POEMS OF THE CRADLE.

CANTO X.

There was a man in our town, and he was wondrous wise,
He jumped into a bramble bush and scratched out both his eyes;
And when he saw what he had done, with all his might and main,
He jumped into another bush, and scratched them in again.

Some people have a very curious way of doing things. Nowadays when the
world has advanced by prodigious strides almost to the limit of
civilization, and having no further to go, is debating within itself
whether it shall lie down and take a rest, a man don't go to so much
trouble to have his eyes out. The age is a fast one, you know; so, when
the man feels like having his glims doused, he just jumps into the midst
of a crowd of real b'hoys, runs his head, good-naturedly, you know,
against a pair of knuckles, and the business is settled with "neatness
and despatch," as the job-printers say.

How different our poet's description. He must have been a man of
wonderful experience; and foresight, let us add, since from his simple
yet wonderfully powerful sketches there is gained an insight into all
the mysterious workings of humanity, from the lulling of the babe in the
cradle, the ruthless disruption of the apron-string that he is led with,
because some naughty little boys laughed at him, to the tolling of the
bell by the old sexton over another dead.

Well, there is no use in moralizing. The tale is before us, graphically
drawn; and to the reader is left naught but the pleasure of