THE RECOGNITION

HOME they brought her sailor son,

Grown a man across the sea,

Tall and broad and black of beard,

And hoarse of voice as man may be.

Hand to shake and mouth to kiss,

Both he offered ere he spoke;

But she said—"What man is this

Comes to play a sorry joke?"

Then they praised him—call'd him "smart,"

"Tightest lad that ever stept;"

But her son she did not know,

And she neither smiled nor wept.

Rose, a nurse of ninety years,

Set a pigeon-pie in sight;

She saw him eat—"'Tis he! 'tis he!"

She knew him—by his appetite!

William Sawyer.

ONE, who is not, we see; but one, whom we see not, is;

Surely this is not that: but that is assuredly this.

What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under;

If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without thunder.

Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt;

We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without?

Why, and whither, and how? for barley and rye are not clover;

Neither are straight lines curves: yet over is under and over.

Two and two may be four: but four and four are not eight;

Fate and God may be twain: but God is the same thing as fate.

Ask a man what he thinks, and get from a man what he feels;

God, once caught in the fact, shews you a fair pair of heels.

Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which;

The soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk in a ditch.

One and two are not one: but one and nothing is two;

Truth can hardly be false, if falsehood cannot be true.

Once the mastodon was: pterodactyls were common as cocks;

Then the mammoth was God: now is He a prize ox.

Parallels all things are: yet many of these are askew.

You are certainly I: but certainly I am not you.

Springs the rock from the plain, shoots the stream from the rock;

Cocks exist for the hen: but hens exist for the cock.

God, whom we see not, is: and God, who is not, we see;

Fiddle, we know, is diddle: and diddle, we take it, is dee.

Algernon Charles Swinburne.