The first son becomes half a fool in reality,
While the mother is watching his large ideality;
And the girl roars uncheck'd, quite a moral abortion,
For we trust her benevolence, order, and caution.
I sigh for the good times of sewing and spinning,
Ere this new tree of knowledge had set them a sinning;
The women are mad, and they'll build female colleges,--
So here's to plain English !—a plague on their ologies!
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
A PERCH, who had the toothache, once
Thus moan'd, like any human dunce :
'Why must great souls exhaust so soon
Life's thin and unsubstantial boon?
Existence on such sculpin terms,
Their vulgar loves and hard-won worms,---
What is it all but dross to me,
Whose nature craves a larger sea;
Whose inches, six from head to tail,
Enclose the spirit of a whale ;
Who, if great baits were still to win,
By watchful eye and fearless fin
Might with the Zodiac's awful twain
Room for a third immortal gain?
Better the crowd's unthinking plan,-
The hook, the jerk, the frying-pan!
O Death, thou ever roaming shark,
Ingulf me in eternal dark !'
The speech was cut in two by flight:
A real shark had come in sight;
No metaphoric monster, one
It soothes despair to call upon,
But stealthy, sidelong, grim, I wis,
A bit of downright Nemesis ;
While it recovered from the shock,
Our fish took shelter 'neath a rock :
This was an ancient lobster's house,
A lobster of prodigious nous,
So old that barnacles had spread
Their white encampments o'er its head,-
And of experience so stupend,
His claws were blunted at the end,
Turning life's iron pages o'er,
That shut and can be oped no more.
Stretching a hospitable claw,
'At once,' said he, 'the point I saw ;
My dear young friend, your case I rue,
Your great-great-grandfather I knew;
He was a tried and tender friend
I know-I ate him in the end:
In this vile sea a pilgrim long,
Still my sight's good, my memory strong; The only sign that age is near
Is a slight deafness in this ear;
I understand your case as well
As this my old familiar shell;
This sorrow's a new-fangled notion,
Come in since first I knew the ocean;
We had no radicals, nor crimes,
Nor lobster-pots, in good old times;
Your traps and nets and hooks we owe
To Messieurs Louis Blanc and Co.;
I say to all my sons and daughters,
Shun Red Republican hot waters;
No lobster ever cast his lot
Among the reds, but went to pot:
Your trouble's in the jaw, you said?
Come, let me just nip off your head,
And, when a new one comes, the pain
Will never trouble you again :
Nay, nay, fear naught : 'tis nature's law;
Four times I've lost this starboard claw;
And still, ere long, another grew,
Good as the old-and better too!'
The perch consented, and next day
An osprey, marketing that way,
Picked up a fish without a head,
Floating with belly up, stone dead.
Sharp are the teeth of ancient saws, And sauce for goose is gander's sauce; But perch's heads aren't lobster's claws.
A FELLOW in a market town,
Most musical, cried razors up and down,
And offer'd twelve for eighteenpence ;
Which certainly seem'd wondrous cheap,
And for the money quite a heap,
As every man would buy, with cash and sense.
A country bumpkin the great offer heard:
Poor Hodge, who suffer'd by a broad black beard,
That seem'd a shoe-brush stuck beneath his nose.
With cheerfulness the eighteenpence he paid,
And proudly to himself, in whispers, said,
'This rascal stole the razors, I suppose.
'No matter if the fellow be a knave,
Provided that the razors shave;
It certainly will be a monstrous prize.'
So home the clown, with his good fortune, went,
Smiling in heart and soul, content,
And quickly soap'd himself to ears and eyes.
Being well lather'd from a dish or tub,
Hodge now began with grinning pain to grub,
Just like a hedger cutting furze :
'Twas a vile razor!-then the rest he tried-
All were impostors—' Ah !' Hodge sigh'd;
'I wish my eighteenpence within my purse.' In vain to chase his beard, and bring the graces,
He cut, and dug, and winced, and stamp'd, and swore, Brought blood, and danced, blasphemed, and made wry faces,
And cursed each razor's body o'er and o'er : His muzzle, form'd of opposition stuff,
Firm as a Foxite, would not loose its ruff:
So kept it-laughing at the steel and suds :
Hodge, in a passion, stretch'd his angry jaws,
Vowing the direst vengeance, with clench'd claws,
On the vile cheat that sold the goods.
'Razors ! a damn'd, confounded dog,
Not fit to scrape a hog!'
Hodge sought the fellow-found him--and begun :
'P'rhaps, Master Razor rogue, to you 'tis fun,
That people flay themselves out of their lives: You rascal! for an hour have I been grubbing, Giving my crying whiskers here a scrubbing, With razors just like oyster knives.
Sirrah! I tell you, you're a knave,
To cry up razors that can't shave.'
'Friend,' quoth the razor-man, 'I'm not a knave :
As for the razors you have bought,
Upon my soul I never thought
That they would shave.'
'Not think they'd shave!' quoth Hodge, with wond'ring
And voice not much unlike an Indian yell;
'What were they made for then, you dog?' he cries : 'Made!' quoth the fellow, with a smile--' to sell'
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