le!--every tongue
Suddenly civil that yesterday rung
(Like a clapper beating a brazen bell)
Each fair reputation's eternal knell;
Hands no longer delivering blows,
And noses, for counting, arrayed in rows.

Walk up, gentlemen--nothing to pay--
The Devil goes back to Hell to-day.

THE MILITIAMAN.

"O warrior with the burnished arms--
With bullion cord and tassel--
Pray tell me of the lurid charms
Of service and the fierce alarms:
The storming of the castle,
The charge across the smoking field,
The rifles' busy rattle--
What thoughts inspire the men who wield
The blade--their gallant souls how steeled
And fortified in battle."

"Nay, man of peace, seek not to know
War's baleful fascination--
The soldier's hunger for the foe,
His dread of safety, joy to go
To court annihilation.
Though calling bugles blow not now,
Nor drums begin to beat yet,
One fear unmans me, I'll allow,
And poisons all my pleasure: How
If I should get my feet wet!"

"A LITERARY METHOD."

His poems Riley says that he indites
Upon an empty stomach. Heavenly Powers,
Feed him throat-full: for what the beggar writes
Upon his empty stomach empties ours!

A WELCOME.

Because you call yourself Knights Templar, and
There's neither Knight nor Temple in the land,--
Because you thus by vain pretense degrade
To paltry purposes traditions grand,--

Because to cheat the ignorant you say
The thing that's not, elated still to sway
The crass credulity of gaping fools
And women by fantastical display,--

Because no sacred fires did ever warm
Your hearts, high knightly service to perform--
A woman's breast or coffer of a man
The only citadel you dare to storm,--

Because while railing still at lord and peer,
At pomp and fuss-and-feathers while you jeer,
Each member of your order tries to graft
A peacock's tail upon his barren rear,--

Because that all these things are thus and so,
I bid you welcome to our city. Lo!
You're free to come, and free to stay, and free
As soon as it shall please you, sirs--to go.

A SERENADE.

"Sas agapo sas agapo,"
He sang beneath her lattice.
"'Sas agapo'?" she murmured--"O,
I wonder, now, what _that_ is!"

Was she less fair that she did bear
So light a load of knowledge?
Are loving looks got out of books,
Or k