THERE was a time when to our view
This dúll old world looked fresh and new,
And you loved me and I loved you,
There was a time.
There was a time when young and gay
We frólicked through the livelong day,
And all our whole year was one May,
There was a time.
There was a time we did not dream
That things are other than they seem
And with delusive lustre gleam,
There was a time,
There was a time we had not yet
Learned to fume and cark and fret
And thankless riches hardly get,
There was a time.
There was a time but it is past;
The child's become a man at last,
And age and death are coming fast,
There was a time.
DALKEY LODGE, DALKEY (IRELAND); May 7, 1855.
"TÝRANT, I'll have my rights;" I once heard say
A village cur to a neighbouring farmer's mastiff:
"One hálf that bone exact I claim as mine,
Fór in God's sight all kinds of dogs are equal;
Hé made us áll, we 're áll alike his children."
"Take it," replied the mástiff, "with that strength
Équal to mine, which that impartial God
No doubt has given thee; I impugn thy right not.”
Grówling he said, and Cur away sneaked prudent,
And had that night gone supperless to bed,
Hád not kind Providence brought by chance that way
My lady's pug with bone stolen from the larder;
Which Cúr, an adept now in equity,
With sudden snatch to appropriate not demurring,
Bore off and at the cabin door contented gnawed,
The livelong evening, praising God and saying:
"Eách has his own; the mastiff his, I mine;
Had God intended Pug to have kept his bone
There's not a doubt he would have made him stronger."
DALKEY LODGE, DALKEY (IRELAND); April 1, 1855.
Do good to your friend and hé 'll do good to yoú,
Perháps, and if not inconvénient tó him;
But if you'd have him réally like and love you
You múst in áll things swear to hís, opinion.
DALKEY LODGE, DALKEY (IRELAND); May 18, 1855.
"LÉT the law take its course," the Roman said,
Sitting in judgment; and the lictors seized
Forthwith the two young men, the judge's sons,
And stripped them to the waist and bound and flogged.
In vain turned towards the judgment-seat the youths'
Wild eyes, imploring; the uplifted ax
Sévered first óne and then the other's head.
Proúd to have éxecuted Roman justice
Éven on his own rebellious sons, the judge
Unblénched descended from the judgment-seat;
Hóme to his désolate house returned, the sire
In sécret wépt his disobedient children.
Súch were the wondrous men that made Rome Rome. DALKEY LODGE, DALKEY (IRELAND); April 12, 1855.
DRAW back from the mirror; your image recédes,
And at last disappears in the infinite distance;
Approach; and, behold! from the depths of the mirror
A still brightening image comes fórward to meet you:
So, sad Mém'ry's eye follows the flight of the past;
So, brightening, to Hópe's eye, approaches the future.
DALKEY LODGE, DALKEY (IRELAND); April 2, 1855.
MY SISTER MARY'S DOG RAP,
WRITTEN THE HOUR HE DIED.
SELDOM lived dog or man more peaceful life,
More free from envy, bitterness, and strife;
Séldom died dog or man more placid death,
Or struggled less in yielding up the breath;
Séldom left dog or man a friend behind
More trué, Rap, than thy mistress or more kind.
So peaceful I would live, so placid die,
And, dying, hear the same survivor sigh,
And dead, not far off in the earth be laid,
Under th' ancestral elm and yew-tree shade.
DALKEY LODGE, DALKEY; Dec. 17, 1854.
UNDERNEATH this mouldering heáp
Lies sóme poor clay
That once like theé could laúgh and weép,
And hád its dáy.
if by the world thou árt despised,
A while here stay;
If pampered by the world and prized,
Away! away!
DALKEY LODGE, DALKEY; May 6, 1855.
ONLY FULL AND TRUE REPORT
OF THE CONTENTION BETWEEN NOSE AND EYES FOR THE SPECTACLES,
BETWEEN Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose,
The spectacles set them unhappily wrong;
The point in dispute was, as all the world knows,
To which the said spectacles ought to belong.
So Tongue was the lawyer, and argued the cause
With a great deal of skill, and a wig full of learning;
While chief baron Ear sat to balance the laws,
So famed for his talent in nicely discerning.
* In Mr. Cowper's report of this celebrated case we look in vain for his accustomed impartiality, his characteristic love of truth and justice. Not only has he garbled the pleadings by a total omission of the plea of the eyes, but even falsified the record itself by the substitution of an absurd and unjust decision of the court for the rational and equitable compromise by which the case was actually closed, and the proceedings brought to a termination satisfactory to both parties. To this, the sole dereliction of the straightforward path with which he has ever been charged, Mr. Cowper was no doubt seduced by his partiality for the nose, Mr. Cowper, as it is well known, having always been accustomed to wear his spectacles
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