THE NEW TALE OF A TUB.

OPENING THE QUESTION.

THE Orient day was fresh and fair,
A breeze sang soft in the ambient air,

Men almost wondered to find it there

Blowing so near Bengal,

Where waters bubble as boiled in a pot,

And the gold of the sun spreads melting hot,

And there's hardly a breath of wind to be got
At any price at all!

B

Unless, indeed, when the great Simoom

Gets up

from its bed with the voice of doom;

And deserts no rains e'er drench

Rise up and roar with a dreadful gust,

Pillars of sand and clouds of dust

Rushing unsifted, and rapid to burst,
And filling all India's throat with a thirst
That its Ganges couldn't quench!

No great Simoom rose up to-day,

But only a gentle breeze,

And that of such silent and voiceless play

That a lady's bustle

Had made more rustle

Than it did among the trees!

'Twas not like the breath of a British vale,

Where each Green acre is blest with a Gale

Whenever the natives please;

But it was of that soft inviting sort,

That it tempted to revel in pic-nic sport

A couple of Bengalese !

Two Bengalese,

Resolved to seize

The balmy chance of that cool-wing'd weather,

To revel in Bengal ease together.

One was tall, the other was stout,

They were natives both of the glorious East,

And both so fond of a rural feast,

That off they roamed to a country plain

Where the breeze roved free about,

That during its visit brief, at least,

If it never were able to blow again,

It might blow upon their blow-out!

The country plain gave a view as small As ever man clapped his eyes on, Where the sense of sight did easily pall, For it kept on seeing nothing at all,

As far as the far horizon!

Nothing at all! Oh! what do I say, Something certainly stood in the way, Breaking that eastern sun's bright ray, A dark looming object to gaze on.

It was a sort of hermaphrodite thing,

It might have been filled with sugar or ling,

But is very unfit for a Muse to sing,

"Twas betwixt a Tub and a Barrel!

It stood in the midst of that Indian plain,

Burning with sunshine-pining for rain,

-A parenthesis balanced 'twixt pleasure and pain,—
And as stiff as if it were starching:

When up to it, over the brown and green
Of that Indian soil, were suddenly seen

Two gentlemen anxiously marching!
Those two gentlemen were, if you please,
The aforesaid couple of Bengalese !

And the Tub or Barrel that stood beyond

For short we will call it Tub!