Two hoofs upon the sanded floor,
And two upon the bed;

And they are breathing side by side,
The living and the dead.

"Now wake, now wake, thou butcher man!
What makes thy cheeks so pale?
Take hold! take hold! thou dost not fear
To clasp a spectre's tail?"

Untwisted every winding coil;

The shuddering wretch took hold,
Till like an icicle it seemed,

So tapering and so cold.

"Thou com'st with me, thou butcher man!"
He strives to loose his grasp,
But, faster than the clinging vine,
Those twining spirals clasp.

And open, open, swung the door,
And fleeter than the wind
The shadowy spectre swept before,
The butcher trailed behind.

Fast fled the darkness of the night,
And morn rose faint and dim:

They called full loud, they knocked full long,
They did not waken him.

Straight, straight towards that oaken beam,
A trampled pathway ran;

A ghastly shape was swinging there-
It was the butcher man.

O. W. Holmes.

ADDRESS TO A MUMMY IN BELZONI'S
EXHIBITION.

AND thou has walked about (how strange a story!)
In Thebes's street three thousand years ago,
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,
And time had not begun to overthrow
Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous!

Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dumby; Thou hast a tongue, come, let us hear its tune; Thou'rt standing on thy legs above ground, mummy! Revisiting the glimpses of the moon.

Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures,

But with thy bones and flesh, and limbs and features.

Tell us for doubtless thou canst recollect

To whom we should assign the Sphinx's fame} Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect

Of either pyramid that bears his name?
Is Pompey's pillar really a misnomer ?

Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer?
Perhaps thou wert a mason, and forbidden
By oath to tell the secrets of thy trade;
Then say, what secret melody was hidden

In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise played?
Perhaps thou wert a priest-if so, my struggles
Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles.
Perhaps that very hand now pinioned flat,

Hath hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass; Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer's hat,

Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass,
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch at the great temple's dedication.

I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed,
Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled,
For thou wast dead, and buried, and embalmed
Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled:
Antiquity appears to have begun

Long after thy primeval race was run.

Thou couldst develop, if that withered tongue

Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen,

How the world looked when it was fresh and young,
And the great deluge still had left it green;
Or was it then so old that history's pages
Contained no record of its early ages?

Still silent, incommunicative elf!

Art sworn to secrecy? Then keep thy vows; But pr'ythee tell us something of thyself, Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house;

Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered,
What hast thou seen-what strange adventures numbered?
Since first thy form was in this box extended,

We have, above ground, seen some strange mutations; The Roman empire has begun and ended,

New worlds have risen-we have lost old nations,
And countless kings have into dust been humbled,
Whilst not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.

Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head,
When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses,
Marched armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread,
O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,

And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?

If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed,
The nature of thy private life unfold :

A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern breast,
And tears adown that dusky cheek have roll'd.
Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that face?
What was thy name and station, age and race?

Statue of flesh-immortal of the dead!
Imperishable type of evanescence !
Posthumous man, who quit'st thy narrow bed,

And standest undecayed within our presence,

Thou wilt hear nothing till the judgment morning,

When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning.
Why should this worthless tegument endure,

If its undying guest be lost for ever?
Oh, let us keep the soul embalmed and pure

In living virtue, that, when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom.
Horace Smith.

THE COLD WATER MAN.

It was an honest fisherman,
I knew him passing well ;
And he lived by a little pond,
Within a little dell,

L

A grave and quiet man was he,
Who loved his hook and rod;
So even ran his line of life,

His neighbours thought it odd.

For science and for books, he said,
He never had a wish;

No school to him was worth a fig,
Except a school of fish.

He ne'er aspired to rank or wealth,
Nor cared about a name;

For, though much famed for fish was he,
He never fished for fame!

Let others bend their necks at sight
Of Fashion's gilded wheels,

He ne'er had learned the art to "bob"
For anything but eels!

A cunning fisherman was he,
His angles were all right;
The smallest nibble at his bait
Was sure to prove a "bite!"

All day this fisherman would sit
Upon an ancient log,
And gaze into the water, like
Some sedentary frog;

With all the seeming innocence
And that unconscious look
That other people often wear
When they intend to "hook!"

To charm the fish he never spoke-
Although his voice was fine;
He found the most convenient way
Was just to drop a line.

And many a gudgeon of the pond,
If they could speak to-day,

Would own, with grief, this angler had
A mighty taking way.

Alas! one day this fisherman
Had taken too much grog,
And, being but a landsman, too,
He couldn't keep his log.

'Twas all in vain, with might and main
He strove to reach the shore;
Down-down he went to feed the fish
He'd baited oft before.

The jury gave their verdict that
'Twas nothing else but gin
Had caused the fisherman to be
So sadly taken in;

Though one stood out upon a whim,
And said the angler's slaughter,
To be exact about the fact,

Was, clearly, gin-and-water!

The moral of this mournful tale
To all is plain and clear,

That drinking habits bring a man

Too often to his bier;

And he who scorns to "take the pledge,"

And keep the promise fast,

May be, in spite of fate, a stiff

Cold water man at last!

J. G. Saxe.

THE FEARLESS DE COURCY.

THE fame of the fearless De Courcy

Is boundless as the air:

With his own right hand he won the land

Of Ulster, green and fair!

But he lieth low in a dungeon now,

Powerless, in proud despair;

For false King John hath cast him in,

And closely chained him there.

The false king sate on his throne of state,

'Mid knights and nobles frce:

"Who is there," he cried, "who will cross the tide, And do battle in France for me?