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 mé 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 priests únction and the lawyer's parchment,
Éven of Hygéa's ministers' leave to live
A life of sin and luxury and riot,
But I cannot forgive the poet's sale
Óf his fine soúl to the démon Patronage
Too, too obsequious Horace, thou must down.

Stand úp, ring finger; thou 'rt the Florentine,
The hápless, 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 bóldly speak the truth he boldly thought;
Wért thou less stérn, less' terrible', less just,
Less Éschylean, hadst thou less of Moses,
Léss of that jealous and vindictive God
Who punishes children for their fathers' sins
Éven to the generation third and fourth,
And hádst thou taken Maro for thy real,
Not merely for thy nominal, leader through
Death's áwful, 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 Áthanasius' duckmeat-mantled pools,
I doubt if in my heart I could have found it
To sáy, as now I say: Dante, go down.

Stand up here, little finger; thou 'rt the pensive,
Délicate, gentle, nobleminded Schiller,
Ténder white-rose frostnipped 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 thy faults, Schiller!
Amiable weaknesses which every day
Of lónger life had sobered, cúrtailed, cured
Diis aliter visum; so thou must go down.

Só, being a bóy, I used to count my fingers,
And só in mảnhood sometimes count them still
In the late gloáming 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.

WHÝ 's a priest like a fingerpost, you dunce ?"
Said a schoolmáster 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.

1

THERE wás a curious creáture

Lived many years ago;
Don't ask me what its name was,

For I myself don't know;

But 'twás a curious creature,

So délicately made
It coúld not bear the súnshine,

It scárce could bear the shade.

Its júdgment was deféctive,

Its mémory. was weak, Until it was two years old

Not one word could it speak.

Capricious in its témper,

And gráve by fits, then gay, It seldom liked tomorrow

The thing it liked today.

When 't mét a little trouble

'Twould heáve a doleful sigh, Clásp its forepaws together

And loudly sob and cry;

And then when something pleased it

'Twould fall into a fit And work in such convúlsions

You'd think its sides would split

With little taste for lábor,

And weáry soon of rest,
It seemed álways in a púzzle

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 fóld its arms and cry: "Donothing 's such a weáriness

I'd álmost rather die."

As fóx or magpie clever,

And full of guile and art, Its chiefest study ever

Was hów to hide its heart;

And seldom through its features

Could you its thoughts discern, Or whát its feelings towards you

From words 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 fåll 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,

Ånd a baboon in shape,
Some naturalists will have it,

It was a kind of ape;

But I would not believe it

Though deposed to upon oath
Such cálumnies to crédit

Wise men were ever loath;

And all the ancient récords

Unanimous declare
It was God's own legitimate

Líkeness and son and heir,

That for some seventy years should

Live wickedly, then die
And turn into an angel

And fly up to the sky;

And there in the blue éther

With God for ever dwell,
Oft wondering how it came there

When 't shoúld 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.