INTRAMURAL ESTIVATION.

In candent ire the solar splendor flames;
The foles, languescent, pend from arid rames;
His humid front the cive, anheling, wipes,
And dreams of erring on ventiferous ripes.

How dulce to vive occult to mortal eyes,
Dorm on the herb with none to supervise,
Carp the suave berries from the crescent vine,
And bibe the flow from longicaudate kine!

To me, alas! no verdurous visions come,
Save yon exiguous pool's conferva-scum;
No concave vast repeats the tender hue
That laves my milk-jug with celestial blue!
Me wretched! Let me curr to quercine shades!
Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids!
Oh, might I vole to some umbrageous clump,-
Depart, be off,-excede,-evade, erump!

Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table.

A CHEMICAL VALENTINE.

I love thee, Mary, and thou lovest me,
Our mutual flame is like the affinity

That doth exist between two simple bodies.

I am Potassium to thy Oxygen;

'Tis little that the holy marriage vow

Shall shortly make us one.

That unity

Is, after all, but metaphysical.

Oh! would that I, my Mary, were an Acid

A living Acid; thou an Alkali

Endowed with human sense; that, brought together,

We both might coalesce into one Salt,

One homogeneous crystal. Oh that thou

Wert Carbon, and myself were Hydrogen!

We would unite to form olefiant gas,

Or common coal, or naphtha. Would to heaven
That I were Phosphorus, and thou wert Lime,
And we of Lime composed a Phosphuret!

I'd be content to be Sulphuric Acid,

So that thou mightst be Soda.

In that case,

We should be Glauber's Salt. Wert thou Magnesia Instead, we'd form the salt that's named from Epsom. Couldst thou Potassa be, I Aquafortis,

Our happy union should that compound form,

Nitrate of Potash-otherwise Saltpetre.
And thus, our several natures sweetly blent.
We'd live and love together, until death
Should decompose this fleshly Tertium Quid,
Leaving our souls to all eternity

Amalgamated! Sweet, thy name is Briggs,
And mine is Johnson. Wherefore should not we
Agree to form a Johnsonate of Briggs?

We will! the day, the happy day is nigh,

When Johnson shall with beauteous Briggs combine.

THE ANATOMIST TO HIS DULCINEA.

I list as thy heart and ascending aorta

Their volumes of valvular harmony pour;

And my soul from that muscular music has caught a
New life 'mid its dry anatomical lore.

Oh, rare is the sound when thy ventricles throb
In a systolic symphony measured and slow,
When the auricles answer with rhythmical sob,
As they murmur a melody wondrously low!
Oh, thy cornea, love, has the radiant light

Of the sparkle that laughs in the icicle's sheen; And thy crystalline lens, like a diamond bright, Through the quivering frame of thine iris is seen!

And thy retina, spreading its lustre of pearl,
Like the far-away nebula, distantly gleams
From a vault of black cellular mirrors that hurl
From their hexagon angles the silvery beams.

Ah! the flash of those orbs is enslaving me still,
As they roll 'neath the palpebræ, dimly translucent,
Obeying in silence the magical will

Of the oculo-motor-pathetic-abducent.

From the daintily quivering chordæ vocales,
Or rings in clear tones through the echoing cells
Of the antrum, the ethmoid, and sinus frontales!

ODE TO SPRING.

WRITTEN IN A LAWYER'S OFFICE.

Whereas on sundry boughs and sprays
Now divers birds are heard to sing,
And sundry flowers their heads upraise-
Hail to the coming on of Spring!

The birds aforesaid, happy pairs!

Love midst the aforesaid boughs enshrines
In household nests, themselves, their heirs,
Administrators, and assigns.

The songs of the said birds arouse

The memory of our youthful hours.
As young and green as the said boughs,
As fresh and fair as the said flowers.

O busiest term of Cupid's court!

When tender plaintiffs actions bring;
Season of frolic and of sport,

Hail, as aforesaid, coming Spring!

PRISTINE PROVERBS PREPARED FOR PRECOCIOUS PUPILS.

Observe yon plumed biped fine!

To effect his captivation,

Deposit particles saline

Upon his termination.

Cryptogamous concretion never grows
On mineral fragments that decline repose.
Whilst self-inspection it neglects,

Nor its own foul condition sees,
The kettle to the pot objects
Its sordid superficies.

Decortications of the golden grain
Are set to allure the aged fowl, in vain.

Teach not a parent's mother to extract

The embryo juices of an egg by suction:
That good old lady can the feat enact,

Quite irrespective of your kind instruction.

Pecuniary agencies have force

To stimulate to speed the female horse.

Bear not to yon famed city upon Tyne
The carbonaceous product of the mine.

The mendicant, once from his indigence freed,
And mounted aloft on the generous steed,
Down the precipice soon will infallibly go,
And conclude his career in the regions below.

It is permitted to the feline race
To contemplate even a regal face.

Metric Prose.

Quid tentabam scribere versus erat.—OVID.

COWPER'S LETTER TO NEWTON.

The following letter was written to Rev. John Newton, by William Cowper, in reference to a poem On Charity, by the latter:

My very dear friend, I am going to send, what when you have read, you may scratch your head, and say I suppose, there's nobody knows, whether what I have got, be verse or not;-by the tune and the time, it ought to be rhyme; but if it be, did ever you see, of late or of yore, such a ditty before?

I have writ "Charity," not for popularity, but as well as I could, in hopes to do good; and if the "Reviewer" should say to be sure, the gentleman's muse wears Methodist shoes, you may know by her pace, and talk about grace, that she and her bard have little regard for the tastes and fashions, and ruling passions, and hoydening play, of the modern day; and though she assume a borrowed plume, and now and then wear a tittering air, 'tis only her plan, to catch if she can, the giddy and gay, as they go that way, by a production of a new construction; she has baited her trap, in the hope to all that may come, with a sugar-plum. His opinion in this will not be amiss; 'tis what I intend, my principal end; and if I succeed, and folks should read, till a few are brought to a serious thought, I shall think I am paid for all I have said, and all I have done, although I have run, many a time, after a rhyme, as far as from hence to the end of my sense, and by hook or by crook, write another book, if I live and am here another

snap

year.

I have heard before of a room with a floor, laid upon springs, and such-like things, with so much art in every part, that when you went in, you were forced to begin a minuet pace, with an air and a grace, swimming about, now in and now out, with a

deal of a state, in a figure of eight, without pipe or string, or any such thing; and now I have writ, in a rhyming fit, what will make you dance, and, as you advance, will keep you still, though against your will, dancing away, alert and gay, till you come to an end of what I have penned, which that you may do, ere madam and you are quite worn out with jigging about, I take my leave, and here you receive a bow profound, down to the ground, from you humble me- -W. C.

EXAMPLE IN IRVING'S NEW YORK.

The following remarkable instance of involuntary poetic prose occurs in Knickerbocker's humorous history of New York, near the commencement of the Sixth Book:

The gallant warrior starts from soft repose, from golden visions and voluptuous ease; where, in the dulcet "piping time of peace," he sought sweet solace after all his toils. No more in beauty's siren lap reclined, he weaves fair garlands for his lady's brows; no more entwines with flowers his shining sword, nor through the livelong summer's day chants forth his love-sick soul in madrigals. To manhood roused, he spurns the amorous flute, doffs from his brawny back the robe of peace, and clothes his pampered limbs in panoply of steel. O'er his dark brow, where late the myrtle waved, where wanton roses breathed enervate love, he rears the beaming casque and nodding plume; grasps the bright shield and ponderous lance, or mounts with eager pride his fiery steed, and burns for deeds of glorious chivalry.

In D'Israeli's Wondrous Tale of Alvoy, are remarkable specimens of prose poetry. For example:

Why am I here? are you not here? and need I urge a stronger plea? Oh, brother dear, I pray you come and mingle in our festival! Our walls are hung with flowers you love; I culled them by the fountain's side; the holy lamps are trimmed and set, and you must raise their earliest flame. Without the gate my maidens wait to offer you a robe of state. Then, brother dear, I pray you come and mingle in our festival.