.

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263

264

THE CORAL GROVE.

Tax their mortgages and rents,
On each dollar sixty cents;

Till their truant steps should stray
Calmly in the "married way "-
Then I would enjoy a laugh

With the bachelor's "better half."

D'

THE CORAL GROVE. PERCIVAL.

EEP in the wave is a coral grove,

Where the purple mullet and gold-fish rove,
Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue,
That never are wet with falling dew,
But in bright and changeful beauty shine,
Far down in the green and glassy brine.

The floor is of sand, like the mountain-drift,
And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow;
From coral rocks the sea-plants lift

Their boughs where the tides and billows flow;
The water is calm and still below,

For the winds and waves are absent there,
And the sands are bright as the stars that glow
In the motionless fields of upper air;
There, with its waving blade of green,

The sea-flag streams through the silent water,
And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen

To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter.

There, with a light and easy motion,

The fan-coral sweeps through the clear, deep sea, And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean

Are bending like corn on the upland lea;

And life, in rare and beautiful forms,

Is sporting amid those bowers of stone,
And is safe, when the wrathful spirit of storms
Has made the top of the waves his own;

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ODE TO RUM.

And when the ship from his fury flies,
When the myriad voices of ocean roar,

When the wind-gods frown in the murky skies,
And demons are wafting the wreck on shore;
Then, far below, in the peaceful sea,

The purple mullet and gold-fish rove,
Where the waters murmur tranquilly,

Through the bending twigs of the coral grove.

ODE TO RUM.-WILLIAM C. BROWN.

ET thy devotee extol thee,

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And thy wondrous virtues sum;
But the worst of names I call thee,
O, thou hydra-monster Rum.

Pimple-maker, visage-bloater,
Health-corrupter, idler's mate;
Mischief-breeder, vice-promoter,
Credit-spoiler, devil's bait.

Almshouse-builder, pauper-maker,

Trust-betrayer, sorrow's source;

Pocket-emptier, Sabbath-breaker,

Conscience-stifler, guilt's resource.

Nerve-enfeebler, system-shatterer,

Thirst-increaser, vagrant thief;

Cough-producer, treacherous flatterer,

Mud-bedauber, mock relief.

Business-blunderer, spleen-instiller,

Woe-begetter, friendship's bane;

Anger-heater, bridewell-filler,

Debt-involver, toper's chain.

Memory-drowner, honor-wrecker,

Judgment-warper, blue-faced quack;

Feud-beginner, rags-bedecker,

Strife-enkindler, fortune's wreck.

265

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