Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears,
Like angels' visits, few and far between,
Deck the long vista of departed years.
Man never is, but always to be bless'd;
The tenth transmitter of a foolish face,
Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest,
And makes a sunshine in the shady place.
For man the hermit sigh'd, till woman smiled,
To waft a feather or to drown a fly,
(In wit a man, simplicity a child,)
With silent finger pointing to the sky.
But fools rush in where angels fear to tread,
Far out amid the melancholy main;
As when a vulture on Imaus bred,
Dies of a rose in aromatic pain.
Laman Blanchard.
IMERICKS
There was an old person of Ware
Who rode on the back of a bear;
When they said, "Does it trot?"
He said: "Certainly not,
It's a Moppsikon Floppsikon bear."
There was an old person of Wick,
Who said, "Tick-a-Tick, Tick-a-Tick,
Chickabee, Chickabaw,"
And he said nothing more,
This laconic old person of Wick.
There was an old person of Woking,
Whose mind was perverse and provoking;
He sate on a rail,
With his head in a pail,
That illusive old person of Woking.
There was once a man with a beard
Who said, "It is just as I feared!—
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren
Have all built their nests in my beard."