IF YOU HAVE SEEN

Good reader! if you e'er have seen,
When Phœbus hastens to his pillow,
The mermaids, with their tresses green,
Dancing upon the western billow:
If you have seen, at twilight dim,
When the lone spirit's vesper hymn
Floats wild along the winding shore:
If you have seen, through mist of eve,
The fairy train their ringlets weave,
Glancing along the spangled green;—
If you have seen all this and more,
God bless me! what a deal you've seen!
Thomas Moore.

CIRCUMSTANCE

THE ORANGE

It ripen'd by the river banks,
Where, mask and moonlight aiding,
Dons Blas and Juan play their pranks,
Dark Donnas serenading.
By Moorish damsel it was pluck'd,
Beneath the golden day there;
By swain 'twas then in London suck'd—
Who flung the peel away there.
He could not know in Pimlico,
As little she in Seville,
That I should reel upon that peel,
And—wish them at the devil!
Frederick Locker-Lampson.

ELEGY

The jackals prowl, the serpents hiss
In what was once Persepolis.
Proud Babylon is but a trace
Upon the desert's dusty face.
The topless towers of Ilium
Are ashes. Judah's harp is dumb.
The fleets of Nineveh and Tyre
Are down with Davy Jones, Esquire
And all the oligarchies, kings,
And potentates that ruled these things
Are gone! But cheer up; don't be sad;
Think what a lovely time they had!
Arthur Guiterman.