man
would be a fool who tried to add anything to the following transcendent
obituary poem. There is something so innocent, so guileless, so
complacent, so unearthly serene and self-satisfied about this peerless
"hog-wash," that the man must be made of stone who can read it without a
dulcet ecstasy creeping along his backbone and quivering in his marrow.
There is no need to say that this poem is genuine and in earnest, for
its proofs are written all over its face. An ingenious scribbler
might imitate it after a fashion, but Shakespeare himself could not
counterfeit it. It is noticeable that the country editor who published
it did not know that it was a treasure and the most perfect thing of its
kind that the storehouses and museums of literature could show. He did
not dare to say no to the dread poet--for such a poet must have been
something of an apparition--but he just shoveled it into his paper
anywhere that came handy, and felt ashamed, and put that disgusted
"Published by Request" over it, and hoped that his subscribers would
overlook it or not feel an impulse to read it:

(Published by Request)

LINES

Composed on the death of Samuel and Catharine Belknap's children

by M. A. Glaze

Friends and neighbors all draw near,
And listen to what I have to say;
And never leave your children dear
When they are small, and go away.

But always think of that sad fate,
That happened in year of '63;
Four children with a house did burn,
Think of their awful agony.

Their mother she had gone away,
And left them there alone to stay;
The house took fire and down did burn;
Before their mother did return.

Their piteous cry the neighbors heard,
And then the cry of fire was given;
But, ah! before they could them reach,
Their little spirits had flown to heaven.

Their father he to war had gone,
And on the battle-field was slain;
But little did he think when he went away,
But what on earth they would meet again.

The neighbors often told his wife
Not to leave his children there,
Unless she got some one to stay,
And of the little ones take care.

The oldest he was years not six,
And the youngest only eleven months old,
But often she had left them there alone,
As, by the neighbors, I have been told.

How can she bear to see the place.
Where she so oft has left th