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Sought out a cave in deep Tasmeer
To study in. His plunging plan
Did famously, till, one fine year,

The poor old mooncalf of a man
Forgot his match-box clean and clear.
What followed you may easily guest.
He couldn't navigate in the dark
His wet way back to Koordistán,
And perished. So his fate, you mark,
Was owing to his matchlessness!"

"Fudge!" said the stout Haroun-al-Rashed,
With his jolly ugly hookah in his hand.

"Come, Djaffer, my fat friend, the Bathos, Or Art of Sinking, is your forte.

Confess it!" "I have risen at court," Replied the Grand, with pride and pathos. "Besides, you, see, I have a bill,

(An eight-and-forty pounder) which

I'm just now going to get cash-èd,

With my jolly ugly hookah in my hand.

And jobs increase on me, and will,

In divers ways." Well, that is rich,"

Sneered stout Haroun. "Yes, Djaff, your joys
And jobberies are by no means few.

I don't know any man who fobs

The public revenues like you.

In divers' ways? That's comic too;

Yet you won't dive, you sire of slobs!

Shame!" cried the stout Haroun-al-Rashed,

With his jolly ugly hookah in his hand.

"What name d'ye bear, young man ?"-"Bham-Bhooz-eel, ' Replied the stranger, with a bow

That very nearly brought his brow

Down to the level of his shoe's-heel,
Which rose, however, pretty high,

Because, as he remarked himself,

A gentleman "salaamed" and "Pasha-éd,"
With a jolly ugly hookah in his hand.
High-souled and low-heeled, looked so shy!
And, soon or late, was shown that shelf
Where souls and heels too oft lie by,
"Bham-Bhooz-eel?" cried the Khalif.

I guess you count me glossy green,

A simpleton, a soap-soft sumph!—

"Humph!

You swindling scoundrel, what d'ye mean?"
Vociferated stout Al-Rashèd,

With his jolly ugly hookah in his hand.

"Commander of the True Believers," Returned the youth, "I really think You must have taken too much drink.

I am none of those profane deceivers

Who trade upon the faith and fears

And prayers and pockets of the crowd,
Those fleecers of the Great Unwash-èd—

With their jolly ugly hookahs in their hands.

That is, if I may speak it loud, Your juggling Moollahs and Wezeers. So, don't begin to chide and chafe,

Like some old fish-fag or dragoon. I tell you that your Mug is safe.

Call in your Principal Buffoon!”.

The Khalif blew a small bassoon.

"Now!" said the stout Haroun-al-Raschèd, With his jolly ugly hookah in his hand.

In trundled the Buffoon, Ghooz-Ghabbi.

"Here!" cried the Khalif.

"Now and here?"

Ghooz-Ghabbi answered-" Those, I'm clear,

Are Nowhere!" "Miserably shabby!"
Observed Haroun. "But, mark me now!
My Mug lies low in Tigris' bed,

All wave-besprent and slime-besplash-èd.
By this jolly ugly hookah in my hand,

And that's a somewhat serious vow,

You, therefore, must descend like lead
And grope it out. I can't swig beer
From any other mug or cup,
And none but you or my Wezeer,
I understand, can bowl it up,
But he will not. There, now!

Is to obey!"

To hear

So spake Al-Rashed,
With his jolly ugly hookah in his hand.

Ghooz-Ghabbi, while Haroun thus twaddled,

Stood grinning like a cask of nails.

"O, Prince!" he cried, " my stomach fails,

My syntax halts, my brains are addled

And if you please-I won't go down,

I'd be so long a-getting dried!"

"What, wretch !-you won't, d'ye tell me?" roared
The Khalif, and his dark eyes flash-èd,
And the jolly ugly hookah in his hand

Shook, and he frowned a tempest-frown.
"Begone, then!" "So I will," replied
The Jester, "for I'm sadly bored;
But first I'll beg-one glass of rum !”—

"No! Go!"-the Khalif cried, "you grow

Intolerably wearisome!"

Ay," said Ghooz-Ghabbie, with his thumb

Beside his nose, "it is No Go!"

"Bah!" said the stout Haroun-al-Rashed, With his jolly ugly hookah in his hand.

The Khalif now got in the tea-things,

And hid a thimbleful of tea

And bit of biscuit.

"Bham," said he,

"I love to watch those vapoury wreathings

O'er yonder tea-urn, as they rise

Like incense from some temple-shrine.

Here, crownless and un-sabretach-èd,
With a jolly ugly hookah in my hand,

I dream of purer worlds and skies

And soar from Earthly to Divine.

Come improvise an Ode on Tea!"

"Excuse me," said the youth; "'twould be Both ode-ious and tea-dious,

Besides, I'm going to discuss

A thimbleful myself. Let me

Hear you sing rather." "Well, then, thus
I tune my pipe," returned Al-Kashed,
With his jolly ugly hookah in his hand.

Che Khalif's Song.

"Bak-ey-Boul the Hakem has completely smashed my Teapot.
What a blow to China! I could crawl to bed and weep hot
Tears to think how stupidly my Winters will pass off! He

Hasn't even left entire the spout for me to sneak up.
Were he here I'd soon give him his Howqua in a Teacup.
If I wouldn't may I never pound an ounce of coffee!

Woe to Man!

Lalla-lalla-lalla, lalla-lá!

His life is but a vast expanse of Tea-tray,
Over which the gleamy Teapot sheds a bright but fleet ray.
Nature gives him health and wealth, yet one by one he sees boon
After boon forsake him: Time, the thief, is ever busy
Muleting him of brains and breath; and what at fifty is he?
Nothing but a porter-cask, a milk-sop, or a Tea- spoon.'

Laila-lalla-lalla, lalla-lá !

Tea-plers are not tipplers; yet, Philosophy, thou preachest
Vainly unto all who take to tippling or the tea-chest;
Wonder-worker truly wert thou couldst thou but achieve a
Change in our Tea-totalites, who sit and count their siller;
Or in our Teetotumites, who reel from post to pillar,
Staggered by strong arguments of Xeres or Geneval

Lalla-lalla-lalla, lalla-lá!

I had forty battered friends, whom I to that degree bored,
That the tagrag scamps at last levanted from my Tea-board.
Tearless, though not tealess, I had nightly seen them tea-zèd,
So they went to broil themselves in hotbaths near the Kaaba,
Like those other Forty Thieves you've met in Ali Bába,
Whom Mordjana fried alive in oil-at least so she said.

Lalla-lalla-lalla, lalla-lá!

O! the Arabian Nights when I could feast on Tea and Tea-cake,
Fearless that a cup too much would make my head a week ache!
Then my heart could hail the Dawn, and bless the Noon, and feel Eve's
Gentleness and beauty as the dahlia feels the dew-drops.
Now I can but mope at home, and, while I sip a few drops
Of thin laudanum-gruel, weep my withered hopes and Tea-leaves.
Lalla-lalla-lalla, lalla-lá!

Friend Bham-Bhooz, you seem a quiz, and I, believe me, am one;
Yet, by wisdom, not by quizdom, is the Eternal Palm won.
Cherish, while you have them yet, the spirit's better breathings,

And keep clear of Hell's decoys, among the which I rank wet
Poison-stuffs: then may you look to share a nobler banquet
When Death comes at nine P.M. to take away the Tea-things.
Lalla-lalla-lalla, lalla-lá!"

"Bravo!" cried Bham. "You've got some brandy?"
“No!" sighed Haroun. "I'll order in,
In lieu thereof, a jug of gin."

It came, with lots of sugarcandy,

Of which the Khalif ate some lumps.

"Now, Bham," quoth he, "shake off your gyves!
May I be signally squabash-èd,

With my jolly ugly hookah in my hand,

If We, the King and Knave of Trumps,

Don't get as blind as tinkers' wives!

But come! About my Ruby Mug?
Can anybody shew me it?"-

"One only," answered Bham, "to-wit
Myself. But please to push that jug

Across. D'ye tremble?"-" Not a bit!"
Replied the stout Haroun-al-Rashed,

With his jolly ugly hookah in his hand.

"Then, slock your goggles !" quoth Bham-Bhooz-eel,
"Eh?-shut my eyes?"-"Yes."-" There, then."-" Good!
I thought I should be understood.

I'll now go through the task with true zeal.”
So saying, he raised the jug, and-dashed

Its burden in the Khalif's phiz !-

"Wretch!" roared Al-Rashed, gin-besplash-èd,
With his jolly ugly hookah in his hand.

"Wretch! what means this?" "It means, and is,"
Returned the youth, quite unabashed,

"A nice be-ginning. Just survey

Your frontispiece in yonder glass,
And if you don't behold therein

Your long-lost Ruby Mug, you may

Write me down a conspicuous ass.

"Humph!" growled Haroun. "You've won the day——
Ay, laugh away! They laugh that win."
So spake the stout Haroun-al-Rashed,

With his jolly ugly hookah in his hand.

"The joke," said Bham, "is worth a hogshead Of gin, I think, much more a jug."

"Oh!" sighed Haroun, "my Mug! my Mug!—
"WHO are you, pray?"—" A Prince incog.," said
Bham-Bhooz-eel. "I have come from Bheer,
(Of which I'm Khan, being of the line

Of those old cut-throat Shahs of Djash-èd,
With their jolly ugly hookahs in their hands,)

To wed your daughter. Let me see her!"-
"Ah!" said Haroun, "she takes the shine
Off bread-and-butter!"" Then, I'll pay
My addresses, Sire!-though, by the way,"
Observed the youth, "it may seem queer
That she should on her wedding-day
Get nothing but a Khan of Bheer!"

"Ha! ha!" guffawed Haroun-al-Rashèd,
With his jolly ugly hookah in his hand.

MORAL OF THE PRECEDING ANECDOTE.

What

Though the fist of Destiny should fall upon your Mug, leer
Not upon its ruins long with overflowing eye, for

If the matter wore an ugly face before
'Tis Bohemia to a barn, sextillions to a cypher,
That

Blubbering will but make it (and yourself too) wear an uglier.
VOL. XXV.-No. 145.

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fastness to gaze down upon her.

Fytte One.

"Caligine profonda

Gia opprime i sensi miei,

Del piu fatale orror

Per sempre lo ti perdei."

The dull wood-fire its flashes threw
Across the hall in flickering sheen,
Where sate in grief and solitude
The lady Emmeline.

The dim and lofty walls around

With gleaming trophies high were drest,
With lance, and dinted casque, and sword,
With shield and arbalest.

Old England's arms, whose strength was tried
With Paynim powers on hostile strand,
When Cœur de Lion sought to gain
For Christ the Holy Land.

And time-worn pictures hung on high,
By drooping banners shadowed o'er:
-All strangely in the glooming light
The Features lived once more;

The morioned knight looked sternly down,
The mitred priest stood meekly by,
The anxious judge revealed his cares
In his heavy thoughtful eye.

seem with stead- Grimly they stood a-watching there,
With cold fixed gaze and rigid mien,
The last of their high Norman race,
The lady Emmeline.

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