how man admires
A sinner if she sing,--

O husbands who impart
To each assenting spouse
The lesson that shall start
The buds upon your brows,--

All whose applauding hands
Assist to rear the fame
That throws o'er all the lands
The shadow of its shame,--

Go drag her car!--the mud
Through which its axle rolls
Is partly human blood
And partly human souls.

Mad, mad!--your senses whirl
Like devils dancing free,
Because a strolling girl
Can hold the note high C.

For this the avenging rod
Of Heaven ye dare defy,
And tear the law that God
Thundered from Sinai!

HOSPITALITY.

Why ask me, Gastrogogue, to dine
(Unless to praise your rascal wine)
Yet never ask some luckless sinner
Who needs, as I do not, a dinner?

FOR A CERTAIN CRITIC.

Let lowly themes engage my humble pen--
Stupidities of critics, not of men.
Be it mine once more the maunderings to trace
Of the expounders' self-directed race--
Their wire-drawn fancies, finically fine,
Of diligent vacuity the sign.
Let them in jargon of their trade rehearse
The moral meaning of the random verse
That runs spontaneous from the poet's pen
To be half-blotted by ambitious men
Who hope with his their meaner names to link
By writing o'er it in another ink
The thoughts unreal which they think they think,
Until the mental eye in vain inspects
The hateful palimpsest to find the text.

The lark ascending heavenward, loud and long
Sings to the dawning day his wanton song.
The moaning dove, attentive to the sound,
Its hidden meaning hastens to expound:
Explains its principles, design--in brief,
Pronounces it a parable of grief!

The bee, just pausing ere he daubs his thigh
With pollen from a hollyhock near by,
Declares he never heard in terms so just
The labor problem thoughtfully discussed!
The browsing ass looks up and clears his whistle
To say: "A monologue upon the thistle!"
Meanwhile the lark, descending, folds his wing
And innocently asks: "What!--did I sing?"

O literary parasites! who thrive
Upon the fame of better men, derive
Your sustenance by suction, like a leech,
And, for you preach of them, think masters preach,--
Who find it half is profit, half delight,
To write about what you could never write,--
Consider, pray, how sharp had been the throes
Of famine and discomfiture in