ance this audience anserine
May hiss (O fluttering Muse of mine!)--
May hiss--a future Kemble!

Or say the gingham shadows o'er
An undeveloped Hannah More!--
A latent Mrs. Trimmer!!
Who shall affirm it?--who deny?--
Since of the truth nor you nor I
Discern the faintest glimmer?

So then--Caps off, my Masters all;
Reserve your final word,--recall
Your all-too-hasty strictures;
Caps off, I say, for Wisdom sees
Undreamed potentialities
In most unhopeful pictures.

A FAIRY TALE.

"_On court, helas! apres la verite;
Ah! croyez-moi, l'erreur a son merite._"
Voltaire.

Curled in a maze of dolls and bricks,
I find Miss Mary, _aetat_ six,
Blonde, blue-eyed, frank, capricious,
Absorbed in her first fairy book,
From which she scarce can pause to look,
Because it's "_so_ delicious!"

"Such marvels, too. A wondrous Boat,
In which they cross a magic Moat,
That's smooth as glass to row on--
A Cat that brings all kinds of things;
And see, the Queen has angel wings--
Then OGRE comes"--and so on.

What trash it is! How sad to find
(Dear Moralist!) the childish mind,
So active and so pliant.
Rejecting themes in which you mix
Fond truths and pleasing facts, to fix
On tales of Dwarf and Giant!

In merest prudence men should teach
That cats mellifluous in speech
Are painful contradictions;
That science ranks as monstrous things
_Two_ pairs of upper limbs; so wings--
E'en angels' wings!--are fictions:

That there's no giant now but Steam;
That life, although "an empty dream,"
Is scarce a "land of Fairy."
"Of course I said all this?" Why, no;
I _did_ a thing far wiser, though,--
_I read the tale with Mary_.

TO A CHILD.

(FROM THE "GARLAND OF RACHEL.")

How shall I sing you, Child, for whom
So many lyres are strung;
Or how the only tone assume
That fits a Maid so young?

What rocks there are on either hand!
Suppose--'tis on the cards--
You should grow up with quite a grand
Platonic hate for bards!

How shall I then be shamed, undone,
For ah! with what a scorn
Your eyes must greet that luckless One
Who rhymed you, newly born,--

Who o'er your "helpless cradle" bent
His