~THE HOLY GRAIL AND OTHER POEMS.~ (This is one of the other Poems.) BY A HALF-RED DENIZEN OF THE WEST. SIR PELLEAS, lord of many a barren isle,
On his front stoop at eventide, awhile,
Sat solemn. His mother, on a stuel,
At the crannied hearth prepared his gruel.
"Mother!" he cried, "I love!" Said she, "Ah, who?"
"I know not, mother dear," he said, "Do you?
I only know I love all maidens fair;
My special maid, I have not seen, I swear.
Perhaps she's fair as Arthur's queenly saint;
And pure as she—and then, perhaps she ain't."
Turned then his mother from the hearth-stone hot;
Dropped the black lid upon the gruel-pot.
"I know'd a Qua-aker feller, as often as tow'd me this:
'Doan't thou marry for munny, but goa wheer munny is!'
She's a beauty, thou thinks—wot'a a beauty? the flower as blaws,
But proputty, proputty sticks, and proputty, proputty graws."
Then said her son, "If I may make so bold,
You quote the new-style poem, not the old.
The Northern Farmer whom you think so sage
Is not born yet. This is the Middle Age."
He said no more, and on the next bright day
To Arthur's court he proudly rode away.
And on the way a maiden did he meet,
And laid his heart and fortunes at her feet.
Smiling on him—ETTARRE was her name—
"Brave knight," she said, "your love I cannot blame.
Your hands are strong. I see you have no brains,
You're just the man for tournaments. Your pains,
In case for me a battle you shall win,
Shall be rewarded," and she smiled like sin.
PELLEAS glistened with a wild delight;
And good King Arthur soon got up a fight
And on the flat field, by the shore of Usk,
SIR PELLEAS smashed the knights from dawn till dusk.
Then from his spear—at least he thought he did—
He shook each mangled corpse, and softly glid,
And crowned ETTARRE Queen of Love and Truth.
She wore the crown and then bescorned the youth.
Now to her castle home would she repair;
And PELLEAS craved that he might see her there.
"Oh, young man from the country!" then said she,
"Shoo fly! poor fool, and don't you bother me!"
She banged her gate behind her, crying "Sold!"
The noble youth was left out in the cold.
He shoo-ed the fly from the flower-pots,
From blackest moss, he shoo-ed them all.
Shoo-ed them from rusted nails and knots,
That held the peach to the garden-wall;
And broken sheds, all sad and strange.
He shoo-ed them from the clinking latch,
And from the weeded, ancient thatch,
Upon the lonely moated grange.
He only said, "This thing is dreary.
She cometh not!" he said.
He said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I wish these flies were dead."
So PELLEAS made his moan. And every day,
Or moist or dry, he shoo-ed the flies away.
"These be the ways of ladies," PELLEAS saith,
"To those who love them; trials of our faith."
But ceaseless shoo-ing made the lady mad,
And she called out the best three knights she had,
And charged them, "Charge him! Drive him from the wall!
If he keeps on, we'll have no flies at all!"
And out they came. Each did his level best;
SIR PELLEAS soon killed one and slew the rest.
A bush of wild marsh-marigold,
That shines in hollows gray,
He cut, and smiling to his love,
He shoo-ed more flies away.
He clasped his neck with crooked hands;
In the hot sun in lonely lands,
For several days he steady stands.
The wrinkled fly beneath him crawls,
He watches by the castle walls—
Like thunder then his bush it falls.

(To be Continued.)

~ASTRONOMICAL CONVERSATIONS.~

[BY A FATHER AND DAUGHTER RESIDING ON THE PLANET VENUS.]

No. IV.

D. Oh, Pa, if we only had a Moon! What is life without one?

F. Well, my child, we've w'iggled along, so far. It is true, our Telluric friends may be said to have the advantage of us; but then, there's no lunacy here! Everything is on the square on this planet!

D. I don't care; I want a Moon, square or no square! There's no excuse for being sentimental here. Who is ever imaginative, right after supper? And yet Twilight is all the time we have.