"Drink to lofty hopes that cool -
Visions of a perfect State :
Drink we, last, the public fool,
Frantic love and frantic hate.

"Chant me now some wicked stave, Till thy drooping courage rise, And the glow-worm of the grave Glimmer in thy rheumy eyes.

"Fear not thou to loose thy tongue;

Set thy hoary fancies free;

What is loathsome to the

young

Savors well to thee and me.

"Change, reverting to the years,

When thy nerves could understand

What there is in loving tears,

And the warmth of hand in hand.

"Tell me tales of thy first love

April hopes, the fools of chance;

Till the graves begin to move,

"Fill the can, and fill the cup: All the windy ways of men Are but dust that rises up,

66

And is lightly laid again.

Trooping from their mouldy dens The chap-fallen circle spreads: Welcome, fellow-citizens,

Hollow hearts and empty heads!

"You are bones, and what of that? Every face, however full,

Padded round with flesh and fat,
Is but modelled on a skull.

"Death is king, and Vivat Rex! Tread a measure on the stones,

Madam if I know your sex,

"Lo! God's likeness- the ground-planNeither modelled, glazed, or framed : Buss me, thou rough sketch of man,

Far too naked to be shamed!

"Drink to Fortune, drink to Chance, While we keep a little breath!

Drink to heavy Ignorance!

Hob-and-nob with brother Death!

“Thou art mazed, the night is long,
And the longer night is near:
What! I am not all as wrong
As a bitter jest is dear.

"Youthful hopes, by scores, to all,

When the locks are crisp and curled;

Unto me my maudlin gall,

And my mockeries of the world.

"Fill the cup, and fill the can!

Mingle madness, mingle scorn! Dregs of life, and lees of man:

The voice grew faint: there came a further change;
Again arose the mystic mountain-range :

Below were men and horses pierced with worms,
And slowly quickening into lower forms;

By shards and scurf of salt, and scum of dross,
Old plash of rains, and refuse patched with moss.
Then some one spake: "Behold! it was a crime
Of sense avenged by sense that wore with time."
Another said: "The crime of sense became

The crime of malice, and is equal blame."

And one: "He had not wholly quenched his power;

A little grain of conscience made him sour."
At last I heard a voice upon the slope

Cry to the summit, "Is there any hope?"

To which an answer pealed from that high land,
But in a tongue no man could understand:
And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn
God made himself an awful rose of dawn.

THE SKIPPING-ROPE.

SURE never yet was Antelope
Could skip so lightly by.

Stand off, or else my skipping-rope

Will hit you in the eye.

How lightly whirls the skipping-rope!

How fairy-like you fly!

Go, get you gone, you muse and mope

I hate that silly sigh.

Nay, dearest, teach me how to hope,

Or tell me how to die.

There, take it, take my skipping-rope,