You made the raps? "T was your invention that?

Cur, slave, and devil!"— eight fingers and two thumbs
Stuck in my throat!

Well, if the marks seem gone,
"T is because stiffish cocktail, taken in time,
Is better for a bruise than arnica.
There, sir! I bear no malice: 't is n't in me.
I know I acted wrongly still, I've tried
What I could say in my excuse, to show
The devil's not all devil. . . I don't pretend,
An angel, much less such a gentleman

As you, sir! And I've lost you,

Lost all, 1-1-1

lost myself,

No - are you in earnest, sir?

Oh, yours, sir, is an angel's part! I know

What prejudice prompts, and what's the common course Men take to soothe their ruffled self-conceit :

Only you rise superior to it all!

No, sir, it don't hurt much; it's speaking long
That makes me choke a little: the marks will go !
What? Twenty V-notes more, and outfit too,
And not a word to Greeley? One -

-

one kiss

O' the hand that saves me! You'll not let me speak,
I well know, and I've lost the right, too true!
But I must say, sir, if She hears (she does)

Your sainted

Well, sir, be it so!

That 's, I think, My bedroom candle. Good-night! Bl-l-less you, sir!

R-r-r, you brute-beast and blackguard! Cowardly scamp! I only wish I dared burn down the house

And spoil your sniggering! Oh, what, you 're the man? You 're satisfied at last? You've found out Sludge? We'll see that presently: my turn, sir, next!

I too can tell my story: brute,

five,

do hear? you You throttled your sainted mother, that old hag, In just such a fit of passion: no, it was To get this house of hers, and many a note Like these I'll pocket them, however Ten, fifteen ay, you gave her throat the twist, Or else you poisoned her! Confound the cuss! Where was my head? I ought to have prophesied He'll die in a year and join her: that's the way.

I don't know where my head is: what had I done?
How did it all go? I said he poisoned her,
And hoped he'd have grace given him to repent,
Whereon he picked this quarrel, bullied me

And called me cheat: I thrashed him, who could help?
He howled for mercy, prayed me on his knees
To cut and run and save him from disgrace :

I do so, and once off, he slanders me.
An end of him! Begin elsewhere anew!
Boston's a hole, the herring-pond is wide,
V-notes are something, liberty still more.
Beside, is he the only fool in the world?

APPARENT FAILURE.

"We shall soon lose a celebrated building.

No, for I 'li save it!

I.

Paris Newspaper.

Seven years since,
I passed through Paris, stopped a day
To see the baptism of
your Prince;
Saw, made my bow, and went my way:
Walking the heat and headache off,

I took the Seine-side, you surmise,
Thought of the Congress, Gortschakoff,
Cavour's appeal and Buol's replies,
So sauntered till what met my eyes?

II.

Only the Doric little Morgue!

The dead-house where you show your drowned: Petrarch's Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue, Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned. pays one's debt in such a case;

One

I plucked up heart and entered, — stalked,
Keeping a tolerable face

Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked :
Let them! No Briton 's to be balked!

III.

First came the silent gazers; next,
A screen of glass, we 're thankful for ;
Last, the sight's self, the sermon's text,

The three men who did most abhor Their life in Paris yesterday,

So killed themselves and now, enthroned Each on his copper couch, they lay

Fronting me, waiting to be owned.

I thought, and think, their sin 's atoned.

IV.

Poor men, God made, and all for that!
The reverence struck me; o'er each head
Religiously was hung its hat,

Each coat dripped by the owner's bed,
Sacred from touch: each had his berth,
His bounds, his proper place of rest,
Who last night tenanted on earth

Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast, Unless the plain asphalte seemed best.

V.

How did it happen, my poor boy?
You wanted to be Buonaparte

And have the Tuileries for toy,

And could not, so it broke your heart? You, old one by his side, I judge,

Were, red as blood, a socialist,

A leveller! Does the Empire grudge
You've gained what no Republic missed?
Be quiet, and unclench

Or black,

VI.

your fist!

why, he was red in vain,

poor fellow that is blue!
What fancy was it, turned your brain?
Oh, women were the prize for you!
Money gets women, cards and dice
Get money, and ill-luck gets just
The copper couch and one clear nice
Cool squirt of water o'er your bust,
The right thing to extinguish lust!

VII.

It's wiser being good than bad ;
It's safer being meek than fierce :

It's fitter being sane than mad.

My own hope is, a sun will pierce

The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
That, after Last, returns the First,
Though a wide compass round be fetched;
That what began best, can't end worst,
Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.

EPILOGUE.

FIRST SPEAKER, as David.

1.

On the first of the Feast of Feasts,
The Dedication Day,

When the Levites joined the Priests
At the Altar in robed array,
Gave signal to sound and say,

II.

When the thousands, rear and van,
Swarming with one accord,
Became as a single man

(Look, gesture, thought and word)
In praising and thanking the Lord,-

III.

When the singers lift up their voice,
And the trumpets made endeavor,
Sounding, "In God rejoice!"

Saying, "In Him rejoice
Whose mercy endureth forever!"

IV.

Then the Temple filled with a cloud,
Even the House of the Lord;

Porch bent and pillar bowed:
For the presence of the Lord,

In the glory of His cloud,

Had filled the House of the Lord.

SECOND SPEAKER, as Renan.

Gone now ! All gone across the dark so far, Sharpening fast, shuddering ever, shutting still,

Dwindling into the distance, dies that star

Which came, stood, opened once! We gazed our fill With upturned faces on as real a Face

That, stooping from grave music and mild fire, Took in our homage, made a visible place

Through many a depth of glory, gyre on gyre, For the dim human tribute. Was this true? Could man indeed avail, mere praise of his, To help by rapture God's own rapture too, Thrill with a heart's red tinge that pure pale bliss ? Why did it end? Who failed to beat the breast, And shriek, and throw the arms protesting wide, When a first shadow showed the star addressed Itself to motion, and on either side

The rims contracted as the rays retired;

The music, like a fountain's sickening pulse, Subsided on itself; awhile transpired

Some vestige of a Face no pangs convulse,
No prayers retard; then even this was gone,
Lost in the night at last. We, lone and left
Silent through centuries, ever and anon

Venture to probe again the vault bereft
Of all now save the lesser lights, a mist
Of multitudinous points, yet suns, men say
And this leaps ruby, this lurks amethyst,

But where may hide what came and loved our clay? How shall the sage detect in yon expanse

The star which chose to stoop and stay for us?
Unroll the records! Hailed ye such advance
Indeed, and did your hope evanish thus?
Watchers of twilight, is the worst averred?
We shall not look up, know ourselves are seen,
Speak, and be sure that we again are heard,
Acting or suffering, have the disk's serene
Reflect our life, absorb an earthly flame,

Nor doubt that, were mankind inert and numb,
Its core had never crimsoned all the same,
Nor, missing ours, its music fallen dumb?
Oh, dread succession to a dizzy post,

Sad sway of sceptre whose mere touch appalls,
Ghastly dethronement, cursed by those the most
On whose repugnant brow the crown next falls!