Peter, Peter!-he does not speak,

He is not as rash as in old Galilee. Safer a ship, though it toss and leak,

Than a reeling foot on a rolling sea!

And he's got to be round in the girth, thinks he.

Peter, Peter! - he does not stir,

His nets are heavy with silver fish:

He reckons his gains, and is keen to infer,

"The broil on the shore, if the Lord should wish,— But the sturgeon goes to the Cæsar's dish."

Peter, Peter, thou fisher of men,

Fisher of fish wouldst thou live instead,

Haggling for pence with the other Ten,

Cheating the market at so much a head,
Griping the bag of the traitor dead?

At the triple crow of the Gallic cock

Thou weep'st not, thou, though thine eyes be dazed:

What bird comes next in the tempest shock?

Vultures! See, as when Romulus gazed,

To inaugurate Rome for a world amazed!

In the Half-Way House.

T twenty we fancied the blest middle ages

A spirited cross of romantic and grand;
All templars and minstrels and ladies and pages,

And love and adventure in Outre-Mer-land.

But ah! where the youth dream of building a minster,
The man takes a pew and sits reckoning his pelf,
And the graces wear fronts, the muse thins to a spinster,
When Middle-Age stares from one's glass to himself!

Do you twit me with days when I had an ideal,

And saw the sear future through spectacles green? Then find me some charm, while I look round and see all, These fat friends of forty shall keep me nineteen;

Should we go on pining for chaplets of laurel,

Who've paid a perruquier for mending our thatch,

Or, our feet swathed in baize, with our fate pick a quarrel, If instead of cheap bay-leaves she sent a dear scratch?

We called it our Eden, that small patent baker,

When life was half moonshine and half Mary Jane; But the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker; Did Adam have duns and slip down a back-lane? Nay, after the fall did the modiste keep coming

With last styles of fig-leaf to Madam Eve's bower? Did Jubal, or whoever taught the girls thrumming, Make the patriarchs deaf at a dollar the hour?

As I think what I was, I sigh, Desunt nonulla!

Years are creditors Sheridan's self could not bilk; But then, as my boy says, "What right has a fellah

To ask for the cream when himself spilt the milk?" Perhaps when you're older, my lad, you'll discover

The secret with which Auld Lang Syne there is gilt,Superstition of old man, maid, poet, and lover,—

That cream rises thicker on milk that was spilt.

We sailed for the moon, but in sad disillusion,

Snug under Point Comfort are glad to make fast,

And strive (sans our glasses) to make a confusion

'Twixt our rind of green cheese and the moon of the past;
Ah, Might-have-been, Could-have-been, Would-have-been rascals,
He's a genius or fool whom ye cheat at twoscore,
And the man whose boy-promise was likened to Pascal's
Is thankful at forty they don't call him bore!

With what fumes of fame was each confident pate full!
How rates of insurance should rise on the Charles!
And which of us now would not feel wisely grateful,

If his rhymes sold as fast as the Emblems of Quarles?
E'en if won, what's the good of life's medals and prizes?
The rapture's in what never was or is gone;

That we miss them makes Helens of plain Ann Elizas,
For the goose of to-day still is memory's swan.

And yet, who would change the old dream for new treasure? Make not youth's sourest grapes the best wine of our life ?

Need he reckon his date by the Almanac's measure

Who is twenty life-long in the eyes of his wife?

THE MILKMAID.

Ah, Fate, should I live to be nonagenarian,

Let me still take Hope's frail I. O. U's upon trust,

Still talk of a trip to the Island Macarian,

And still climb the dream-tree for- ashes and dust!

311

The Milkmaid.

MILKMAID, who poised a full pail on her head,

Thus mused on her prospects in life, it is said: "Let me see, I should think that this milk will procure One hundred good eggs, or fourscore, to be sure.

"Well then,-stop a bit,- it must not be forgotten, Some of these may be broken, and some may be rotten; But if twenty for accident should be detached,

It will leave me just sixty sound eggs to be hatched.

"Well, sixty sound eggs,- no, sound chickens, I mean:
Of these some may die,- we'll suppose seventeen,
Seventeen! not so many,- say ten at the most,
Which will leave fifty chickens to boil or to roast.

"But then there's their barley; how much will they need? Why, they take but one grain at a time when they feed,— So that's a mere trifle; now, then, let us see,

At a fair market price how much money there'll be.

"Six shillings a pair-five-four-three-and-six,
To prevent all mistakes, that low price I will fix;
Now what will that make? fifty chickens, I said,-
Fifty times three-and-sixpence,-I'll ask Brother Ned!

1

"Oh, but stop,-three-and-sixpence a pair I must sell 'em!
Well, a pair is a couple,- now then let us tell 'em.

A couple in fifty will go (my poor brain!),
Why, just a score times, and five pair will remain.

"Twenty-five pair of fowls,- now how tiresome it is
That I can't reckon up so much money as this!
Well there's no use in trying, so let's give a guess,-
I'll say twenty pounds, and it can't be no less.

"Twenty pounds, I am certain, will buy me a cow,
Thirty geese and two turkeys,-eight pigs and a sow;
Now if these turn out well, at the end of the year,
I shall fill both my pockets with guineas, 'tis clear."

Forgetting her burden, when this she had said,
The maid superciliously tossed up her head;

When, alas for her prospects! her milk-pail descended,
And so all her schemes for the future were ended.

This moral, I think, may be safely attached,

"Reckon not on your chickens before they are hatched.",