"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too

weak

For anything tougher than suet;

Yet

you finished the goose with the bones and the beakPray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;

And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old,” said the youth;

66 one would hardly suppose

That your eye was as steady as ever;

Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose-
What made you so awfully clever?”

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough," Said his father; "don't give yourself airs!

Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?

Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!

LEWIS CARROLL.

[By kind permission of the author.]

A-SITTING ON A GATE.

I'll tell thee everything I can :
There's little to relate.

I saw an aged, aged man,

A-sitting on a gate.

"Who are you, aged man?" I said,

"And how is it you live?"

And his answer trickled through my head

Like water through a sieve.

He said "I look for butterflies

That sleep among the wheat:
I make them into mutton-pies,
And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto men," he said,
"Who sail on stormy seas;
And that's the way I get my bread-
A trifle, if you please."

But I was thinking of a plan
To dye one's whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
That they could not be seen.

So, having no reply to give

To what the old man said,

I cried, "Come, tell me how you live!" And thumped him on the head.

His accents mild took up the tale :
He said "I go my ways,

And when I find a mountain-rill,

I set it in a blaze:

And thence they make a stuff they call
Rowland's Macassar Oil-

Yet twopence-halfpenny is all
They give me for my toil."

But I was thinking of a way
To feed oneself on batter,
And so go on from day to day
Getting a little fatter.

I shook him well from side to side,
Until his face was blue:

"Come, tell me how you live," I cried, "And what it is you do?"

He said, "I hunt for haddock's eyes
Among the heather bright,

And work them into waistcoat-buttons
In the silent night.

And these I do not sell for gold

Or coin of silvery shine,
But for a copper halfpenny,
And that will purchase nine.

"I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,
Or set limed twigs for crabs,
I sometimes search the grassy knolls
For wheels of Hansom-cabs.
And that's the way" (he gave a wink)
"By which I get my wealth-
And very gladly will I drink
Your honour's noble health."

I heard him then, for I had just
Completed my design

To keep the Menai bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.

I thanked him much for telling me
The way he got his wealth,
But chiefly for his wish that he
Might drink my noble health.

And now, if e'er by chance I put
My fingers into glue,

Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot

Into a left-hand shoe,

Or if I drop upon my toe

I

A very heavy weight,

weep, for it reminds me so

Of that old man I used to know

Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,
Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
Whose face was very like a crow,
With eyes like cinders, all aglow,
Who seemed distracted with his woe,
Who rocked his body to and fro,
And muttered mumblingly and low,
As if his mouth were full of dough,
Who snorted like a buffalo-
That summer evening long ago,

A-sitting on a gate.

LEWIS CARROLL.

[By kind permission of the author.]

THE DECLARATION.

'Twas late, and the gay company was gone,
And light lay soft on the deserted room
From alabaster vases, and a scent

Of orange-leaves, and sweet verbena came
Through the unshuttered window on the air.

And the rich pictures, with their dark old tints,
Hung like a twilight landscape, and all things
Seemed hushed into a slumber. Isabel,

The dark-eyed, spiritual Isabel,

Was leaning on her harp, and I had staid
To whisper what I could not when the crowd
Hung on her look like worshippers. I knelt,
And with the fervour of a lip unused

To the cold breath of reason, told my love.
There was no answer, and I took the hand
That rested on the strings, and pressed a kiss
Upon it unforbidden-and again

Besought her, that this silent evidence
That I was not indifferent to her heart,
Might have the seal of one sweet syllable.
I kissed the small white fingers as I spoke;
And she withdrew them gently, and upraised
Her forehead from its resting-place, and looked
Earnestly on me— -She had been asleep!

N. P. WILLIS.

THE DEMON SHIP.

'Twas off the Wash-the sun went down-the sea look'd black and grim,

For stormy clouds, with murky fleece, were mustering at the

brim ;

Titanic shades! enormous gloom!-as if the solid night

Of Erebus rose suddenly to seize upon the light!

It was a time for mariners to bear a wary eye,

With such a dark conspiracy between the sea and sky!

Down went my helm-close reef'd-the tack held freely in my hand

With ballast snug-I put about, and scudded for the land. Loud hiss'd the sea beneath her lee-my little boat flew fast, But faster still the rushing storm came borne upon the blast. Lord! what a roaring hurricane beset the straining sail! What furious sleet, with level drift, and fierce assaults of hail!

What darksome caverns yawn'd before! what jagged steeps behind!

Like battle-steeds, with foaming manes, wild tossing in the wind.

Each after each sank down astern, exhausted in the chase,

But where it sank another rose and gallop'd in its place;