t catch?
Didn't you trot to get the pot
To heat the water good and hot?
Then, seizing on our victim, if we found no greater sin,
Didn't we call him "a lobster," and cheerfully chuck him in?

THE VISION.

At the door of Success, I've been tempted to knock
Both the door and the man who went through it,
But I find that the fellow was greasing the lock
All the time that he strove to undo it,
So I either stay out, or must look for the key
Which slipped back the bolt which impeded,
And I'm certain to find it, as soon as I see
The reason my rival succeeded.

Yes, I own when the man is a rank also-ran
That I feel quite pish-tushy and pooh-y,
And exclaim if he ever knew saw-dust from bran,
Well--I come from just west of St. Louis!
But then, in the winning he's made, there's a hope
That I may do even as he did,
So I swallow my sneer and I study his dope
To discover just why he succeeded.

I've been up in the air, I've been down in the hole,
(But always, let's hope, on the level,)
And I've been on my uppers--so meagre my sole
'Twould scarcely have tempted the devil!
But it's nothing to you what I am, or I was,
And no whit of your sympathy's needed,
For I'm certain to win in the long run, because
I shall see how my rival succeeded.

BLOOD IS RED.

Some of us don't drink, some of us do;
Some of us use a word or two.
Most of us, maybe, are half-way ripe
For deeds that would't look well in type.
All of us have done things, no doubt,
We don't very often brag about.
We are timidly good, we are badly bold,
But there's hope for the worst of us, I hold,
If there be a few things we didn't do,
For the reason that we so wanted to.

Some of us sin on a smaller scale.
(We don't mind minnows, we shy at a whale.)
We speak of a woman with half a sneer,
We sit on our hands when we ought to cheer.
The salad we mix in the bowl of the heart
We sometimes make a little too tart
For home consumption. We growl, we nag,
But we're not quite lost if we sometimes drag
The hot words back and make them mild
At the moment they fret to be running wild.

Don't pin your faith on the man or woman
Who never is tempted. We're mostly human.
And whoever he be who never has felt
The red blood sing in th