How oft I've fed thee with my favourite grain!
And roar'd, like thee, to find thy children slain!

Yes, swains who know her various worth to prize, Ah! house her well from winter's angry skies. Potatoes, pumpkins, should her sadness cheer, Corn from your crib, and mashes from your beer; When spring returns, she'll well acquit the loan, And nurse at once your infants and her own.

Milk then with pudding I would always choose; To this in future I confine my muse, Till she in haste some further hints unfold, Well for the young, nor useless to the old. First in your bowl the milk abundant take, Then drop with care along the silver lake Your flakes of pudding; these at first will hide Their little bulk beneath the swelling tide; But when their growing mass no more can sink, When the soft island looms above the brink, Then check your hand; you've got the portion due, So taught our sires, and what they taught is true. There is a choice in spoons. Though small appear

The nice distinction, yet to me 'tis clear.

The deep-bowl'd Gallic spoon, contrived to scoop
In ample draughts the thin diluted soup,
Performs not well in those substantial things,
Whose mass adhesive to the metal clings;
Where the strong labial muscles must embrace
The gentle curve, and sweep the hollow space.
With ease to enter and discharge the freight,
A bowl less concave but still more dilate,
Becomes the pudding best. The shape, the size,
A secret rests, unknown to vulgar eyes.
Experienced feeders can alone impart

A rule so much above the lore of art.

These tuneful lips, that thousand spoons have tried,
With just precision could the point decide,

Though not in song; the muse but poorly shines
In cones, and cubes, and geometric lines;

Yet the true form, as near as she can tell,
Is that small section of a goose egg shell,
Which in two equal portions shall divide
The distance from the centre to the side.

Fear not to slaver; 'tis no deadly sin :
Like the free Frenchman, from your joyous chin
Suspend the ready napkin; or, like me,

Poise with one hand your bowl upon your knee;
Just in the zenith your wise head project,
Your full spoon, rising in a line direct,

Bold as a bucket, heeds no drops that fall,
The wide-mouth'd bowl will surely catch them all

ROBERT C. SANDS.

SLEEP OF PAPANTZIN.

"Twas then, one eve, when o'er the imperial lake And all its cities, glittering in their pomp, The lord of glory threw his parting smiles, In Tlatelolco's palace, in her bower,

Papantzin lay reclined; sister of him

At whose name monarchs trembled. Yielding there To musings various, o'er her senses crept

Or sleep or kindred death.

It seemed she stood

In an illimitable plain, that stretched
Its desert continuity around,

Upon the o'erwearied sight; in contrast strange
With that rich vale, where only she had dwelt,
Whose everlasting mountains, girdling it,
As in a chalice held a kingdom's wealth;
Their summits freezing, where the eagle tired,
But found no resting-place. Papantzin looked
On endless barrenness, and walked perplexed
Through the dull haze, along the boundless heath,

Like some lone ghost in Mictlan's cheerless gloom Debarred from light and glory.

Wandering thus,

She came where a great sullen river poured
Its turbid waters with a rushing sound
Of painful moans; as if the inky waves

Were hastening still on their complaining course
To escape the horrid solitudes. Beyond

What seemed a highway ran, with branching paths
Innumerous. This to gain, she sought to plunge
Straight in the troubled stream. For well she knew
To shun with agile limbs the current's force,
Nor feared the noise of waters.

She had played From infancy in her fair native lake,

Amid the gay plumed creatures floating round,
Wheeling or diving, with their changeful hues,
As fearless and as innocent as they.

A vision stayed her purpose. By her side
Stood a bright youth; and startling, as she gazed
On his effulgence, every sense was bound
In pleasing awe and in fond reverence.
For not Tezcatlipoca, as he shone

Upon her priest-led fancy, when from heaven
By filmy thread sustained he came to earth,
In his resplendent mail reflecting all
Its images, with dazzling portraiture,
Was, in his radiance and immortal youth,
A peer to this new god. His stature was

Like that of men; but matched with his, the port
Of kings all dreaded was the crouching mien
Of suppliants at their feet. Serene the light
That floated round him, as the lineaments
It cased with its mild glory. Gravely sweet
The impression of his features, which to scan
Their lofty loveliness forbade his eyes
She felt, but saw not: only, on his brow-
From over which, encircled by what seemed

A ring of liquid diamond, in pure light
Revolving ever, backward flowed his locks
In buoyant, waving clusters-on his brow
She marked a CROSS described; and lowly bent,
She knew not wherefore, to the sacred sign.
From either shoulder mantled o'er his front
Wings dropping feathery silver; and his robe
Snow-white in the still air was motionless,
As that of chiselled god, or the pale shroud
Of some fear-conjured ghost.

Her hand he took,

And led her passive o'er the naked banks

Of that black stream, still murmuring angrily.
But, as he spoke, she heard its moans no more;
His voice seemed sweeter than the hymnings raised
By brave and gentle souls in Paradise,

To celebrate the outgoing of the sun

On his majestic progress over heaven.

"Stay, princess," thus he spoke, "thou mayst not yet
O'erpass these waters. Though thou knowest it not,
Nor Him, God loves thee." So he led her on,
Unfainting, amid hideous sights and sounds;
For now, o'er scattered sculls and grisly bones
They walked; while underneath, before, behind,
Rise dolorous wails and groans protracted long,
Sobs of deep anguish, screams of agony,
And melancholy sighs, and the fierce yell
Of hopeless and intolerable pain.

Shuddering, as, in the gloomy whirlwind's pause,
Through the malign, distempered atmosphere,
The second circle's purple blackness, passed
The pitying Florentine, who saw the shades
Of poor Francesca and her paramour;
The princess o'er the ghastly relics stepped,
Listening the frightful clamour; till a gleam,
Whose sickly and phosphoric lustre seemed
Kindled from these decaying bones, lit up

The sable river. Then a pageant came
Over its obscure tides, of stately barks,
Gigantic, with their prows of quaint device,
Tall masts, and ghostly canvass, huge and high,
Hung in the unnatural light and lifeless air.
Grim bearded men, with stern and angry looks,
Strange robes, and uncouth armour, stood behind
Their galleries and bulwarks. One ship bore
A broad sheet pendant, where, inwrought with gold,
She marked the symbol that adorned the brow
Of her mysterious guide. Down the dark stream
Swept on the spectral fleet, in the false light
Flickering and fading. Louder then uprose
The roar of voices from the accursed strand.

WAKING OF PAPANTZIN IN THE SEPULCHRE.

She woke in darkness and in solitude. Slow passed her lethargy away, and long To her half-dreaming eye that brilliant sign Distinct appeared. Then damp and close she felt The air around, and knew the poignant smell Of spicy herbs collected and confined.

As those awakening from some troubled trance
Are wont, she would have learned by touch if yet
The spirit to the body was allied.

Strange hindrances prevented. O'er her face.
A mask thick-plated lay-and round her swathed
Was many a costly and encumbering robe,
Such as she wore on some high festival,
O'erspread with precious gems, rayless and cold,
That now pressed hard and sharp against her touch.
The cumbrous collar round her slender neck,
Of gold thick studded with each valued stone
Earth and the sea-depths yield for human pride-
The bracelets and the many-twisted rings
That girt her taper limbs, coil upon coil—
What were they in this dungeon's solitude?