Inversely as his density.

It would have moved to pity
An Ogre or a Hessian,
To see poor Spermaceti
Thus suffering compression.

The while he lay a-roaring
In agonies gigantic,
The lamp-oil out came pouring,
And greased the wide Atlantic.

(Would we'd been in the Navy,
And cruising there! Imagine us
All in a sea of gravy,
With billow oleaginous!)

At length old million-pounder,
Low on a bed of coral,
Gave his last dying flounder,
Whereto I pen this moral.

MORAL

O, let this tale dramatic,
Anent the whale Norwegian
And pressure hydrostatic,
Warn you, my young collegian,

That down-compelling forces
Increase as you get deeper;
The lower down your course is,
The upward path's the steeper.

_Henry A. Beers._

THE CAMERONIAN CAT

There was a Cameronian cat
Was hunting for a prey,
And in the house she catched a mouse
Upon the Sabbath-day.

The Whig, being offended
At such an act profane,
Laid by his book, the cat he took,
And bound her in a chain.

"Thou damned, thou cursed creature!
This deed so dark with thee!
Think'st thou to bring to hell below
My holy wife and me?

"Assure thyself that for the deed
Thou blood for blood shalt pay,
For killing of the Lord's own mouse
Upon the Sabbath-day."

The presbyter laid by the book,
And earnestly he prayed
That the great sin the cat had done
Might not on him be laid.

And straight to execution
Poor pussy she was drawn,
And high hanged up upon a tree--
The preacher sung a psalm.

And, when the work was ended,
They thought the cat near dead;
She gave a paw, and then a mew,
And stretched out her head.

"Thy name," said he, "shall certainly
A beacon still remain,
A terror unto evil ones
For evermore, Amen."

_Unknown._

THE YOUNG GAZELLE

A MOORE-ISH TALE

In early youth, as you may guess,
I revelled in poetic lore,
And while my schoolmates studied less,
I resolutely studied _Moore_.

Those touching lines from "Lalla Rookh,"--
"Ah, ever thus--" you know them well,
Such root within my bosom took,
I wished _I_ had a young Gazelle.

Oh, yes! a sweet, a sweet Gazelle,
"To charm me with its soft black eye,"
So soft, so liquid, that a spell
Seems in that gem-like orb to lie.

Years, childhood passed, youth fled away,
My vain desire I'd learned to quell,
Till came that most auspicious