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My bookcase and my cash-drawer and my wardrobe;

On thee I'll live, and whén Death, at the last,
Comes looking for me, laid on thee he 'll find me,
And thou shalt be my coffin and my bier,

And share with me the lóng night of the tomb.
CARLSRUHE, May 8. 1856.

IT 's not on the insect that creeps cautious forward,
Or lies without motion as if it were dead,
But on the gay flutterer busily buzzing,
Dionaea muscipula closes her trap.

Take warning, and as the dial's shadow steal cautious
Along life's spring-gun and man-tráp beset road,
Of no higher praise ambitious than, "Nec vixit male
Qui natus moriensque fefellit." Adieu!

CARLSRUHE, March 31, 1856.

Putting a penny into a child's hand and closing its hand tight on it.

"Da hast du 'n Thaler in die Hand."

KEEP the penny fast in hand,

And 'twill buy thee house and land,
And coach and horses new,

And knives and forks and plates,
And steel fenders and steel grates,

And pretty children too.

CARLSRUHE, May 4, 1856.

After Aesop.

UPON a stately deer's horns once there sat a little fly, A mighty little thing it was, upon the horns so high: "If I'm too heavy for thee," cried the fly down to the deer, "Thou 'st only just to tell me so, and I'll not stay long here." "Thou 'rt very good," the deer replied, "to let me know thou 'rt there,

But pray do not disturb thyself, I'll try the weight to bear." CARLSRUHE, May 9, 1856.

As little dog Faithful
Trots happy beside

His owner and master
And parts from him never,
So along with thee let thou
My verses go gladly

And stay with thee always
Wherever thou art.

CARLSRUHE, March 8, 1856.

'TWAS in my study as I sat,

One dark November day, Fretting about I know not what, And wishing it were May,

An ugly, wrinkled carle came in,
With leaden eyes and dull,
And set himself right opposite me,

And in my face stared full.

Not one blessed word he said to me,

But ever and anon

Groaned just as if his heart would break

Be

sure,

I wished him gone.

His elbow on the table propped,

His chin upon his hand,

He looked, for all the world, like one
Who 'd lost both house and land.

He sat and sat, and stared at me,
I sat, and stared at him,

Just like two squatting frogs you 've seen
Beside a puddle's brim.

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His jaundiced cheek turned chocolate, first,

Then deep grass - green, then blue,

And every time his colour changed,
I doubt not mine changed too.

How long we had sat I cannot tell,
When at the study door,
In-peeping, Eleanora cried: -

"You said you'd go at Four;

"I'm waiting now since half past Three,
With shawl and bonnet on."

"Come in," said I, "and see who 's here"
But lo! the carle was gone.

"And so it is and always was,
My own dear Eleanore!

Before thee fly my phantoms blue,
As night, the morn before."

CARLSRUHE, May 18, 1856.

PLANT a robinia on your poet's grave,

With delicate, green leaves and sweet, white flowers,

And prickles for the rude, offensive hand,

For to the kindly he was sweet and fragrant,
And only the unkindly felt his prickles.

CARLSRUHE, March 5, 1856.

THE EMIGRE.

FORTY
ORTY years absent from his native Loire,

He walked, one day, along St. Lawrence' banks,
And, as he walked, kept plucking, one by one,
The tender petals of a full-blown rose

every leaflet

He had in his hand, till not even one was left.
But when he saw the rose-cup bare and blank,
He sighed and of his home thought, smiling, once,
And rich with a large, happy family,
But now plucked bare by Time's hand
Withered, or dead, or scattered to the winds.
So with scarce conscious hand the emigré
Let fall into the stream the naked róse-stalk,
And, having a while watched it seaward carried,
Turned away lonely, and sat down and wept.
CARLSRUHE, March 24, 1856.

1

NEVER was king so royally

Served, as I by my housemaids three:
My first maid's name is Industry,
My second maid's name is Honesty,
My third maid's name 's Frugality.
Happy we live, right happily,

Together, I and my housemaids three.

CARLSRUHE, May 8, 1856.

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