I played a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story—
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love,
Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn

That crazed that bold and lovely Knight, And that he crossed the mountain-woods, Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den, And sometimes from the darksome shade, And sometimes starting up at once

In green and sunny glade,

There came and looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend.
This miserable Knight!

And that unknowing what he did,
He leaped amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death
The Lady of the Land ;-

And how she wept, and clasped his knees;
And how she tended him in vain-
And ever strove to expiate

The scorn that crazed his brain ;-
And that she nursed him in a cave;
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves

A dying man he lay ;

His dying words-but when I reached
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
Disturbed her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;
The music and the doleful tale,

The rich and balmy eve;

Ard hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued.

Subdued and cherished long!

She wept with pity and delight,

She blushed with love, and virgin shame'; And like the murmur of a dream,

I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved-she stepped aside,
As conscious of my look she stept-
Then suddenly, with timorous eye
She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms,
She pressed me with a meek embrace;
And bending back her head, looked up,
And gazed upon my face.

'Twas partly love, and partly fear, And partly 'twas a bashful art, That I might rather feel, than see,

The swelling of her heart.

I calmed her fears, and she was calm. And told her love with virgin pride; And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous Bride.

S. T. COLEridge.

The original poem, by Coleridge, is here printed in full, with a very clever parody, which will be better appreciated after comparison with the original. The little Volume of Miscellaneous Poems from which the parody is taken, is now very scarce, although only published as recently as 1880. The author has gone to Australia, taking with him all the unsold copies of his book.

THE POWER OF SCIENCE.

"ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, Are but the legacies of apes,

With interest on the same,

How oft in studious hours do I

Recall those moments, gone too soon, When midway in the hall I stood, Beside the Dichobune.

Through the Museum windows played The light on fossil, cast, and chart, And she was there, my Gwendoline, The mammal of my heart.

She leaned against the Glyptodon,
The monster of the sculptured tooth;
She looked a fossil specimen
Herself, to tell the truth.

She leaned against the Glyptodon ; She fixed her glasses on her nose; One Pallas-foot drawn back displayed The azure of her hose.

Few virtues had she of her own

She borrowed them from time and space; Her age was eocene, although Post-tertiary her place.

The Irish Elk that near us stood,

(Megaceros Hibernicus),

Scarce dwarfed her; while I bowed beneath Her stately overplus.

I prized her pre-diluvian height,

Her palaeozoic date of birth,

For these to scientific eye

Had scientific worth.

She had some crochets of her own,

My sweet viviparous Gwendoline, She loved me best when I would sing Her ape descent and mine.

I raised a wild pansophic lay;

(The public fled the dismal tones);

I struck a chord that suited well
That entourage of bones.

I sang the very dawn of life,

Cleared at a bound the infinite chasm

That sunders inorganic dust

From sly-born protoplasm.

I smote the stiffest chords of song,
I showed her in a glorious burst

How universal unity

Was dual from the first.

How primal germs contained in one
The beau-ideal and the belle ;
And how the "mystery of life"
Is just a perfect cell.

I showed how sense itself began

In senseless gropings after sense :-
She seemed to find it so herself
(Her gaze was so intense).

And how the very need of light
Conceived, and visual organs bore ;
Until an optic want evolved

The spectacles she wore.

How headless molluscs making head
Against the fashions of their line,
On pulpy maxims turned their backs,
And specialized a spine.

How landward longings seized on fish,
Fretted the type within their eggs,
And in amphibian issue dif-
Ferentiated legs.

I hopped the quaint marsupials,
And into higher mammals ran,
And through a subtle fugue I stole
From Lemurs up to Man.

How tails were lost-but when I reached
This saddest part of all my lay,
She dropped the corners of her mouth,
And turned her face away.

And proud to see my lofty love

So sweetly wince, so coyly shrink,

I woke a moving threnody

I sang the missing link.

And when I spake of vanished kin
Of Simian races dead and gone,
The wave of sorrow from her eyes
Half-drowned the Glyptodon.

I turned to other, brighter themes,
And glancing at our different scales,
I showed how lady beetles are
Robuster than the males.

I sang the Hymenoptera ;

How insect-brides are sought and got;

How stridulation of the male

First hinted what was what.

And when-perchance too fervently

I smote upon the chord of sex,

I saw the tardy spark of love
Blaze up behind her specs.

She listened with a heightened grace,

She blushed a blush like ruby wine, Then bent her stately head, and clinked Her spectacles on mine.

A mighty impulse rattled through
Her well articulated frame;
And into one delighted ear

She breathed my Christian name.

And whispered that my song had given
Her secret thought substantial shape,
For she had long considered me
The offshoot of an ape.

She raised me from the enchanted floor,
And, as my lips her shoulder met,
Between two asthmas of embrace
She called me marmosette.

I strove to calm her down; she grew
Serener and serener;

And so I won my Gwendoline,
My vertebrate congener.

:0:

J. BRUNTON STEPHENS.

PLAYHOUSE MUSINGS.

"Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim
Credebat libris ; neque si male cesserat, usquam
Decurrens alio, neque si bene."

My pensive Public, wherefore look you sad?
I had a grandmother, she kept a donkey

To carry to the mart her crockery-ware,
And when that donkey look'd me in the face,
His face was sad! and you are sad, my Public!

Joy should be yours: this tenth day of October
Again assembles us in Drury Lane.
Long wept my eye to see the timber planks
That hid our ruins; many a day I cried,
Ah me! I fear they never will rebuild it!
Till on one eve, one joyful Monday eve,
As along Charles Street I prepared to walk,
Just at the corner, by the pastrycook's,
I heard a trowel tick against a brick.

I look'd me up, and straight a parapet
Uprose at least seven inches o'er the planks.
Joy to thee, Drury! to myself I said:

HOR,

He of Blackfriars Road, who hymned thy downfall In loud Hosannahs, and who prophesied That Flames, like those from prostrate Solyma, Would scorch the hand that ventured to rebuild thee, Has proved a lying prophet. From that hour, As leisure offer'd, close to Mr. Spring's Box-office door, I've stood and eyed the builders. They had a plan to render less their labours; Workmen in olden times would mount a ladder With hodded heads, but these stretch'd forth a pole

From the wall's pinnacle, they placed a pulley

"He of Blackfriars Road," viz., the late Rev. Rowland Hill, who is said to have preached a sermon congratulating his congre gation on the catastrophe at Drury Lane Theatre.

Athwart the pole, a rope athwart the pulley; To this a basket dangled; mortar and bricks Thus freighted, swung securely to the top, And in the empty basket workmen twain Precipitate, unhurt, accosted earth.

Oh! 'twas a goodly sound, to hear the people Who watch'd the work express their various thoughts While some believed it never would be finish'd Some, on the contrary believed it would.

I've heard our front that faces Drury Lane Much criticised; they say 'tis vulgar brick-work, A mimic manufactory of floor-cloth.

One of the morning papers wish ́d that front
Cemented like the front in Brydges Street;
As it now looks, they call it Wyatt's Mermaid,
A handsome woman with a fish's tail.

White is the steeple of St. Bride's in Fleet Street :
The Albion (as its name denotes) is white;
Morgan and Saunders' shop for chairs and tables
Gleams like a snow-ball in the setting sun;

White is Whitehall. But not St. Bride's in Fleet Street,
The Spotless Albion, Morgan, no, nor Saunders,
Nor white Whitehall, is white as Drury's face.

Oh, Mr. Whitbread! fie upon you, sir! I think you should have built a colonnade; When tender Beauty, looking for her coach, Protrudes her gloveless hand, perceives the shower And draws the tippet closer round her throat, Perchance her coach stands half a dozen off, And, ere she mounts the step, the oozing mud Soaks through her pale kid slipper. On the morrow, She coughs at breakfast, and her gruff papa Cries, "There you go! this comes of playhouses!' To build no portico is penny wise:

Heaven grant it prove not in the end pound foolish 1

Hail to thee, Drury! Queen of Theatres!
What is the Regency in Tottenham Street,
The Royal Amphitheatre of Arts,
Astley's, Olympic, or the Sans Pareil,

Compared with thee? Yet when I view thee push'd
Back from the narrow street that christened thee,

I know not why they call thee Drury Lane.

Amid the freaks that modern fashion sanctions, It grieves me much to see live animals

Brought on the stage.

Grimaldi has his rabbit,
Laurent his cat, and Bradbury his pig;
Fie on such tricks! Johnson, the machinist

Of former Drury, imitated life

Quite to the life. The Elephant in Blue Beard,
Stuff'd by his hand, wound round his lithe proboscis,
As spruce as he who roar'd in Padmanaba.'

Nought born on earth should die. On hackney stands
I reverence the coachman who cries "Gee,"
And spares the lash. When I behold a spider
Prey on a fly, a magpie on a worm,

"Padmanaba," viz,, in a pantomine called Harlequin in Padmanaba. This elephant, some years afterwards, was exhibited over Exeter 'Change, where it was found necessary to destroy the poor animal by discharges of musketry. When he made his entrance in the pantomine above-mentioned, Johnson. the machinist of the rival house exclaimed, "I should be very sorry if I could not make a better elephant than that! Johnson was right: we go to the theatre to be pleased with the skill of the imitator, and not to look at the reality.

Its mother being tethered near it. POOR little Foal of an oppressed Race! I love the languid Patience of thy face: And oft with gentle hand I give thee bread, And clap thy ragged Coat, and pat thy head. But what thy dulled Spirits hath dismayed, That never thou dost sport along the glade? And (most unlike the nature of things young) That earthward still thy moveless head is hung? Do thy prophetic Fears anticipate, Meek Child of Misery! thy future fate? The starving meal, and all the thousand aches "Which patient Merit of the Unworthy takes?" Innocent Foal! thou poor despised Forlorn ! I hail thee Brother-spite of the fool's scorn! And fain would take thee with me, in the Dell Of Peace and mild Equality to dwell, Where Toil shall call the charmer Health his bride, And Laughter tickle Plenty's ribless side! How thou wouldst toss thy heels in gamesome play, And frisk about, as lamb or kitten gay! Yea! and more musically sweet to me Thy dissonant harsh bray of joy would be, Than warbled melodies that soothe to rest The aching of pale Fashion's vacant breast!

:0:

KUBLA KHAN.

IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many an incense bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves,

It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

S. T. COLERidge.

This most exquisite fragment of a poem, Coleridge's masterpiece, was commenced in 1797, the second part was written in 1800, leaving the mystery of the plot still unsolved.

For this Coleridge blamed his indolence, but possibly he gave up the task in despair, he must have felt how inferior the second part was in interest, in diablerie, and in poetical fancy to the first, and that no ending was preferable to a tame ending of a work which had aroused such intense admiration and curiosity. Others have attempted to complete the poem, in sober earnest, but their efforts have been unsuccessful, and not one sequel has achieved even a temporary popularity. In the first edition of the poem Coleridge, after describing Geraldine added:

"A sight to dream of, not to tell :-
And she is to sleep with Christabel !"

He afterwards omitted these lines possibly because he heard it reported that Geraldine was to prove to be a man, and not as Christabel supposes, a forlorn maiden in distress. Be this as it may some of the parodies dwell particularly

Hungerford suspension bridge was opened on May 1, 1845, it was removed in 1862 to make way for the Charing Cross railway bridge, and was afterwards erected over the River Avon at Clifton, near Bristol.

upon the equivocal situation of Christabel with her stranger guest. Principal amongst these parodies is one written by Dr. Maginn which appeared in Blackwood's Magazine as far back as June 1819. In order to appreciate this, a few extracts from the narrative portion of Part I. of the original must be given. Want of space alone is the reason for mutilating the poem, enough is left to trace the story to where Dr. Maginn takes up the thread.

PART I.

'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,
And the owls have awakened the crowing cock;
Tu-whit !-Tu-whoo!

And hark, again! the crowing cock,
How drowsily it crew.

Is the night chilly and dark? The night is chilly, but not dark. The thin gray cloud is spread on high, It covers but not hides the sky. The moon is behind, and at the full ; And yet she looks both small and dull. The night is chill, the cloud is gray: 'Tis a month before the month of May, And the Spring comes slowly up this way.

The lovely lady, Christabel,
Whom her father loves so well,
What makes her in the wood so late,

A furlong from the castle gate?
She had dreams all yesternight
Of her own betrothed knight;

And she in the midnight wood will pray
For the weal of her lover that's far away.

She stole along, she nothing spoke, The sighs she heaved were soft and low. And naught was green upon the oak, But moss and rarest misletoe;

She kneels beneath the huge oak tree. And in silence prayeth she.

The lady sprang up suddenly, The lovely lady, Christabel ! It moaned as near, as near can be, But what it is, she cannot tell.On the other side it seems to be, Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree.

The night is chill; the forest bare; Is it the wind that moaneth bleak? There is not wind enough in the air To move away the ringlet curl From the lovely lady's cheekThere is not wind enough to twirl The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can. Hanging so light, and hanging so high, On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.

Hush, beating heart of Christabel ! Jesu, Maria, shield her well! She folded her arms beneath her cloak, And stole to the other side of the oak What sees she there?

There she sees a damsel bright, Drest in a silken robe of white, That shadowy in the moonlight shone :

The neck that made that white robe wan,
Her stately neck, and arms were bare ;
Her blue-veined feet unsandal'd were,
And wildly glittered here and there
The gems entangled in her hair,

I guess, 'twas frightful there to see
A lady so richly clad as she-
Beautiful exceedingly!

Mary mother, save me now! (Said Christabel,) And who art thou?

The lady strange made answer meet, And her voice was faint and sweet :Have pity on my sore distress,

I scarce can speak for weariness:

Stretch forth thy hand, and have no fear :
Said Christabel, How camest thou here?

And the lady, whose voice was faint and sweet,
Did thus pursue her answer meet :-

My sire is of a noble line,
And my name is Geraldine :

Five warriors seized me yestermorn,
Me, even me, a maid forlorn :

They choked my cries with force and fright,
And tied me on a palfrey white.
The palfrey was as fleet as wind,
And they rode furiously behind.

They spurred amain, their steeds were white!
And once we crossed the shade of night.
As sure as Heaven shall rescue me,

I have no thought what men they be ;
Nor do I know how long it is
(For I have lain entranced I wis)
Since one, the tallest of the five,
Took me from the palfrey's back,
A weary woman, scarce alive.

Some muttered words his comrades spoke :
He placed me underneath this oak;
He swore they would return with haste;
Whither they went I cannot tell-

I thought I heard, some minutes past,
Sounds as of a castle bell.

Stretch forth thy hand (thus ended she),
And help a wretched maid to flee.

Then Christabel stretched forth her hand And comforted fair Geraldine :

"O well, bright dame ! may you command The service of Sir Leoline;

And gladly our stout chivalry

Will he send forth and friends withal

To guide and guard you safe and free
Home to your noble father's hall."

She rose and forth with steps they passed That strove to be, and were not, fast. Her gracious stars the lady blest,

And thus spake on sweet Christabel :

"All our household are at rest,
The hall as silent as the cell;

Sir Leoline is weak in health,
And may not well awakened be,
But we will move as if in stealth,

And I beseech your courtesy,

This night, to share your couch with me."

They crossed the moat, and Christabel Took the key that fitted well;

A little door she opened straight,

All in the middle of the gate;

So free from danger, free from fear

They crossed the court: right glad they were.
They passed the ball, that echoes still,
Pass as lightly as you will!

O softly tread, said Christabel,
My father seldom sleepeth well.

Sweet Christabel her feet doth bare, And, jealous of the listening air, They steal their way from stair to stair, Now in glimmer, and now in gloom, And now they pass the Baron's room, As still as death with stifled breath! And now have reached her chamber door; And now doth Geraldine press down

The rushes of the chamber floor.

The silver lamp burns dead and dim ;

But Christabel the lamp will trim.

She trimmed the lamp, and made it bright,

And left it swinging to and fro,
While Geraldine, in wretched plight,
Sank down upon the floor below.

O weary lady, Geraldine,

I pray you, drink this cordial wine!
It is a wine of virtuous powers;
My mother made it of wild flowers.

Again the wild-flower wine she drank : Her fair large eyes 'gan glitter bright, And from the floor whereon she sank, The lofty lady stood upright; She was most beautiful to see, Like a lady of a far countrée.

And thus the lofty lady spakeAll they, who live in the upper sky, Do love you, holy Christabel ! And you love them, and for their sake And for the good which me befell, Even I in my degree will try, Fair maiden, to requite you well. But now unrobe yourself; for I Must pray, ere yet in bed I lie.

Quoth Christabel, so let it be And as the lady bade, did she. Her gentle limbs did she undress, And lay down in her loveliness.

But through her brain of weal and woe So many thoughts moved to and fro, That vain it were her lids to close; So half-way from the bed she rose : And on her elbow did recline To look at the lady Geraldine.

Beneath the lamp the lady bowed, And slowly rolled her eyes around; Then drawing in her breath aloud Like one that shuddered, she unbound The cincture from beneath her breast: Her silken robe, and inner vest, Dropt to her feet, and full in view, Behold! her bosom and half her side

A sight to dream of, not to tell!

O shield her! shield sweet Christabel !