II.

TIM TURPIN he was gravel blind,And ne’er had seen the skies:For Nature, when his head was made,Forgot to dot his eyes.

So, like a Christmas pedagogue,Poor Tim was forced to do—Look out for pupils, for he hadA vacancy for two.

There’s some have specs to help their sightOf objects dim and small:But Tim hadspecswithin his eyes,And could not see at all.

Now Tim he woo’d a servant maid,And took her to his arms;For he, like Pyramus, had castA wall-eye on her charms.

By day she led him up and downWhere’er he wish’d to jog,A happy wife, altho’ she ledThe life of any dog.

But just when Tim had liv’d a monthIn honey with his wife,A surgeon ope’d his Milton eyes,Like oysters, with a knife.

But when his eyes were open’d thus,He wish’d them dark again:For when he look’d upon his wife,He saw her very plain.

Her face was bad, her figure worse,He couldn’t bear to eat:For she was any thing but likeA Grace before his meat.

Now Tim he was a feeling man:For when his sight was thick,It made him feel for everything—But that was with a stick.

So with a cudgel in his hand—It was not light or slim—He knock’d at his wife’s head untilIt open’d unto him.

And when the corpse was stiff and coldHe took his slaughter’d spouse,And laid her in a heap with allThe ashes of her house.

But like a wicked murderer,He liv’d in constant fearFrom day to day, and so he cutHis throat from ear to ear.

The neighbours fetch’d a doctor in:Said he, this wound I dreadCan hardly be sew’d up—his lifeIs hanging on a thread.

But when another week was gone,He gave him stronger hope—Instead of hanging on a thread,Of hanging on a rope.

Ah! when he hid his bloody work,In ashes round about,How little he supposed the truthWould soon be sifted out.

But when the parish dustman came,His rubbish to withdraw,He found more dust within the heap,Than he contracted for!

A dozen men to try the fact,Were sworn that very day;But tho’ they all were jurors, yetNo conjurors were they.

Said Tim unto those jurymen,You need not waste your breath,For I confess myself at once,The author of her death.

And oh! when I reflect uponThe blood that I have spilt,Just like a button is my soul,Inscrib’d with doubleguilt!

Then turning round his head again,He saw before his eyes,A great judge, and a little judge,The judges of a-size!

The great judge took his judgment cap,And put it on his head,And sentenc’d Tim by law to hang,Till he was three times dead.

So he was tried, and he was hung(Fit punishment for such)On Horsham-drop, and none can sayIt was a drop too much.

“God help thee, said I, but I’ll let thee out, cost what it will: so I turned about the cage to get to the door.”—Sterne.

’Tis strange, what awkward figures and odd capersFolks cut, who seek their doctrine from the papers;But there are many shallow politicians,Who take their bias from bewilder’d journals,—Turn state physicians,And make themselves fools’-caps of the diurnals.One of this kind, not human, but a monkey,Had read himself at last to this sour creed—That he was nothing but Oppression’s flunkey,And man a tyrant over all his breed.He could not readOf niggers whipt, or over-trampled weavers,But he applied their wrongs to his own seed,And nourish’d thoughts that threw him into fevers;His very dreams were full of martial beavers,And drilling Pugs, for liberty pugnacious,To sever chains vexatious:In fact, he thought that all his injur’d lineShould take up pikes in hand, and never drop’emTill they had cleared a road to Freedom’s shrine,—Unless perchance the turnpike men should stop ’em.Full of this rancour,Pacing one day beside St. Clement Danes,It came into his brainsTo give a look in at the Crown and Anchor;Where certain solemn sages of the nationWere at that moment in deliberationHow to relieve the wide world of its chains,Pluck despots down,And thereby crownWhitee- as well as blackee-man-cipation.Pug heard the speeches with great approbation,And gaz’d with pride upon the Liberators;To see mere coal-heaversSuch perfect Bolivars—Waiters of inns sublim’d to innovators,And slaters dignified as legislators—Small publicans demanding (such their high senseOf liberty) an universal license—And pattern-makers easing Freedom’s clogs—The whole thing seem’dSo fine, he deem’dThe smallest demagogues as great as Gogs!Pug, with some curious notions in his noddle,Walk’d out at last, and turn’d into the Strand,To the left hand,Conning some portions of the previous twaddle,And striding with a step that seem’d design’dTo represent the mighty March of Mind,Instead of that slow waddleOf thought, to which our ancestors inclin’d—No wonder, then, that he should quickly findHe stood in front of that intrusive pile,Where Cross keeps many a kindOf bird confin’d,And free-born animal, in durance vile—A thought that stirr’d up all the monkey-bile!The window stood ajar—It was not far,Nor, like Parnassus, very hard to climb—The hour was verging on the supper-time,And many a growl was sent through many a bar.Meanwhile Pug scrambled upward like a tar,And soon crept in,Unnotic’d in the dinOf tuneless throats, that made the attics ringWith all the harshest notes that they could bring;For like the Jews,Wild beasts refuse,In midst of their captivity—to sing.Lord! how it made him chafe,Full of his new emancipating zeal,To look around upon this brute-bastille,And see the king of creatures in—a safe!The desert’s denizen in one small den,Swallowing slavery’s most bitter pills—A bear in bars unbearable. And thenThe fretful porcupine, with all its quillsImprison’d in a pen!A tiger limited to four feet ten;And, still worse lot,A leopard to one spot!An elephant enlarg’d,But not discharg’d;(It was before the elephant was shot;)A doleful wanderoo, that wander’d not;An ounce much disproportion’d to his pound.Pug’s wrath wax’d hotTo gaze upon these captive creature’s round;Whose claws—all scratching—gave him full assuranceThey found their durance vile of vile endurance.He went above—a solitary mounterUp gloomy stairs—and saw a pensive groupOf hapless fowls—Cranes, vultures, owls,In fact, it was a sort of Poultry-Compter,Where feather’d prisoners were doom’d to droop:Here sat an eagle, forc’d to make a stoop,Not from the skies, but his impending roof;And there aloof,A pining ostrich, moping in a coop;With other samples of the bird creation,All cag’d against their powers and their wills,And cramp’d in such a space, the longest billsWere plainly bills of least accommodation.In truth, it was a very ugly sceneTo fall to any liberator’s share,To see those winged fowls, that once had beenFree as the wind, no freer than fixed air.His temper little mended,Pug from this Bird-cage Walk at last descendedUnto the lion and the elephant,His bosom in a pantTo see all nature’s Free List thus suspended,And beasts depriv’d of what she had intended.They could not even preyIn their own way;A hardship always reckon’d quite prodigious.Thus he revolv’d—And soon resolv’dTo give them freedom, civil and religious.That night there was no country cousins, rawFrom Wales, to view the lion and his kin;The keeper’s eyes were fix’d upon a saw;The saw was fix’d upon a bullock’s shin:Meanwhile with stealthy paw,Pug hastened to withdrawThe bolt that kept the king of brutes within.Now, monarch of the forest! thou shalt winPrecious enfranchisement—thy bolts are undone;Thou art no longer a degraded creature,But loose to roam with liberty and nature;And free of all the jungles about London—All Hampstead’s heathy desert lies before thee!Methinks I see thee bound from Cross’s ark,Full of the native instinct that comes o’er thee,And turn a rangerOf Hounslow Forest, and the Regent’s Park—Thin Rhodes’s cows—the mail-coach steeds endanger,And gobble parish watchmen after dark:—Methinks I see thee, with the early lark,Stealing to Merlin’s cave—(thycave.)—Alas,That such bright visions should not come to pass!Alas, for freedom, and for freedom’s hero!Alas, for liberty of life and limb!For Pug had only half unbolted Nero,When Nerobolted him!

Full of this rancour,Pacing one day beside St. Clement Danes,It came into his brainsTo give a look in at the Crown and Anchor;Where certain solemn sages of the nationWere at that moment in deliberationHow to relieve the wide world of its chains,Pluck despots down,And thereby crownWhitee- as well as blackee-man-cipation.Pug heard the speeches with great approbation,And gaz’d with pride upon the Liberators;To see mere coal-heaversSuch perfect Bolivars—Waiters of inns sublim’d to innovators,And slaters dignified as legislators—Small publicans demanding (such their high senseOf liberty) an universal license—And pattern-makers easing Freedom’s clogs—The whole thing seem’dSo fine, he deem’dThe smallest demagogues as great as Gogs!

Pug, with some curious notions in his noddle,Walk’d out at last, and turn’d into the Strand,To the left hand,Conning some portions of the previous twaddle,And striding with a step that seem’d design’dTo represent the mighty March of Mind,Instead of that slow waddleOf thought, to which our ancestors inclin’d—No wonder, then, that he should quickly findHe stood in front of that intrusive pile,Where Cross keeps many a kindOf bird confin’d,And free-born animal, in durance vile—A thought that stirr’d up all the monkey-bile!The window stood ajar—It was not far,Nor, like Parnassus, very hard to climb—The hour was verging on the supper-time,And many a growl was sent through many a bar.Meanwhile Pug scrambled upward like a tar,And soon crept in,Unnotic’d in the dinOf tuneless throats, that made the attics ringWith all the harshest notes that they could bring;For like the Jews,Wild beasts refuse,In midst of their captivity—to sing.

Lord! how it made him chafe,Full of his new emancipating zeal,To look around upon this brute-bastille,And see the king of creatures in—a safe!The desert’s denizen in one small den,Swallowing slavery’s most bitter pills—A bear in bars unbearable. And thenThe fretful porcupine, with all its quillsImprison’d in a pen!A tiger limited to four feet ten;And, still worse lot,A leopard to one spot!An elephant enlarg’d,But not discharg’d;(It was before the elephant was shot;)A doleful wanderoo, that wander’d not;An ounce much disproportion’d to his pound.Pug’s wrath wax’d hotTo gaze upon these captive creature’s round;Whose claws—all scratching—gave him full assuranceThey found their durance vile of vile endurance.

He went above—a solitary mounterUp gloomy stairs—and saw a pensive groupOf hapless fowls—Cranes, vultures, owls,In fact, it was a sort of Poultry-Compter,Where feather’d prisoners were doom’d to droop:Here sat an eagle, forc’d to make a stoop,Not from the skies, but his impending roof;And there aloof,A pining ostrich, moping in a coop;With other samples of the bird creation,All cag’d against their powers and their wills,And cramp’d in such a space, the longest billsWere plainly bills of least accommodation.In truth, it was a very ugly sceneTo fall to any liberator’s share,To see those winged fowls, that once had beenFree as the wind, no freer than fixed air.

His temper little mended,Pug from this Bird-cage Walk at last descendedUnto the lion and the elephant,His bosom in a pantTo see all nature’s Free List thus suspended,And beasts depriv’d of what she had intended.They could not even preyIn their own way;A hardship always reckon’d quite prodigious.Thus he revolv’d—And soon resolv’dTo give them freedom, civil and religious.

That night there was no country cousins, rawFrom Wales, to view the lion and his kin;The keeper’s eyes were fix’d upon a saw;The saw was fix’d upon a bullock’s shin:Meanwhile with stealthy paw,Pug hastened to withdrawThe bolt that kept the king of brutes within.Now, monarch of the forest! thou shalt winPrecious enfranchisement—thy bolts are undone;Thou art no longer a degraded creature,But loose to roam with liberty and nature;And free of all the jungles about London—All Hampstead’s heathy desert lies before thee!Methinks I see thee bound from Cross’s ark,Full of the native instinct that comes o’er thee,And turn a rangerOf Hounslow Forest, and the Regent’s Park—Thin Rhodes’s cows—the mail-coach steeds endanger,And gobble parish watchmen after dark:—Methinks I see thee, with the early lark,Stealing to Merlin’s cave—(thycave.)—Alas,That such bright visions should not come to pass!Alas, for freedom, and for freedom’s hero!Alas, for liberty of life and limb!For Pug had only half unbolted Nero,When Nerobolted him!

’Tis strange how like a very dunce,Man—with his bumps upon his sconce,Has lived so long, and yet no knowledge heHas had, till lately, of Phrenology—A science that by simple dint ofHead-combing he should find a hint of,When scratching o’er those little pole-hills,The faculties throw up like mole-hills;A science that, in very spiteOf all his teeth, ne’er came to light,For though he knew his skull hadgrinders,Still there turn’d up noorganfinders,Still sages wrote, and ages fled,And no man’s head came in his head—Not even the pate of Erra Pater,Knew aught about its pia mater.At last great Dr. Gall bestirs him—I don’t know but it might be Spurzheim—Tho’ native of a dull and slow land,And makes partition of our Poll-land,At our Acquisitiveness guesses,And all those necessarynesses

VIOLINIST.

A PLASTER CAST.

Indicative of human habits,All burrowing in the head like rabbits.Thus Veneration, he made known,Had got a lodging at the Crown:And Music (see Deville’s example),A set of chambers in the Temple:That Language taught the tongues close by,And took in pupils thro’ the eye,Close by his neighbour Computation,Who taught the eyebrows numeration.The science thus—to speak in fitTerms—having struggled from its nit,Was seiz’d on by a swarm of Scotchmen,Those scientifical hotch-potch men,Who have at least a penny dipAnd wallop in all doctorship,Just as in making broth they smatterBy bobbing twenty things in water:These men, I say, make quick applianceAnd close, to phrenologic science;For of all learned themes whatever,That schools and colleges deliver,There’s none they love so near the bodles,As analyzing their own noddles;Thus in a trice each northern blockheadHad got his fingers in his shock head,And of his bumps was babbling yet worseThan poor Miss Capulet’s dry wet-nurse;Till having been sufficient rangersOf their own heads, they took to strangers’,And found in Presbyterians’ pollsThe things they hated in their souls;For Presbyterians hear with passionOf organs join’d with veneration.No kind there was of human pumpkin,But at its bumps it had a bumpkin;Down to the very lowest gullion,And oiliest scull of oily scullion.No great man died but this theydiddo,They begg’d his cranium of his widow;No murderer died by law disaster,But they took off his sconce in plaster;For thereon they could show depending,“The head and front of his offending,”How that his philanthropic bumpWas master’d by a baser lump;For every bump (these wags insist)Has its direct antagonist,Each striving stoutly to prevail,Like horses knotted tail to tail;And many a stiff and sturdy battleOccurs between these adverse cattle,The secret cause, beyond all question,Of aches ascribed to indigestion,—Whereas ’tis but two knobby rivalsTugging together like sheer devils,Till one gets mastery good or sinister,And comes in like a new prime-minister.Each bias in some master node is:—What takes M‘Adam where a road is,To hammer little pebbles less?His organ of destructiveness:What makes great Joseph so encumberDebate? a lumping lump of Number:Or Malthus rail at babies so?The smallness of his Philopro—What severs man and wife? a simpleDefect of the Adhesive pimple:Or makes weak women go astray?Their bumps are more in fault than they.These facts being found and set in orderBy grave M.D.’s beyond the Border,To make them for some months eternal,Were enter’d monthly in a journal,That many a northern sage still writes in,And throws his little Northern Lights in,And proves and proves about the phrenos,A great deal more than I or he knows.How Music suffers,par exemple,By wearing tight hats round the temple;What ills great boxers have to fearFrom blisters put behind the ear:And how a porter’s VenerationIs hurt by porter’s occupation:Whether shillelaghs in realityMay deaden Individuality:Or tongs and poker be creativeOf alterations in the Amative:If falls from scaffolds make us lessInclin’d to all Constructiveness:With more such matters, all applyingTo heads—and thereforeheadifying.

The science thus—to speak in fitTerms—having struggled from its nit,Was seiz’d on by a swarm of Scotchmen,Those scientifical hotch-potch men,Who have at least a penny dipAnd wallop in all doctorship,Just as in making broth they smatterBy bobbing twenty things in water:These men, I say, make quick applianceAnd close, to phrenologic science;For of all learned themes whatever,That schools and colleges deliver,There’s none they love so near the bodles,As analyzing their own noddles;Thus in a trice each northern blockheadHad got his fingers in his shock head,And of his bumps was babbling yet worseThan poor Miss Capulet’s dry wet-nurse;Till having been sufficient rangersOf their own heads, they took to strangers’,And found in Presbyterians’ pollsThe things they hated in their souls;For Presbyterians hear with passionOf organs join’d with veneration.No kind there was of human pumpkin,But at its bumps it had a bumpkin;Down to the very lowest gullion,And oiliest scull of oily scullion.No great man died but this theydiddo,They begg’d his cranium of his widow;No murderer died by law disaster,But they took off his sconce in plaster;For thereon they could show depending,“The head and front of his offending,”How that his philanthropic bumpWas master’d by a baser lump;For every bump (these wags insist)Has its direct antagonist,Each striving stoutly to prevail,Like horses knotted tail to tail;And many a stiff and sturdy battleOccurs between these adverse cattle,The secret cause, beyond all question,Of aches ascribed to indigestion,—Whereas ’tis but two knobby rivalsTugging together like sheer devils,Till one gets mastery good or sinister,And comes in like a new prime-minister.

Each bias in some master node is:—What takes M‘Adam where a road is,To hammer little pebbles less?His organ of destructiveness:What makes great Joseph so encumberDebate? a lumping lump of Number:Or Malthus rail at babies so?The smallness of his Philopro—What severs man and wife? a simpleDefect of the Adhesive pimple:Or makes weak women go astray?Their bumps are more in fault than they.

These facts being found and set in orderBy grave M.D.’s beyond the Border,To make them for some months eternal,Were enter’d monthly in a journal,That many a northern sage still writes in,And throws his little Northern Lights in,And proves and proves about the phrenos,A great deal more than I or he knows.How Music suffers,par exemple,By wearing tight hats round the temple;What ills great boxers have to fearFrom blisters put behind the ear:And how a porter’s VenerationIs hurt by porter’s occupation:Whether shillelaghs in realityMay deaden Individuality:Or tongs and poker be creativeOf alterations in the Amative:If falls from scaffolds make us lessInclin’d to all Constructiveness:With more such matters, all applyingTo heads—and thereforeheadifying.

THERE’S some is born with their straight legs by natur—And some is born with bow-legs from the first—And some that should have grow’d a good deal straighter,But they were badly nurs’d,And set, you see, like Bacchus, with their pegsAstride of casks and kegs:I’ve got myself a sort of bow to larboard,And starboard,And this is what it was that warp’d my legs.—’Twas all along of Poll, as I may say,That foul’d my cable when I ought to slip;But on the tenth of May,When I gets under weigh,Down there in Hartfordshire, to join my ship,I sees the mailGet under sail,The only one there was to make the trip.Well—I gives chase,But as she runTwo knots to one,There warn’t no use in keeping on the race!Well—casting round about, what next to try on,And how to spin,I spies an ensign with a Bloody Lion,And bears away to leeward for the inn,Beats round the gable,And fetches up before the coach-horse stable:Well—there they stand, four kickers in a row,And soI just makes free to cut a brown ‘un’s cable.But riding isn’t in a seaman’s natur—So I whips out a toughish end of yarn,And gets a kind of sort of a land-waiterTo splice me, heel to heel,Under the she-mare’s keel,And off I goes, and leaves the inn a-starn!My eyes! how she did pitch!And wouldn’t keep her own to go in no line,Tho’ I kept bowsing, bowsing at her bow-lineBut always making leeway to the ditch,And yaw’d her head about all sorts of ways;The devil sink the craft!And wasn’t she trimendus slack in stays!We couldn’t, no how, keep the inn abaft!Well—I supposeWe hadn’t run a knot—or much beyond—(What will you have on it?)—but off she goes,Up to her bends in a fresh-water pond!There I am!—all a-back!So I looks forward for her bridle-gears,To heave her head round on the t’other track;But when I starts,The leather parts,And goes away right over by the ears!What could a fellow do,Whose legs, like mine, you know, were in the bilboes,But trim myself upright for bringing-to,And square his yard-arms, and brace up his elbows,In rig all snug and clever,Just while his craft was taking in her water?I didn’t like my burth tho’, howsomdever,Because the yarn, you see, kept getting taughter,—Says I—I wish this job was rayther shorter!The chase had gain’d a mileA-head, and still the she-mare stood a-drinking:Now, all the whileHer body didn’t take of course to shrinking.Says I, she’s letting out her reefs, I’m thinking,—And so she swell’d, and swell’d,And yet the tackle held,’Till both my legs began to bend like winkin.My eyes! but she took in enough to founder!And there’s my timbers straining every bit,Ready to split,And her tarnation hull a-growing rounder!Well, there—off Hartford Ness,We lay both lash’d and water-logg’d together,And can’t contrive a signal of distress;Thinks I, we must ride out this here foul weather,Tho’ sick of riding out—and nothing less;When, looking round, I sees a man a-starn:—Hollo! says I, come underneath her quarter!—And hands him out my knife to cut the yarn.So I gets off, and lands upon the road,And leaves the she-mare to her own concarn,A-standing by the water.If I get on another, I’ll be blowed!—And that’s the way, you see, my legs got bow’d!

’Twas all along of Poll, as I may say,That foul’d my cable when I ought to slip;But on the tenth of May,When I gets under weigh,Down there in Hartfordshire, to join my ship,I sees the mailGet under sail,The only one there was to make the trip.Well—I gives chase,But as she runTwo knots to one,There warn’t no use in keeping on the race!Well—casting round about, what next to try on,And how to spin,I spies an ensign with a Bloody Lion,And bears away to leeward for the inn,Beats round the gable,And fetches up before the coach-horse stable:Well—there they stand, four kickers in a row,And soI just makes free to cut a brown ‘un’s cable.But riding isn’t in a seaman’s natur—So I whips out a toughish end of yarn,And gets a kind of sort of a land-waiterTo splice me, heel to heel,Under the she-mare’s keel,And off I goes, and leaves the inn a-starn!

My eyes! how she did pitch!And wouldn’t keep her own to go in no line,Tho’ I kept bowsing, bowsing at her bow-lineBut always making leeway to the ditch,And yaw’d her head about all sorts of ways;The devil sink the craft!And wasn’t she trimendus slack in stays!We couldn’t, no how, keep the inn abaft!Well—I supposeWe hadn’t run a knot—or much beyond—(What will you have on it?)—but off she goes,Up to her bends in a fresh-water pond!There I am!—all a-back!So I looks forward for her bridle-gears,To heave her head round on the t’other track;But when I starts,The leather parts,And goes away right over by the ears!

What could a fellow do,Whose legs, like mine, you know, were in the bilboes,But trim myself upright for bringing-to,And square his yard-arms, and brace up his elbows,In rig all snug and clever,Just while his craft was taking in her water?I didn’t like my burth tho’, howsomdever,Because the yarn, you see, kept getting taughter,—Says I—I wish this job was rayther shorter!The chase had gain’d a mileA-head, and still the she-mare stood a-drinking:Now, all the whileHer body didn’t take of course to shrinking.Says I, she’s letting out her reefs, I’m thinking,—And so she swell’d, and swell’d,And yet the tackle held,’Till both my legs began to bend like winkin.My eyes! but she took in enough to founder!And there’s my timbers straining every bit,Ready to split,And her tarnation hull a-growing rounder!

Well, there—off Hartford Ness,We lay both lash’d and water-logg’d together,And can’t contrive a signal of distress;Thinks I, we must ride out this here foul weather,Tho’ sick of riding out—and nothing less;When, looking round, I sees a man a-starn:—Hollo! says I, come underneath her quarter!—And hands him out my knife to cut the yarn.So I gets off, and lands upon the road,And leaves the she-mare to her own concarn,A-standing by the water.If I get on another, I’ll be blowed!—And that’s the way, you see, my legs got bow’d!

Scheherazade immediately began the following story.

ALI BEN ALI (did you never readHis wond’rous acts that chronicles relate,—How there was one in pity might exceedThe sack of Troy?) Magnificent he sateUpon the throne of greatness—great indeed,For those that he had under him were great—The horse he rode on, shod with silver nails,Was a Bashaw—Bashaws have horses’ tails.Ali was cruel—a most cruel one!’Tis rumour’d he had strangled his own mother—Howbeit such deeds of darkness he had done,’Tis thought he would have slain his elder brotherAnd sister too—but happily that noneDid live withinharm’slength of one another,Else he had sent the Sun in all its blazeTo endless night, and shorten’d the Moon’s days.Despotic power, that mars a weak man’s wit,And makes a bad man—absolutely bad,Made Ali wicked—to a fault:—’tis fitMonarchs should have some check-strings; but he hadNo curb upon his will—no not abit—Wherefore he did not reign well—and full gladHis slaves had been to hang him—but they falter’d,And let him live unhang’d—and still unalter’d,Until he got a sage-bush of a beard,Wherein an Attic owl might roost—a trailOf bristly hair—that, honour’d and unshear’d,Grew downward like old women and cow’s tail:Being a sign of age—some gray appear’d,Mingling with duskier brown its warnings pale;But yet not so poetic as when TimeComes like Jack Frost, and whitens it in rime.Ben Ali took the hint, and much did vexHis royal bosom that he had no son,No living child of the more noble sex,To stand in his Morocco shoes—not oneTo make a negro-pollard—or tread necksWhen he was gone—doom’d, when his days were done,To leave the very city of his fameWithout an Ali to keep up his name.Therefore he chose a lady for his love,Singling from out the herd one stag-eyed dearSo call’d, because her lustrous eyes, aboveAll eyes, were dark, and timorous, and clear;Then, through his Muftis piously he strove,And drumm’d with proxy-prayers Mohammed’s ear,Knowing a boy for certain must come of it,Or else he was not praying to hisProfit.Beer will growmothery, and ladies fairWill grow like beer; so did that stag-eyed dame:Ben Ali, hoping for a son and heir,Boy’d up his hopes, and even chose a nameOf mighty hero that his child should bear;He made so certain ere his chicken came:But oh! all worldly wit is little worth,Nor knoweth what to-morrow will bring forth.To-morrow came, and with to-morrow’s sunA little daughter to this world of sins;—Miss-fortunes never come alone—so oneBrought on another, like a pair of twins:Twins! female twins!—it was enough to stunTheir little wits and scare them from their skinsTo hear their father stamp, and curse and swear,Pulling his beard because he had no heir.Then strove their stag-eyed mother to calm downThis his paternal rage, and thus addrest—“O! Most Serene! why dost thou stamp and frown,And box the compass of the royal chest?Ah! thou wilt mar that portly trunk, I ownI love to gaze on!—Pr’ythee, thou hadst bestPocket thy fists. Nay, love, if you so thinYour beard, you’ll want a wig upon your chin!”But not her words, nor e’en her tears, could slackThe quicklime of his rage, that hotter grew:He called his slaves to bring an ample sackWherein a woman might bepoked—a fewDark grimly men felt pity and look’d blackAt this sad order; but their slaveships knewWhen any dared demur, his sword so bendingCut off the “head and front of their offending.”For Ali had a sword, much like himself,A crooked blade, guilty of human gore—The trophies it had lopp’d from many an elfWere stuck at hishead-quarters by the score—Nor yet in peace he laid it on the shelf,But jested with it, and his wit cut sore;So that (as they of Public Houses speak)He often did his dozenbuttsa week.Therefore his slaves, with most obedient fears,Came with the sack the lady to enclose;In vain from her stag-eyes “the big round tearsCoursed one another down her innocent nose;”In vain her tongue wept sorrow in their ears;Though there were some felt willing to oppose,Yet when their heads came in their heads, that minute,Though ’twas a piteouscase, they put her in itAnd when the sack was tied, some two or threeOf these black undertakers slowly brought herTo a kind of Moorish Serpentine; for sheWas doom’d to havea winding sheet of water.Then farewell, earth—farewell to the green tree—Farewell, the sun—the moon—each little daughter!She’s shot from off the shoulders of a black,Like a bag of Wall’s-End from a coalman’s back.The waters oped, and the wide sack full-fill’dAll that the waters oped, as down it fell;Then closed the wave, and then the surface rill’dA ring above her, like a water-knell;A moment more, and all its face was still’d,And not a guilty heave was left to tellThat underneath its calm and blue transparenceA dame lay drowned in her sack, like Clarence.But Heaven beheld, and awful witness bore,The moon in black eclipse deceased that night,Like Desdemona smother’d by the Moor—The lady’s natal star with pale affrightFainted and fell—and what were stars before,Turn’d comets as the tale was brought to light,And all look’d downward on the fatal wave,And made their own reflections on her grave.Next night, a head—a little lady head,Push’d through the waters a most glassy face,With weedy tresses, thrown apart and spread,Comb’d by ‘live ivory, to show the spaceOf a pale forehead, and two eyes that shedA soft blue mist, breathing a bloomy graceOver their sleepy lids—and so she rais’dHeraqualine nose above the stream, and gazed.She oped her lips—lips of a gentle blush,So pale it seem’d near drowned to a white,—She oped her lips, and forth there sprang a gushOf music bubbling through the surface light;The leaves are motionless, the breezes hushTo listen to the air—and through the nightThere come these words of a most plaintive ditty,Sobbing as they would break all hearts with pity:

Ali was cruel—a most cruel one!’Tis rumour’d he had strangled his own mother—Howbeit such deeds of darkness he had done,’Tis thought he would have slain his elder brotherAnd sister too—but happily that noneDid live withinharm’slength of one another,Else he had sent the Sun in all its blazeTo endless night, and shorten’d the Moon’s days.

Despotic power, that mars a weak man’s wit,And makes a bad man—absolutely bad,Made Ali wicked—to a fault:—’tis fitMonarchs should have some check-strings; but he hadNo curb upon his will—no not abit—Wherefore he did not reign well—and full gladHis slaves had been to hang him—but they falter’d,And let him live unhang’d—and still unalter’d,

Until he got a sage-bush of a beard,Wherein an Attic owl might roost—a trailOf bristly hair—that, honour’d and unshear’d,Grew downward like old women and cow’s tail:Being a sign of age—some gray appear’d,Mingling with duskier brown its warnings pale;But yet not so poetic as when TimeComes like Jack Frost, and whitens it in rime.

Ben Ali took the hint, and much did vexHis royal bosom that he had no son,No living child of the more noble sex,To stand in his Morocco shoes—not oneTo make a negro-pollard—or tread necksWhen he was gone—doom’d, when his days were done,To leave the very city of his fameWithout an Ali to keep up his name.

Therefore he chose a lady for his love,Singling from out the herd one stag-eyed dearSo call’d, because her lustrous eyes, aboveAll eyes, were dark, and timorous, and clear;Then, through his Muftis piously he strove,And drumm’d with proxy-prayers Mohammed’s ear,Knowing a boy for certain must come of it,Or else he was not praying to hisProfit.

Beer will growmothery, and ladies fairWill grow like beer; so did that stag-eyed dame:Ben Ali, hoping for a son and heir,Boy’d up his hopes, and even chose a nameOf mighty hero that his child should bear;He made so certain ere his chicken came:But oh! all worldly wit is little worth,Nor knoweth what to-morrow will bring forth.

To-morrow came, and with to-morrow’s sunA little daughter to this world of sins;—Miss-fortunes never come alone—so oneBrought on another, like a pair of twins:Twins! female twins!—it was enough to stunTheir little wits and scare them from their skinsTo hear their father stamp, and curse and swear,Pulling his beard because he had no heir.

Then strove their stag-eyed mother to calm downThis his paternal rage, and thus addrest—“O! Most Serene! why dost thou stamp and frown,And box the compass of the royal chest?Ah! thou wilt mar that portly trunk, I ownI love to gaze on!—Pr’ythee, thou hadst bestPocket thy fists. Nay, love, if you so thinYour beard, you’ll want a wig upon your chin!”

But not her words, nor e’en her tears, could slackThe quicklime of his rage, that hotter grew:He called his slaves to bring an ample sackWherein a woman might bepoked—a fewDark grimly men felt pity and look’d blackAt this sad order; but their slaveships knewWhen any dared demur, his sword so bendingCut off the “head and front of their offending.”

For Ali had a sword, much like himself,A crooked blade, guilty of human gore—The trophies it had lopp’d from many an elfWere stuck at hishead-quarters by the score—Nor yet in peace he laid it on the shelf,But jested with it, and his wit cut sore;So that (as they of Public Houses speak)He often did his dozenbuttsa week.

Therefore his slaves, with most obedient fears,Came with the sack the lady to enclose;In vain from her stag-eyes “the big round tearsCoursed one another down her innocent nose;”In vain her tongue wept sorrow in their ears;Though there were some felt willing to oppose,Yet when their heads came in their heads, that minute,Though ’twas a piteouscase, they put her in it

And when the sack was tied, some two or threeOf these black undertakers slowly brought herTo a kind of Moorish Serpentine; for sheWas doom’d to havea winding sheet of water.Then farewell, earth—farewell to the green tree—Farewell, the sun—the moon—each little daughter!She’s shot from off the shoulders of a black,Like a bag of Wall’s-End from a coalman’s back.

The waters oped, and the wide sack full-fill’dAll that the waters oped, as down it fell;Then closed the wave, and then the surface rill’dA ring above her, like a water-knell;A moment more, and all its face was still’d,And not a guilty heave was left to tellThat underneath its calm and blue transparenceA dame lay drowned in her sack, like Clarence.

But Heaven beheld, and awful witness bore,The moon in black eclipse deceased that night,Like Desdemona smother’d by the Moor—The lady’s natal star with pale affrightFainted and fell—and what were stars before,Turn’d comets as the tale was brought to light,And all look’d downward on the fatal wave,And made their own reflections on her grave.

Next night, a head—a little lady head,Push’d through the waters a most glassy face,With weedy tresses, thrown apart and spread,Comb’d by ‘live ivory, to show the spaceOf a pale forehead, and two eyes that shedA soft blue mist, breathing a bloomy graceOver their sleepy lids—and so she rais’dHeraqualine nose above the stream, and gazed.

She oped her lips—lips of a gentle blush,So pale it seem’d near drowned to a white,—She oped her lips, and forth there sprang a gushOf music bubbling through the surface light;The leaves are motionless, the breezes hushTo listen to the air—and through the nightThere come these words of a most plaintive ditty,Sobbing as they would break all hearts with pity:

Farewell, farewell, to my mother’s own daughter,The child that she wet-nursed is lapp’d in the wave;TheMussul-man coming to fish in this water,Adds a tear to the flood that weeps over her grave.This sack is her coffin, this water’s her bier,This greyishbathcloak is her funeral pall;And, stranger, O stranger! this song that you hearIs her epitaph, elegy, dirges, and all!Farewell, farewell, to the child of Al Hassan,My mother’s own daughter—the last of her race—She’s a corpse, the poor body! and lies in this basin,And sleeps in the water that washes her face.

Farewell, farewell, to my mother’s own daughter,The child that she wet-nursed is lapp’d in the wave;TheMussul-man coming to fish in this water,Adds a tear to the flood that weeps over her grave.

This sack is her coffin, this water’s her bier,This greyishbathcloak is her funeral pall;And, stranger, O stranger! this song that you hearIs her epitaph, elegy, dirges, and all!

Farewell, farewell, to the child of Al Hassan,My mother’s own daughter—the last of her race—She’s a corpse, the poor body! and lies in this basin,And sleeps in the water that washes her face.

BEN BATTLE was a soldier bold,And used to war’s alarms:But a cannon-ball took off his legs,So he laid down his arms!

Now as they bore him off the field,Said he, “Let others shoot,For here I leave my second leg,And the Forty-second Foot!”

The army-surgeons made him limbs:Said he,—“They’re only pegs:But there’s as wooden members quite,As represent my legs!”

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