SIMPLICITY.

"Simplicity is a characteristic of the highest species of poetry. Now, no one has carried the simple so far as Wordsworth; and, as I hold it good always to imitate perfection, I have taken the following lines for my model :VIOLETS, do what they will,

Wither'd on the ground must lie:
Daisies will be daisies still :

Daisies they must live and die.

I fear much, lest some meaning, which may have crept into my verses should prove destructive of that exquisite simplicity at which I aim; however, what scholar is not inferior to the master?

FAIR women win the hearts of men,
Men the hearts of women tco!
It has been so, the Lord knows when-
What then can the poor things do?
Their blue eyes will be blue eyes still;
Will have fire, and fire will warm :
Lips will be lips, say what they will;
And to kiss them, where's the harm?
To church, to marry, fair one, go-
Bells in belfries toll, ding dong;
If your mother did not so,

Then your mother, child, did wrong.

(The last verse is omitted, not because it is too long, but because it is too broad.)

I HEARD her singing lively notes,
While on a chair I sat reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sweet thoughts to the mind.

To her fair face had nature linked
A subtle charm that through me ran.
And it pleased my heart to think,
I was a lady's man.

Soft blushes would, in that sweet hour,
Each time we met, her face suffuse.
And told me I had gained the power
To have her hand did I but choose.

Bright couples round me danced and played,
Their thoughts I could not measure,
But, as approached the beauteous maid,
My heart was full of pleasure.

My outstretched hands caught hold her arm,

And drew her to my side.

I told my love, confessed her charm;

The maiden quick replied

"Here comes my husband;" then she went;

The maiden even ran !

Have I not reason to lament What maidens make of man!

:0:

Wм. E. DOUBLEDAY.

He tells me that the sky above

Is bluer far and brighter

Than that which spans the isle we love;
The air is warmer, lighter.
Gay flowers along the margin float
And many an avis rara

Of brilliant plume but tuneless throat,
Skims o'er the sparkling Yarra.

When shall I breathe that purer air?
Quite lately I have had some

Fair chance of being summoned there.
If summoned, ecce adsum?
The motto of our Bedford race
Is this: Che sara sara.
(The accent slightly I misplace
To coax a rhyme for Yarra.)

More musical than new Adare
Its olden name Athdara,

And Tennyson's meek Lady Clare
Grows statelier as Clara.

Had not my Muse such gems to spare
For gemming thy tiara,

She would not waste a double share On this one stanza, Yarra !

There is not unity of theme

I grant it, in these stanzas,

The subjects as far sundered seeni As Kensington and Kansas.

A SONNET ON THE SONNET.
SCORN not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay mirtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow; a glowworm lamp

It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land

To struggle through dark ways; and when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains-alas, too few !

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

TRANSLATION BY M. DE ST. BEUVE.

NE ris point des sonnets, ô critique moqueur;
Par amour autrefois en fit le grand Shakspeare;
C'est sur ce luth heureux que Petrarque soupire,
Et que le Tasse aux fers soulage un peu son cœur ;

Camoens de son exil abrège la longueur,
Car il chante en sonnets l'amour et son empire:
Dante aime cette fleur de myrte, et la respire,
Et la mêle au cyprès que ceint son front vainqueur.

Spenser, s'en revenant de l'ile des féeries,
Exhale en longs sonnets ses tristesses chéries;
Milton, chantant les siens, ranimait son regard :
Moi je veux rajeunir le doux sonnet en France,
Du Bellay, le premier, l'apporta de Florence,
Et l'on en sait plus d'un de notre vieux Ronsard.

AN AMERICAN PARODY.

SCORN not the meerschaum.

Housewives, you have croaked
In ignorance of its charms. Through this small reed
Did Milton, now and then, consume the weed;
The poet Tennyson hath oft evoked

The Muse with glowing pipe, and Thackeray joked
And wrote and sang in nicotinian mood;

Hawthorne with this hath cheered his solitude
A thousand times this pipe hath Lowell smoked;
Full oft hath Aldrich, Stoddard, Taylor, Cranch,
And many more whose verses float about,
Puffed the Virginian or Havana leaf;
And when the poet's or the artist's branch,
Drops no sustaining fruit, how sweet to pout
Consolatory whiffs-alas, too brief!

BULL IN THE PRINTING OFFICE.

A Wordsworthian Sonnet.

OH! BULL, strong labourer, much enduring beast,
That with broad back, and sinewy shoulder strung,
Draggest the heavy wain of taxes, flung

In growing heap, írom thy poor brethren fleeced.
Hadst thou a literary sense of shame,

How woulds't thou crush, and toss, and rend, and gore,
The printing press, and hands that work therefore,

For the sad trash that issues from the same.

If they would print no other works than mine,
The task were nobler; but, alas, in vain,

Of audience few and unfit I complain,

Bull won't believe in Southey's verse and mine.
Arouse thee, John, involve in general doom

All who bid Wordsworth rise for Byron to make room.

Cruikshank's Comic Almanack.

1846.

BILLY ROUTING.

A Lyrical Ballad.

FIT subject for heroic story,

I sing a youth of noble fame;
Town and country, ten miles round,
Awaken at the glowing sound,

Of gallant Billy Routing's name!

This poem, written in imitation of Wordsworth, consists of thirteen verses. It will be found in Vol. I. Miscellanies by W. Maginn, London. Sampson, Low and Co. 1885. In the same Volume will be found a rather dull imitation of Wordsworth's Excursion, entitled The Kail Pot, which originally appeared in Blackwood's Magazine for May, 1821, as did also the following much more clever parody:—

BILLY BLINN.

I KNEW a man that died for love,

His name, I ween, was Billy Blinn ; His back was hump'd, his hair was grey, And, on a sultry summer day,

We found him floating in the linn.

Once as we stood before his door

Smoking, and wondering who should pass, Then trundling past him in a cart Came Susan Foy, she won his heart,

She was a gallant lass.

And Billy Blinn conceal'd the flame

That burn'd, and scorch'd his very blood; But often was he heard to sigh, And with his sleeve he wiped his eye,

In a dejected mood.

A party of recruiters came

To wile our cottars, man and boy; Their coats were red, their cuffs were blue, And boldly, without more ado,

Off with the troop went Susan Foy ! When poor old Billy heard the news,

He tore his hairs so thin and grey;
He beat the hump upon his back,
And ever did he cry, "Alack,

Ohon, oh me !-alas a-day!"
His nights were spent in sleeplessness,
His days in sorrow and despair,
It could not last-this inward strife;
The lover he grew tired of life,

And saunter'd here and there.

But misery overcame his heart,

For all was waste and war within;
And rushing forward with a leap,
O'er crags a hundred fathoms steep,
He plunged into the linn.

We found him when the morning sun
Shone brightly from the eastern sky;
Upon his back he was afloat-
His hat was sailing like a boat-
His staff was found on high.

Oh reckless woman, Susan Foy,

To leave the poor, old, loving man, And with a soldier, young and gay, Thus harlot-like to run away

To India or Japan.

Poor Billy Blinn, with hair so white

Poor Billy Blinn was stiff and cold; Will Adze he made a coffin neat, We placed him in it head and feet, And laid him in the mould !

-:0:

WILLIAM MAGINN.

FRAGMENT IN IMITATION OF Wordsworth.

THERE is a river clear and fair, 'Tis neither broad nor narrow;

It winds a little here and there

It were a blessed sight to see
That child become a willow tree,
His brother trees among.
He'd be four times as tall as me,

And live three times as long.

This parody was written by Miss Catherine Maria Fanshawe, and is included in her "Literary Remains," published in 1876 by B. M. Pickering, London. In a foot note to the parody it is stated that a distinguished lady friend, and admirer, of Wordsworth thought it beautiful and was surprised that he had never shown it to her.

The same little volume contains an "Ode in imitation of Gray," in which the following lines occur relating to the purchase of a lady's hat :

THE milliner officious pours

Of hats and caps her ready stores,

The unbought elegance of spring;

Some wide, disclose the full round face, Some shadowy, lend a modest grace

And stretch their sheltering wing.

Such is the title of a series of short clever parodies which appeared in The Cambridge Fortnightly (Feb. 7, 1888). This bright little magazine is published by Mr. Octavus Tomson, 16, King's Parade, Cambridge. Four verses are here omitted, but the titles are given :Macaulay, who made it.

POUR, varlet, pour the water,
The water steaming hot!
A spoonful for each man of us,
Another for the pot !

We shall not drink from amber,
No Capuan slave shall mix
For us the snows of Athos

With port at thirty-six ;

Whiter than snow the crystals

Grown sweet 'neath tropic fires,
More rich the herb of China's field,

The pasture-lands more fragrance yield
For ever let Britannia wield

The tea-pot of her sires!

Tennyson, who took it hot.
Swinburne, who let it get cold.
Cowper, who thoroughly enjoyed it.
Browning, who treated it allegorically.

Wordsworth, who gave it away.
"Come, little cottage girl, you seem
To want my cup of tea;
And will you take a little cream?
Now tell the truth to me."

She had a rustic, woodland grin,
Her cheek was soft as silk.

And she replied, "Sir, please put in
A little drop of milk."

"Why, what put milk into your head?
'Tis cream my cows supply;"
And five times to the child I said,
"Why, pig-head, tell me, why?"

"You call me pig-head," she replied;

'My proper name is Ruth,

"I called that milk-she blushed with pride

"You bade me speak the truth."

Poe, who got excited over it.

Here's a mellow cup of tea-golden tea!

What a world of rapturous thought its fragrance brings to me!

Oh, from out the silver cells

How it wells!

How it smells!

Keeping tune, tune, tune, tune

To the tintinabulation of the spoon.
And the kettle on the fire

Boils its spout off with desire,

With a desperate desire

And a crystalline endeavour

Now, now to sit or never,

On the top of the pale-faced moon,

But he always came home to tea, tea, tea, tea, tea, Tea to the n-1th,

Rossetti, who took six cups of it.

The lilies lie in my lady's bower,

(O weary mother, drive the cows to roost) They faintly droop for a little hour;

My lady's head droops like a flower.

She took the porcelain in her hand, (O weary mother, drive the cows to roost), She poured; I drank at her command, Drank deep, and now-you understand! (O weary mother, drive the cows to roost).

Burns, who liked it adulterated.

Weel, gin ye speir, I'm no inclined,
Whusky or tay-to state my mind
Fore ane or ither;

For, gin I tak the first, I'm fou,

And gin the next, I'm dull as you,

Mix a' thegither.