"SHADOWED!"
Shadowed! Ay, even in the holiday season,
The Statesman, in his hard-earned hour of ease,
Is haunted by forebodings, and with reason.
What is that spectre the tired slumberer sees?
The foul familiar lineaments affright him;
Its pose of menace and its pointing hand
To caution urge, to providence invite him,
To foil this scourge of the Distressful Land.
Who does not fear to speak of Forty-Seven,
When that same Shadow darkened all the isle?
Is it abroad once more? Avert it, Heaven!
On Order's lips it chills the dawning smile;
Awakener of hushed fears and hatreds dying,
Blighter of more than Nature's genial growth,
Herald of hungering lips, of children crying,
To hold thee imminent all hearts are loth.
Vain holiday nepenthe, sport's unbending,
The Statesman's burdened brain may not forget.
His cares are ceaseless and his toils unending,
Memories embarrass and forebodings fret.
The gun, the golf-club, and the rod avail not
In his tired heart to make full holiday;
E'en amidst pastime he must watch, and fail not,
Approaching ills, the shadows on the way.
Shadowed! And not by common gloom, poor Minister!
The passing shades that chequer every course.
This spectral presence is as stern and sinister
As atra cura on the rider's horse.
Before, the vision of the helpless peasant!
Behind, the famine phantom black and grim!
How should the holiday-hour, to all so pleasant,
Bring gladness true or genuine rest to him?
Wake! There is need for provident prevision,
For watchful eye, and for most wary hand.
In mellow Autumn's interlude Elysian
The old grim Shadow strikes across the land.
May Heaven arrest its course, avert its terror,
And keep the Statesman who this foe must fight
From careless blindness and from blundering error,
Such as of old lent aid to the Black Blight.
"Jack Sheppard Reversed."
This is the title of an amusing article in last week's Saturday Review. It is not the story of JACK SHEPPARD once more done into rhyme. The title so happily selected is thoroughly justified by the doings of an eccentric and original burglar, who, broke into a prison! This certainly was JACK SHEPPARD reversed with a vengeance! The hero of the escapade is said to be a tinted native of Barbadoes—his portrait should be published as a companion to the "penny plain" of his prototype as "twopence coloured."
Cardinal Manning's Precedence.
It does not need heraldic lore
The Cardinal's place to find.
Of course he'll always come before
The ones who are behind.