THE NEW TIMON.

O'ER royal London, in luxuriant May,

While lamps yet twinkled, dawning crept the day.
Home from the hell the pale-eyed gamester steals;
Home from the ball flash jaded Beauty's wheels;
The lean grimalkin, who, since night began,
Hath hymn'd to love amidst the wrath of man,
Scared from his raptures by the morning star,
Flits finely by, and threads the area bar;
From fields suburban rolls the early cart;
As rests the revel, so awakes the mart.
Transfusing Mocha from the beans within,
Bright by the crossing gleams the alchemic tin,
There halts the craftsman; there, with envious sigh,
The houseless vagrant looks, and limps foot-weary by.
Behold that street;

the Omphalos of Town!"

Where the grim palace wears the prison's frown,

A phrase respectfully suggested to the classic taste of Mr. George Robins, as a substitute for the more prosaic synonym "a central situation."

As mindful still, amidst a gaudier race,
Of the veil'd Genius of the mournful Place
Of floors no majesty but Grief's had trod,
And weary limbs that only knelt to God!*

What tales
If stones had language could that street convey!

what morals of the elder day

Along that space the blood-hound crowd array'd

Howl'd round the shrine where last the Stuart pray'd; See to that space the self-same blood-hounds run

To lick the feet of Stuart's viler son!

There, through the dusk-red towers - amidst his ring
Of Vans and Mynheers - rode the Dutchman king;
And there did England's Goneril thrill to hear
The shouts that triumphed o'er her crownless Lear?
There, where the gaslight streams on Crockford's door,

Bluff Henry chuckled at the jests of More.

There, where you gaze upon the last H. B.,

Swift paused, and muttered, "Shall I have that see?"

**

*

Where now stands St. James's palace stood the hospital dedicated to St. James, for the reception of fourteen leprous maidens. ** Charles the First attended divine service in the Royal Chapel immediately before he walked through the park to his scaffold at Whitehall. In the palace of St. James's, Monk and Sir John Granville schemed for the restoration of Charles II.

There, where yon pile, for party's common weal,
Knits votes that serve, with hearts abhorring, Peel,
Blunt Walpole seized, and roughly bought his man;
Or, tired of Polly, St. John lounged to Anne.

Well, let the world change on, still must endure

While Earth is Earth- one changeless race - the Poor! Within that street, on yonder threshold stone,

What sits as stone-like? Penury, claim thine own!

She sate, the homeless wanderer,

with calm eyes

Looking thro' tears, yet lifted to the skies;

As asking God when He would claim his child.

A face too youthful for so hush'd a grief;

-

The worm that gnawed the core had spared the leaf;
Tho' worn the cheek, with hunger or with care,
Yet still the soft fresh child-like bloom was there;
And each might touch you with an equal gloom,
The youth, the care, the hunger, and the bloom;
As if, when round the cradle of the child
With lavish gifts the gentler fairies smiled,
One vengeful sprite, forgotten as the guest,
Had breathed a spell to disenchant the rest,

And prove how slight each favour, else divine,

If wroth the Urganda of the Golden Mine!

Now as the houseless sate, and up the sky
Dawn to day strengthened, pass'd a stranger by:
He saw and halted; she beheld him not

All round them slept, and silence wrapt the spot.
To this new comer Nature had denied

The gifts that graced the outcast crouch'd beside:
With orient suns his cheek was swarth and grim,
And low the form, tho' lightly shaped the limb;
Yet life glowed vigorous in that deep set eye,
With a calm force that dared you to defy;
And the small foot* was planted on the stone
Firm as a gnome's upon his mountain throne;
Simple his garb, yet what the wealthy wear,
And conscious power gave lordship to his air.

Lone in the Babel thus the maid and man;
Long he gazed silent, and at last began:

No line in this poem has called forth more of the dismal facetiæ of "gentle dulness" than the one in which the epithet "small" is applied to the foot of a half-caste Indian, as if it were not obviously meant to designate a peculiarity of race; for the same reason Scott specially notices the small hand of Saladin, and Cooper the long narrow foot of the American Indian.

1

"Poor homeless outcast

Close by thy side

dost thou see me stand

yet beg not? Stretch thy hand."

The voice was stern, abrupt, yet full and deep
The outcast heard, and started as from sleep,

And meekly rose, and stretched the hand, and sought To murmur thanks the murmur fail'd the thought.

He took the slight thin hand within his own:

"This hand hath nought of honest labour known;

And yet methinks thou'rt honest!

speak my child.”

And his face broke to beauty as it smiled.

But her unconscious eyes, cast down the while,
Met not the heart that opened in that smile:

Again the murmur rose, and died in air.

"Nay, what thy mother and her home, and where?" Lo, with those words the rigid ice, that lay

Layer upon layer within, dissolves away;

And tears come rushing from o'erchargèd eyes:

"There is my mother there her home-the skies!"

Oh, in that burst, what deeps of lone distress!

O desolation of the motherless!

Yet through the anguish how survived the trust,
Home in the skies, though in the grave the dust!

The man was moved, and silence fell again;

Upsprung the sun - Light reassumed the reign;