"SO THEY MADE A GRAND PARADE."
At the great French Fair!
Everything under the sun is there,
Whatever is made by the hand of man:
Silks from China and Hindostan,
Grotesque bronzes from Japan;
Products of Iceland, Ireland, Scotland,
Lapland, Finland, I know not what land—
North land, south land, cold land, hot land,—
From Liberia,
From Siberia,—
Every fabric and invention,
From every country you can mention:
From Algeria and Sardinia;
From Ohio and Virginia;
Egypt, Siam, Palestine;
Lands of the palm-tree, lands of the pine;
Lands of tobacco, cotton, and rice,
Of iron, of ivory, and of spice,
Of gold and silver and diamond,—
From the farthest land, and the land beyond.
And everybody is there to see:
From Mexico and Mozambique;
Spaniard, Yankee, Heathen Chinee;
Modern Roman and modern Greek;
Frenchman and Prussian,
Turk and Russian,
Foes that have been, or foes to be:
Through miles on miles
Of spacious aisles,
'Mid the wealth of the world in gorgeous piles,
Loiter and flutter the endless files!
Encircled all day by a wondering throng,
That gathers early and lingers long,
Behold where glows, in his golden rind,
The marvel the burghers of Nulle designed!
There chatters the cheery bourgeoisie;
And children are lifted high to see;
And "Will it go up in the sky to-night?"
Asks little ma'm'selle, in the arms of her mother,—
"Rise over the houses and give us light?
Is this where it sets when it goes out of sight?"
For she takes King Cheese for his elder brother!
But now it is night, and the crowds have departed;
The vast dim halls are still and deserted;
Only the ghost-like watchmen go,
Through shimmer and shadow, to and fro;
While the moon in the sky,
With his half-shut eye,
Peers smilingly in at his rival below.
At this mysterious hour, what is it
That comes to pay the Fair a visit?
The gates are all barred,
With a faithful guard
Without and within; and yet 'tis clear
Somebody—or something—is entering here!
"ENCIRCLED ALL DAY BY A WONDERING THRONG."
There is a Paris underground,
Where dwells another nation;
Where neither lawyer nor priest is found,
Nor money nor taxation;
And scarce a glimmer, and scarce a sound
Reaches those solitudes profound,
But silence and darkness close it round,—
A horrible habitation!
Its streets are the sewers, where rats abound;
Where swarms, unstifled, unstarved, undrowned,
Their ravenous population.
Underground Paris has heard of the Fair;
And up from the river, from alley and square,
To the wonderful palace the rats repair;
And one old forager, grizzled and spare,—
The wisest to plan and the boldest to dare,
To smell out a prize or to find out a snare,—
In some dark corner, beneath some stair
(I never learned how, and I never knew where),
Has gnawed his way into the grand affair;
First one rat, and then a pair,
And now a dozen or more are there.
They caper and scamper, and blink and stare,
While the drowsy watchman nods in his chair.
But little a hungry rat will care
For the loveliest lacquered or inlaid ware,
Jewels most precious, or stuffs most rare;—
There's a marvelous smell of cheese in the air!
They all make a rush for the delicate fare;
But the shrewd old fellow squeaks out, "Beware!
'T is a prize indeed, but I say, forbear!
For cats may catch us and men may scare,
And a well-set trap is a rat's despair;
But if we are wise, and would have our share
With perfect safety to hide and hair,
Now listen, and we will our plans prepare."