Walt Whitman.
"The good grey Poet" gone! Brave, hopeful WALT!
He might not be a singer without fault,
And his large rough-hewn rhythm did not chime
With dulcet daintiness of time and rhyme.
He was no neater than wide Nature's wild,
More metrical than sea-winds. Culture's child,
Lapped in luxurious laws of line and lilt,
Shrank from him shuddering, who was roughly built
As cyclopean temples. Yet there rang
True music through his rhapsodies, as he sang
Of brotherhood, and freedom, love and hope,
With strong wide sympathy which dared to cope
With all life's phases, and call nought unclean.
Whilst hearts are generous, and whilst woods are green,
He shall find hearers, who, in a slack time
Of puny bards and pessimistic rhyme,
Dared to bid men adventure and rejoice.
His "yawp barbaric" was a human voice;
The singer was a man. America
Is poorer by a stalwart soul to-day,
And may feel pride that she hath given birth
To this stout laureate of old Mother Earth.
OUR CRICKETERS.—The English Cricketing Team came to the end of their Australian tour last week, where, under the leadership of Lord SHEFFIELD, out of twenty-six matches they won thirteen, lost two, and eleven were drawn. The Eleven of course were drawn over and over again, i.e., photographed. It will henceforth be a recommendation for any Cricketer to say he was out under this distinguished captaincy, as to this introduction the host will rejoin, "Ah, I know that man, he comes from SHEFFIELD." Not only were the English team successful playfully, but also artistically, as in every match they played with GRACE.
BRAWLING AT HOME AND ABROAD.—On the same day in the papers appeared accounts of brawling in a Church in Paris, where a free fight ensued and no police interfered, and of a row in a Church in London Road, when the police walked off with an anti-curate and put an end to the disturbance. Some things we do manage better in England.
COCKNEY CLASSICS.—Of the Guildhall Loan Collection, Mr. Deputy HORA is the Chairman. As a Deputy must be a representative officer—except, perhaps, in the case of a "Depitty Sawbones," vide Sam Weller—the temporary motto of the Deputy's Ward might well be, "Hora pro nobis."
