THE GOOSE.

I KNEW an old wife lean and poor,
Her rags scarce held together;
There strode a stranger to the door,
And it was windy weather.

He held a goose upon his arm,

He utter'd rhyme and reason,

'Here, take the goose, and keep you warm, It is a stormy season.'

She caught the white goose by the leg,

A goose-'twas no great matter.

The goose let fall a golden egg

With cackle and with clatter.

She dropt the goose, and caught the pelf, And ran to tell her neighbours;

And bless'd herself, and cursed herself,

And rested from her labours.

And feeding high, and living soft,
Grew plump and able-bodied;
Until the grave churchwarden doff'd,
The parson smirk'd and nodded.

So sitting, served by man and maid,
She felt her heart grow prouder :
But ah! the more the white goose laid
It clack'd and cackled louder.

It clutter'd here, it chuckled there;
It stirr'd the old wife's mettle :
She shifted in her elbow-chair,
And hurl'd the pan and kettle.

'A quinsy choke thy cursed note!' Then wax'd her anger stronger. 'Go, take the goose, and wring her throat, I will not bear it longer.'

Then yelp'd the cur, and yawl'd the cat ; Ran Gaffer, stumbled Gammer.

The goose flew this way and flew that,

And fill'd the house with clamour.

As head and heels upon the floor
They flounder'd all together,
There strode a stranger to the door,
And it was windy weather:

He took the goose upon his arm,
He utter'd words of scorning;
'So keep you cold, or keep you warm,

It is a stormy morning.'

The wild wind rang from park and plain,
And round the attics rumbled,
Till all the tables danced again,

And half the chimneys tumbled.

The glass blew in, the fire blew out,
The blast was hard and harder.
Her cap blew off, her gown blew up,
And a whirlwind clear'd the larder:

And while on all sides breaking loose Her household fled the danger, Quoth she, 'The Devil take the goose,

And God forget the stranger!'

ENGLISH IDYLLS.

THE EPIC.

AT Francis Allen's on the Christmas-eve,-
The game of forfeits done-the girls all kiss'd
Beneath the sacred bush and past away-
The parson Holmes, the poet Everard Hall,
The host, and I sat round the wassail-bowl,
Then half-way ebb'd: and there we held a talk,
How all the old honour had from Christmas gone,
Or gone, or dwindled down to some odd games
In some odd nooks like this; till I, tired out
With cutting eights that day upon the pond,
Where, three times slipping from the outer edge,
I bump'd the ice into three several stars,
Fell in a doze; and half-awake I heard

The parson taking wide and wider sweeps,
Now harping on the church-commissioners,
Now hawking at Geology and schism;

Until I woke, and found him settled down
Upon the general decay of faith

Right thro' the world, 'at home was little left,
And none abroad: there was no anchor, none,
To hold by.' Francis, laughing, clapt his hand
On Everard's shoulder, with 'I hold by him.'

And I,' quoth Everard, by the wassail-bowl.'

'Why yes,' I said, ' we knew your gift that way

At college but another which you had,

I mean of verse (for so we held it then),

What came of that?' 'You know,' said Frank, 'he

burnt

His epic, his King Arthur, some twelve books '—
And then to me demanding why?

Oh, sir,

He thought that nothing new was said, or else
Something so said 'twas nothing-that a truth
Looks freshest in the fashion of the day:

God knows he has a mint of reasons: ask.

It pleased me well enough.' 'Nay, nay,' said Hall,
'Why take the style of those heroic times?
For nature brings not back the Mastodon,
Nor we those times; and why should any man
Remodel models? these twelve books of mine
Were faint Homeric echoes, nothing-worth,

Mere chaff and draff, much better burnt.' 'But I,' Said Francis, pick'd the eleventh from this hearth. And have it keep a thing, its use will come.