"BRAG!"

HE throng unpoetic may cock up their noses,
And sneer as they list at the triumphs of

Mind,

But the life of the bard is a pathway of roses;
A feast of ambrosia, with nectar combined.

My career was a solitude fit for a hermit

Till Poesy brought me success and renown; And at present—I mildly but proudly affirm itI know all the authors and actors in town.

T'other day-and the day I shall fondly remember-
I met Mr. Tennyson taking a walk;

And—a singular fact !—in the month of September,
I twice overheard Barry Sullivan talk.
Then I was to have met Mr. Phelps at a supper,
But poor Sammy Phelps was unluckily ill;

And I recently wrote an epistle to Tupper,
Who sent me no answer-but possibly will.

A relation of mine, whom I love pretty dearly,
Has long been a neighbour of Thomas Carlyle's
For one peep at so deep a philosopher merely

I'd walk with alacrity two or three miles.
To his trim little garden in moments of leisure
The Teacher goes frequently forth for a crawl;
And it's thus I contrive with devotional pleasure
To gaze upon Thomas from over the wall.

At the Albion I mix with your drinkers and smokers, For wags of the maddest are there to be met; There are Hollingshead, Byron, and such merry jokers,

And Gilbert, Burnand, and the cream of the set. Such wit, and such humour! Say, where can you

match them ?—

Their quips and the cranks are the best of the day; Only somehow I never can properly catch them, From sitting some two or three boxes away.

So I drink to my Muse and my patron Apollo, Who taught me to thread the recesses of rhyme ; For the bard's is a princely profession to followParnassus a rosy excrescence to climb.

I see in my visions Calliope flying

To bear my renown to posterity down;

I can hear her exalting my merits, and crying

"He knew all the authors and actors in town!"

ALL ABROAD.

'VE journeyed over many seas,

And wandered under many skies; I've hoarded knowledge by degrees,

Some useful and some otherwise.

My Fatherland I fondly call

The dearest corner of the earth;

And yet I scarcely know at all

The British Isles that gave me birth.

All mountain-peaks to me are fair;
I fondly love the lovely Alps;
What curly clouds they daily wear,

Like wigs upon their snowy scalps!
O'er all their passes have I been,

And scaled their very highest height; Helvellyn I have never seen,

While Snowdon is a stranger quite.

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ALL ABROAD.

Still treasured for their own sweet sakes,
To memory oft and oft return
Helvetia's clear and placid lakes,
Geneva-Zurich-and Lucerne.

Italia, too, hath blessed my sight
With lakes as placid and as clear;
Yet never did these eyes alight

On Derwent or on Windermere.

I've watched with awe thine angry strife,
Sublime Schaffhausen, o'er and o'er.
I never chanced in all my life

To view thy cataract, Lodore.
With tardy mules and lazy wheels

The diligence has dragged me far;

I cannot fancy how it feels

To traverse Dublin on a car.

My cosmopolitan career

At last is drawing to a close:
I'll dedicate at least a year

To things beneath my very nose.
Considering that I stand so high

As master of so many styles,

I may complete before I die

A "Guide-Book to the British Isles."

MY OLD ARM-CHAIR.

LOATHE it-I loathe it-and who shall dare
To chide me for loathing my own arm-chair?
It haunts me daily, and wheels its flight

Into the dreams that I dream by night.
When I look at its cover of outworn chintz,
Where age and washing have blurred the tints,
No earthly passion can well compare
With my deadly hate for that old arm-chair.

I loved with a love of the noblest kind ;-
Sensitive delicate-most refined.

But she spurned my love and betrayed her vow,
And is only a Mrs. McKenzie now.

I cannot forget though I might forgive ;—
My wrongs will follow me whilst I live.
But this is the memory worst to bear ;-
She once took tea in that old arm-chair.