Though ne'er a madam of them all,
Whose silken kirtle sweeps the hall,
More varied trick and whim displays,
To catch the admiring stranger's gaze.

Doth power in measured verses dwell, All thy vagaries wild to tell?

Ah, no! the start, the jet, the bound,
The giddy scamper round and round,
With leap, and jerk, and high curvet,
And many a whirling somerset,
(Permitted be the modern muse
Expression technical to use,)

These mock the deftest rhymester's skill,
But poor in art, though rich in will.

The frailest tumbler, stage bedight,

To thee is but a clumsy wight,
Who every limb and sinew strains
To do what costs thee little pains,
For which, I trow, the gaping crowd
Requites him oft with plaudits loud.
But stopped the while thy wanton play,
Applauses, too, thy feats repay :

For these, beneath some urchin's hand,
With modest praise thou takʼst thy stand,
While many a stroke of fondness glides
Along thy back and tabby sides.
Dilated swells thy glossy fur,
And loudly sings thy busy pur;

As, timing well the equal sound,
Thy clutching feet bepat the ground,

And all their harmless claws disclose,

Like prickles of an early rose;

While softly from thy whiskered cheek, Thy half-closed eyes peer mild and meek.

But not alone by cottage fire

Do rustics rude thy feats admire ;

The learned sage, whose thoughts explore
The widest range of human lore;
Or, with unfettered fancy, fly
Through airy heights of poesy,
Pausing, smiles with altered air
To see thee climb his elbow chair,
Or, struggling on the mat below,
Hold warfare with his slippered toe.
The widow'd dame, or lonely maid,
Who in the still, but cheerless shade,
Of home unsocial, spends her age,
And rarely turns a lettered page,

Upon the hearth for thee lets fall
The rounded cork, or paper ball,
Nor chides thee on thy wicked watch
The ends of ravell'd skein to catch,
But lets thee have thy wayward will,
Perplexing oft her sober skill.
Even he, whose mind of gloomy bent,
In lonely tower, or prison pent,
Reviews the wit of former days,
And loathes the world and all its ways;
What time the lamp's unsteady gleam
Doth rouse him from his moody dream,
Feels, as thou gambol'st round his seat,
His heart with pride less fiercely beat,
And smiles a link in thee to find

That joins him still to living kind.

Whence hast thou, then, thou witless puss,
The magic power to charm us thus ?

Is it, that in thy glaring eye,
And rapid movements, we descry,
While we at ease, secure from ill,
The chimney corner snugly fill,
A lion, darting on the prey,
A tiger, at his ruthless play?

Or, is it, that in thee we trace,

With all thy varied wanton grace,

An emblem view'd with kindred eye,

Of tricksy, restless infancy?

Ah! many a lightly sportive child,
Who hath, like thee, our wits beguil❜d,
To dull and sober manhood grown,
With strange recoil our hearts disown.
Even so, poor kit! must thou endure,
When thou becom'st a cat demure,
Full many a cuff and angry word,
Chid roughly from the tempting board.
And yet, for that thou hast, I ween,
So oft our favoured playmate been,

Soft be the change which thou shalt prove;
When time hath spoiled thee of our love;
Still be thou deem'd by housewife fat,

A comely, careful, mousing cat,
Whose dish is, for the public good,
Replenish'd oft with sav'ry food.

Nor, when thy span of life is past,
Be thou to pond or dunghill cast;
But gently borne on good man's spade,
Beneath the decent sod be laid;
And children show, with glist'ning eyes,

The place where poor old pussy lies.

A MODERN POETICAL EPITOME.

[From Mr. Barrett's "Heroine, or Adventures of a Fair Romance Reader."]

SENSIBILITY AND THE LAMB.

A melo-dramatic effusion.

DEAR sensibility, O la!

I heard a little lamb cry ba!

Says I, so you have lost mamma?

Ah!

The little lamb, as I said so,

Frisking about the field did go,

And frisking, trod upon my toe;

Oh!

THE MOON AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

A nocturnal sonnet.

[From the same.
e.]

Now while within their wings each feathered pair
Hide their bush'd heads, thy visit, moon, renew;

Shake thy pale tresses down, irradiate air,

Earth, and the spicy flowers that scent the dew.
The lonely nightingale shall pipe to thee,

And I will moralize her minstrelsy.

Ten thousand birds the sun resplendent sing,
One only warbles to the milder moon,
Thus for the great, how many wake the string,

Thus for the good, how few the lyre attune.

THE DEATH OF THE BUTTERFLY

A deadly water sonnet.

[From the same.]

WHERE the blue stream reflected flowerets pale,
A fluttering butterfly, with many a freak,
Dipped into dancing bells, and spread its sail
Of azure pinions, edged with jetty streak.

I snatched it passing; but a pinion frail,
Ingrained with mealy gold, I chanced to break,

The mangled insect, ill deserving bane,
Falls in the hollow of a lily new.

My tears drop after it, but drop in vain.

The cup, embalmed with azure airs and dew, And flowery dust and grains of fragrant seed, Can ne'er revive it from the fatal deed.

So guileless nymphs attract some traitorous eye,
So by the spoiler crushed, reject all joy and die.

ON A PRETTY LITTLE MAID OF MY MOTHER'S.

To Dorothy Pulvertaf.

[From the same.]

Ir Black sea, White sea, Red sea ran
One tide of ink to Ispahan;

If all the geese in Lincoln fens,

Produc'd spontaneous, well-made pens;

If Holland old or Holland new,

One wond'rous sheet of paper grew;
Could I, by stenographic power,
Write twenty libraries an hour;
And should I sing but half the grace
Of half a freckle on thy face;
Each syllable I wrote, should reach
From Inverness to Bognor's beach;
Each hairstroke be a river Rhine,
Each verse an equinoctial line.

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY have in the press a second volume of their collections. This will probably be a volume of much interest. It will contain, among other things, the anniversary discourses delivered before the society by the Hon. De Witt Clinton and Gouverneur Morris, and Drs. Williamson and Mitchill, the petition lately presented to the legislature of the state of New-York by the society, containing an extensive and accurate view of the different sources from which historical information with respect to this country is to be derived, and a translation of De Salle's travels in America, a very rare and curious old tract. The first volume of the society's collections published in 1811, though containing some valuable matter, particularly the learned anniversary discourse of the Rev. Dr. S. Miller, has yet too much the air of a compilation got up in a hurry for the desire of appearing immediately before the public. This observation will not, however, by any means, apply to the volume now in press; and if the society will persist in their present laudable plan of not considering themselves bound to publish regularly, after the fashion of many of our learned societies, whether they have any thing worth publishing or not; we may reasonably anticipate in their future volumes an honourable accession as well to the literature of the country as to our stock of historical information.

We understand that the Rev. Dr. Mason is appointed to deliver the next anniversary oration.

LIFE OF WELLINGTON. Van Winkle and Wiley have in the press Clarke's Life of Lord Wellington. The character and exploits of Lord Wellington are among the most remarkable circumstances of an age fertile in prodigies. Nearly a century has passed away since Great Britain has produced any very brilliant military character. The nation, absorbed in proud admiration of its own naval glory, has looked upon the land service with indifference, and sometimes with mortification. Lord Wellington has at once changed the current of popular opinion, and the nation sees in him with pride her second Marlborough.

Besides the gratification which it affords to the curiosity naturally excited by the exploits of such a man, Mr. Clarke's biography is highly interesting, as it displays the chain of causes and the series of military experience by which, while almost all the talents of the nation were turned into another direction, Lord Wellington was silently and gradually formed into the most accomplished general of the age. Mr. Clarke's work is brought down only to 1812. The task of continuing the narrative to the present time, as well as of revising and correcting the former part of the work, has been undertaken by a gentleman of New-York every way well qualified for the

purpose.

PORT FOLIO. We perceive that the gentleman who has edited this miscellany, since the death of Mr. Dennie, has relinquished the editorship, and that it will in future be conducted by Dr. Caldwell. Report speaks favourably of the present editor's competency for the undertaking, from his varied knowledge both scientifie