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 modell'd on a skull.

"Death is king, and Vivat Rex !

Tread a measure on the stones,

Madam-if I know your sex,

From the fashion of

your bones.

"No, I cannot praise the fire

In your eye-nor yet your lip:

All the more do I admire

Joints of cunning workmanship.

"Lo! God's likeness-the ground-plan

Neither modell'd, 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 curl'd ;

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:

Yet we will not die forlorn."

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 patch'd with moss.
Then some one said, "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 quench'd 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?

VOL. II.

To which an answer peal'd 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And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn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,

And hang yourself thereby.