less than one plough;
A sword with gilt trappings rose up in the scale,
Though balanced by only a ten-penny nail;
A shield and a helmet, a buckler and spear,
Weighed less than a widow's uncrystallized tear.

A lord and a lady went up at full sail,
When a bee chanced to light on the opposite scale;
Ten doctors, ten lawyers, two courtiers, one earl,
Ten counsellors' wigs, full of powder and curl,
All heaped in one balance and swinging from thence,
Weighed less than a few grains of candor and sense;
A first-water diamond, with brilliants begirt,
Than one good potato just washed from the dirt;
Yet not mountains of silver and gold could suffice
One pearl to outweigh,--'twas the Pearl of Great Price.

Last of all, the whole world was bowled in at the grate,
With the soul of a beggar to serve for a weight,
When the former sprang up with so strong a rebuff
That it made a vast rent and escaped at the roof!
When balanced in air, it ascended on high,
And sailed up aloft, a balloon in the sky;
While the scale with the soul in't so mightily fell
That it jerked the philosopher out of his cell.

Jane Taylor [1783-1824]

THE MAIDEN AND THE LILY

A lily in my garden grew,
Amid the thyme and clover;
No fairer lily ever blew,
Search all the wide world over.
Its beauty passed into my heart:
I know 'twas very silly,
But I was then a foolish maid,
And it--a perfect lily.

One day a learned man came by,
With years of knowledge laden,
And him I questioned with a sigh,
Like any foolish maiden:--
"Wise sir, please tell me wherein lies--
I know the question's silly--
The something that my art defies,
And makes a perfect lily."

He smiled, then bending plucked the flower,
Then tore it, leaf and petal,
And talked to me for full an hour,
And thought the point to settle:--
"Therein it lies," at length he cries;
And I--I know 'twas silly--
Could only weep and say, "But where--
O doctor, where's my lily?"

John Fraser [1750-1811]

THE OWL-CRITIC

"Who stuffed that white owl? No one spoke in the shop:
The barber was busy, and he couldn't stop;
The customers, waiting their turns, were all reading
The Daily, the Herald, the Post, little heeding
The young man who blurted out such a blunt question;
Not one raised a head, or even made a suggestion;
And the barber kept on shaving.

"Don't you see, Mister Brown,"
Cried the youth with a frown,
"How wrong the whole thing is,
How preposterous each wing is,
How flat