he trees diminished as they grew;
And you never went out to walk a mile,
It was the mile that walked to you.

The people there are not tall or short,
Heavy or light, or stout or thin,
And their lives begin where they should leave off,
Or leave off where they should begin.

There childhood, with naught of childish glee,
Looks on the world with thoughtful brow;
'Tis only the aged who laugh and crow,
And cry "We have done with it now!";

A singular race! what lives they spent!
Got up before they went to bed!
And never a man said what he meant,
Or a woman meant what she said.

They blended colours that will not blend,
All hideous contrasts voted sweet;
In yellow and red their Quakers dress'd,
And considered it rather neat.

They didn't believe in the wise and good,
Said the best were worst, the wisest fools;
And 'twas only to have their teachers taught
That they founded national schools.

They read in "books that are no books,"
Their classics--chess-boards neatly bound;
Those their greatest authors who never wrote,
And their deepest the least profound.

Now, such were the folks of that wonder-land,
A curious people, as you will own;
But are there none of the race abroad,
Are no specimens elsewhere known?

Well, I think that he whose views of life
Are crooked, wrong, perverse, and odd,
Who looks upon all with jaundiced eyes--
Sees himself and believes it God,

Who sneers at the good, and makes the ill,
Curses a world he cannot mend;
Who measures life by the rule of wrong
And abuses its aim and end,

The man who stays when he ought to move,
And only goes when he ought to stop--
Is strangely like the folk in my dream,
And would flourish in Turvey Top.

_William Sawyer._

A BALLAD OF BEDLAM

O lady wake!--the azure moon
Is rippling in the verdant skies,
The owl is warbling his soft tune,
Awaiting but thy snowy eyes.
The joys of future years are past,
To-morrow's hopes have fled away;
Still let us love, and e'en at last,
We shall be happy yesterday.

The early beam of rosy night
Drives off the ebon morn afar,
While through the murmur of the light
The huntsman winds his mad guitar.
Then, lady, wake! my brigantine
Pants, neighs, and prances to be free;
Till the creation I am thine.
To some rich desert fly with me.

_Unknown._

XI