Alas! it has no power to stay: Nay, treach'rous image! leave my mind→→ I saw a vapour in the sky, Have snatch'd aloft the lawny shroud For maids, as well as youths, have perish'd Hush! my heedless feet from under They plunge into the gentle river. O beauteous birds! methinks ye measure The nightingale sings o'er her head; To creep, unseen, with noiseless tread, Then should I view her bosom white Heaving lovely to the sight, Oh that she saw me in a dream, And dreamt that I had died for care! All pale and wasted I would seem, GOOSEBERRY-PIE. A PINDARIC ODE. GOOSEBERRY-PIE is best. Full of the theme, O muse begin the song' What though the sunbeams of the west Mature within the turtle's breast Blood glutinous and fat of verdant hue? What though the deer bound sportively along O'er springy turf, the park's elastic vest? Give them their honours due But gooseberry pie is best. Behind his oxen slow The patient ploughman plods; And as the sower followed by the clods Earth's genial womb received the swelling seed. The rains descend, the grains they grow; ye the vegetable ocean Saw Roll its green billows to the April gale? It flows through alder banks along The gentle stream you cannot see, The stream that turns the mill. Pass on, a little way pass on, you And shall catch its gleam anon; Where tortur'd by the tyrant lord of meal Blow fair, blow fair, thou orient gale! From distant realms she comes to bring For this on Gambia's arid side The vulture's feet are scaled with blood, First in the spring thy leaves were seen, Thou vegetable porcupine! And didst thou scratch thy tender arms, The flour, the sugar, and the fruit, THE KILLCROP. ▲ SCENE BETWEEN BENEDICT, A GERMAN PEASANT, and FATHER KARL, AN OLD NEIGHBOUR. Eight years since (said Luther) at Dessaw, I did see and touch a changed childe, which was twelv years of age: hee had his eies and all his members like another childe: hee did nothing but feed, and would eat as much as two clowns, or threshers, were able to eat. When one touched it, then it cried out. When any evil happened in the hous, then it laughed and was joiful; but when all went well, then it cried, and was very sad. In Saxonia, near unto Halberstad, was a man that also had a killcrop, who sucked the mother and five other woman drie: and besides, devoured very much. This man was advised that hee should in his pilgrimage at Halberstad make a promiss of the killcrop to the Virgin Marie, and should cause him there to bee rocked. This advice the man followed, and carried the changeling thither in a basket. But going over a river, beeing upon the bridg, another divel that was below in the river called, and said, Killcrop, Killcrop! Then the childe in the basket (which never before spake one word) answered, ho, ho. The divel in the water asked further, whither art thou going? The childe in the basket said, I am going towards Hocklestad to our loving mother to be rocked. The man beeing much affrighted thereat, threw the childe with the basket, over the bridg into the water. Whereupon the two divels flew away together, and cried, ho, ho, ha, tumbling themselves one over another, and so vanished.-Luther's Divine Discourses. In justice, however, to Luther, it should be remembered, that this superstition was common to the age in which he lived. BENEDICT. You squalling imp, lie still! isn't it enough (Enter Father Karl.) KARL. Benedict, how now! Earnest and out of breath, why in this haste? What have you in your basket ? BENEDICT. Stand aside! No moment this for converse. Ask to-morrow And I will answer you, but I am now About to punish Beelzebub. Take care, KARL. What! about To punish the arch fiend old Beelzebub ? On this occasion ? BENEDICT. Father, stand aside! I hate this parley! stand aside, I say! KARL. Good Benedict, be not o'ercome by rage, Within your basket? A thumping killcrop! BENEDICT. 'Tis the devil's changeling, (uncovers the basket.) Yes, 'tween you and I, (whispering) Our neighbour Balderic's, changed for his son Will! A child! you dreaming grey-beard! Look there! I'd rather see a dead pig snap KARL. Why, Benedict! this is most wonderful (looks at the basket.) A finer child ne'er breathed! Thou art mistaken, Benedict! thine eyes See things confused! But let me hear thee say What are the signs by which thou know'st the diff'rence "Twixt crop and child. |