0 Pazienza, che tanto sostieni !

BEDSIDE POETRY.

1

HE mountain and the squirrel

T Had a quarrel;

And the former called the latter "Little Prig."

Bun replied,

"You are doubtless very big;

But all sorts of things and weather

Must be taken in together

To make up a year

And a sphere.

And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place.

If I'm not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.

I'll not deny you make

A very pretty squirrel track;

Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;

If I cannot carry forests on my back,

Neither can you crack a nut."

EMERSON (Fable).

2

A

POET'S cat, sedate and grave

As poet well could wish to nave,
Was much addicted to inquire

For nooks to which she might retire,
And where, secure as mouse in chink,
She might repose, or sit and think.

I know not where she caught the trick -
Nature perhaps herself had cast her
In such a mould philosophique,

Or else she learned it of her master.
Sometimes ascending, debonair,
An apple-tree or lofty pear,

Lodged with convenience in the fork,
She watched the gardener at his work;
Sometimes her ease and solace sought
In an old empty watering-pot;
There, wanting nothing save a fan,
To seem some nymph in her sedan,
Apparelled in exactest sort,

And ready to be borne to court.

But love of change, it seems, has place

Not only in our wiser race;
Cats also feel, as well as we,

That passion's force, and so did she.
Her climbing, she began to find,
Exposed her too much to the wind,
And the old utensil of tin

Was cold and comfortless within:
She therefore wished, instead of those,
Some place of more serene repose,
Where neither cold might come, nor air
Too rudely wanton with her hair;
And sought it, in the likeliest mode,
Within her master's snug abode.

A drawer, it chanced, at bottom lined
With linen of the softest kind,
With such as merchants introduce
From India, for the ladies' use,-
A drawer impending o'er the rest,
Half open in the topmost chest,
Of depth enough, and none to spare,
Invited her to slumber there.
Puss, with delight beyond expression,
Surveyed the scene and took possession.
Recumbent at her ease, ere long,

And lulled by her own humdrum song,

She left the cares of life behind,

And slept as she would sleep her last,
When in came, housewifely inclined,
The chambermaid, and shut it fast;
By no malignity impelled,

But all unconscious whom it held.
Awakened by the shock, cried Puss:

"Was ever cat attended thus?

The open drawer was left, I see,

Merely to prove a nest for me;

For soon as I was well composed,

Then came the maid, and it was closed.

How smooth these 'kerchiefs, and how sweet! Oh, what a delicate retreat!

I will resign myself to rest

Till Sol, declining in the west,

Shall call to supper, when, no doubt,

Susan will come and let me out."

The evening came, the sun descended, And Puss remained still unattended.

The night rolled tardily away

(With her, indeed, 'twas never day),

The sprightly morn her course renewed,
The evening gray again ensued,

And Puss came into mind no more