UNIVERSAL FREEDOM. A noisome creature-a bedraggled wreck,- And turned away. "Who is this stranger pitying the vile thing?" Then one exclaimed with awe-abated breath, "This surely is the man of Nazareth, This must be Jesus, for none else but he, Something to praise in a dead dog could see!" 261 TH UNIVERSAL FREEDOM.-T. F. MEAGHER. HE people of this country cannot be insensible to the aspirations for republican institutions in other lands. When there shall be an uprising of the nations-when the thunder chorus of France, that hymn, that magnificent hymn of liberty, shall again break out-while in Italy again the youth and gallant priesthood shall rear to victory a cross more radiant than that of Constantinewhilst Hungary, maligned, and mocked, and spat upon as she has been, shall again launch forth her stately chivalry upon the tide of war-while yet again along the Rhine, the German youths shall buckle on their basket-hilted swords, and, casting away their dreamful pipes, shall go forth and again invoke the sombre gen 262 TAXING BACHELORS. ius of their native homes-in this grand gathering of the nations, radiant and joyous as it shall be with the descending beams of victory, I trust there shall not then be witnessed at the great feast of freedom a shrouded skeleton called Ireland; but that, with the shroud thrown off, and with fresh blood poured into her veins from this and other shores, she shall sit down in the fullness of pride and beauty among her sisterhood; another evidence to all men of that law, by which the dead leaves of the Fall reproduce themselves in the blossoms of the Spring-by which the eagle casts his feathers, but to renew them for a bolder flight upwards toward the sun-by which the tomb becomes peopled with young men, clothed in shining robes, and the mortal puts on immortality. TAXING BACHELORS. AX them, tax them, one and all, TAX With an income great or small- For wearing out the "Bachelor's way; Tax them for the vows they've made, And the loan of "treacherous arts." Tax them for the precious time Spent in writing silly rhyme TAXING BACHELORS. Swearing they were truer far Tax them for their wasted years, Drawn from eyes that once were bright, For the cheeks they've made so pale, For the deep, pathetic wail, Breathed from hearts that must endure What no surgeon's art can cure. Tax them for the hopes they've crossed, Meant to keep their spirit calm, 263 264 THE CORAL GROVE. Tax their mortgages and rents, Till their truant steps should stray With the bachelor's "better half." D' THE CORAL GROVE. PERCIVAL. EEP in the wave is a coral grove, Where the purple mullet and gold-fish rove, The floor is of sand, like the mountain-drift, Their boughs where the tides and billows flow; For the winds and waves are absent there, The sea-flag streams through the silent water, To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter. There, with a light and easy motion, The fan-coral sweeps through the clear, deep sea, And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean Are bending like corn on the upland lea; And life, in rare and beautiful forms, Is sporting amid those bowers of stone, ODE TO RUM. And when the ship from his fury flies, When the wind-gods frown in the murky skies, The purple mullet and gold-fish rove, Through the bending twigs of the coral grove. ODE TO RUM.-WILLIAM C. BROWN. ET thy devotee extol thee, And thy wondrous virtues sum; Pimple-maker, visage-bloater, Almshouse-builder, pauper-maker, Trust-betrayer, sorrow's source; Pocket-emptier, Sabbath-breaker, Conscience-stifler, guilt's resource. Nerve-enfeebler, system-shatterer, Thirst-increaser, vagrant thief; Cough-producer, treacherous flatterer, Mud-bedauber, mock relief. Business-blunderer, spleen-instiller, Woe-begetter, friendship's bane; Anger-heater, bridewell-filler, Debt-involver, toper's chain. Memory-drowner, honor-wrecker, Judgment-warper, blue-faced quack; Feud-beginner, rags-bedecker, Strife-enkindler, fortune's wreck. 265 |