aws,
Unclench the stubborn, stiff'ning fist,
And close those eyes through film and mist
That kept the old defiant glare;
And answer, wise Psychologist,
Whose science claims some little share
Of truth, what better things lay there?

Aye! thought and mind were there,--some kind
Of faculty that men mistake
For talent when their wits are blind,--
An aptitude to mar and break
What others diligently make.
This was the worst and best of him--
Wise with the cunning of the snake,
Brave with the she wolf's courage grim,
Dying hard and dumb, torn limb from limb.

And you, Brown, you're a doctor; cure
You can't, but you can kill, and he--
"WITNESS HIS MARK"--he signed last year,
And now he signs John Smith, J.P.
We'll hold our inquest NOW, we three;
I'll be your coroner for once;
I think old Oswald ought to be
Our foreman--Jones is such a dunce,--
There's more brain in the bloodhound's sconce.

No man may shirk the allotted work,
The deed to do, the death to die;
At least I think so,--neither Turk,
Nor Jew, nor infidel am I,--
And yet I wonder when I try
To solve one question, may or must,
And shall I solve it by-and-by,
Beyond the dark, beneath the dust?
I trust so, and I only trust.

Aye, what they will, such trifles kill.
Comrade, for one good deed of yours,
Your history shall not help to fill
The mouths of many brainless boors.
It may be death absolves or cures
The sin of life. 'Twere hazardous
To assert so. If the sin endures,
Say only, "God, who has judged him thus,
Be merciful to him and us."

How we Beat the Favourite

A Lay of the Loamshire Hunt Cup

"Aye, squire," said Stevens, "they back him at evens;
The race is all over, bar shouting, they say;
The Clown ought to beat her; Dick Neville is sweeter
Than ever--he swears he can win all the way.

"A gentleman rider--well, I'm an outsider,
But if he's a gent who the mischief's a jock?
You swells mostly blunder, Dick rides for the plunder,
He rides, too, like thunder--he sits like a rock.

"He calls 'hunted fairly' a horse that has barely
Been stripp'd for a trot within sight of the hounds,
A horse that at Warwick beat Birdlime and Yorick,
And gave Abdelkader at Aintree nine pounds.

"They say we have no test to warr