My heart's delight, judicious, pithy Horace,
Who, frúgal in his plenty, never wastes

A word not by the sense required, and, liberal
Éven in the midst of his frugality,

Flings free the useful, necessary word.

Yét, Horace, thou 'rt for me something too much

The courtier; for a prince's smiles and favors
Too readily sold'st a poet's independance.

I can forgive the purchase by the great
Of ease and honors, dignities and fame,
Óf the vile populace' vivats and hurrahs,
Óf the priest's unction and the lawyer's parchment,
Éven of Hygéa's ministers' leave to live

A life of sin and luxury and riot,

Bút I cannot forgive the poet's sale

Óf his fine soúl to the démon Patronage

Too, too obsequious Horace, thou must down.

Stand up, ring finger; thou 'rt the Florentine,
The hapless, exiled, ever persecuted
But still undaúnted Dante, who in the dim
Dark middle age the first was to hold high
The beacon torch of rational enquiry
And boldly speak the truth he boldly thought;
Wért thou less stérn, less terrible', less just,
Less Éschylean, hadst thou less of Moses,
Léss of that jeálous and vindictive God
Who púnishes children for their fathers' sins
Éven to the generation third and fourth,
And hadst thou taken Maro for thy real,

Not merely for thy nominal, leader through
Death's awful, unexplored, Trans - Stygian land,
And hádst thou oftener slaked thy knowledge-thirst
Át the clear, wélling fountain of Lucretius,

And not kept drawing still unwholesome draughts
Out of Saint Básil's, Hilary's, Chrysostom's
And Athanasius' duckmeat-mantled pools,

I doubt if in my heart I could have found it
To say, as now I say: Dante, go down.

Stand up here, little finger; thou 'rt the pensive,
Délicate, gentle, nobleminded Schiller,

Ténder white-rose frostnípped in Weimar's garden
Ére it had raised its modest head above

Luxúriant Goethe's all too neighbouring shade.
Redundancy of words, enthusiasm,

Subjéctiveness (youth's faults) are thý faults, Schiller!
Amiable weaknesses which every day

Of longer life had sobered, cúrtailed, cured
Diis aliter visum; so thou must go down.

-

Só, being a boy, I used to count my fingers,
And só in mánhood sometimes count them still

Ín the late gloȧming or the early morn

Or when I sleepless lie at deep midnight.

Walking from SANCT ANTON on the ADLERBERG (German TYROL) to TEUFEN

in Canton APPENZELL, Sept. 6—10, 1854.

WHY 's a priest like a fingerpost, you dunce?"

Said a schoolmaster to his pupil once;

"I think I know," replied the roguish elf;

"He points the way, but never goes himself."

Walking from UNTERBRUCK to KREUTZSTRASSEN near MUNICH, July 4, 1854.

And then when something pleásed it

"Twould fall into a fit

And work in such convulsions

You'd think its sides would split

With little taste for lábor,
And weary soon of rest,
It seemed always in a puzzle
Which of the two was best.

So after a while's lábor

It would sit down and say: "This lábor is a killing thing, I'll work no more today."

Then after a while's sitting

"Twould fold its arms and cry:

"Donóthing's such a weariness I'd álmost rather die."

As fóx or magpie clever,

And full of guile and art,

Its chiéfest study ever

Was hów to hide its heart;

And séldom through its feátures

Could you its thoughts discern, Or what its feelings towards you From wórds or manner learn.

Fierce, únrelenting, crúel,
Bloodshed was its delight;

To give pain, its chief pleasure
From morning until night;

All kinds of beasts, birds, fishes, "Twould fall upon and kill,

And not even its own like spare, Its húngry maw to fill;

And when it could no more eat

But was stuffed up to the throat,
"Twould húnt them down for pástime,
And on their anguish gloat.

Of imitative manners,

Ánd a baboon in shape,
Some náturalists will have it,
It was a kind of ape;

But i would not believe it

Though depósed to upon oath

Such cálumnies to crédit

Wise men were ever loath;

And all the ancient récords

Unánimous declare

It was God's own legítimate
Likeness and son and heir,

That fór some seventy years should

Live wickedly, then die

And túrn into an ángel

And fly up to the sky;

And thére in the blue éther

With God for ever dwell,

Oft wondering how it cáme there

When 't should have been in hell.

Begun at ARCO in the Italian TYROL, Aug. 24, 1854; finished while walking from CAMPIGLIO across the VAL DI NON and over the PALLADE to SPONDINI at the foot of the ORTELER, Aug. 29 to Sept. 2, 1854.