Is poisoning heart, and lung, and brain,

They reel, they sink, they gasp, they smother;

One for a moment survives his brother,

Then rolls a corpse across the other!

Hulloo! Hulloo!

And Hullabaloo !

There is only one more thing to do

And seized by beak, and talon, and claw,
Bony hand, and hairy paw,

Yea, crooked horn, and tusky jaw,

The four huge Bodies are haul'd and shoven Each after each in the roaring oven!

That Eisen Hutte is standing still,

Go to the Hartz whenever you will,

And there it is beside a hill,

And a rapid stream that turns many a mill; The self-same Forge, you'll know it at sight

Casting upward, day and night,

Flames of red, and yellow, and white!

Ay, half a mile from the mountain gorge,

There it is, the famous Forge,

With its Furnace, the same that blazed of

yore,

Hugely fed with fuel and ore;

But ever since that tremendous Revel,

Whatever Iron is melted therein,—

As travellers know who have been to BerlinIs all as black as the Devil!

"THE LAST MAN."

'Twas in the year two thousand and one, A pleasant morning of May,

I sat on the gallows-tree all alone,

A chanting a merry lay,—

To think how the pest had spared my life, To sing with the larks that day!

When

up the heath came a jolly knave,
Like a scarecrow,
all in rags:

It made me crow to see his old duds
All abroad in the wind, like flags:-
So up he came to the timbers' foot

And pitch'd down his greasy bags.—

Good Lord! how blithe the old beggar was!

At pulling out his scraps,—

The very sight of his broken orts

Made a work in his wrinkled chaps:

"Come down," says he, "you Newgate-bird, And have a taste of my snaps!"

Then down the rope, like a tar from the mast, I slided, and by him stood;

But I wish'd myself on the gallows again
When I smelt that beggar's food,-
A foul beef-bone and a mouldy crust;—
“Oh!” quoth he, "the heavens are good!"

Then after this grace he cast him down
Says I, "You'll get sweeter air

A pace or two off, on the windward side,”-
For the felons' bones lay there-

But he only laugh'd at the empty skulls,
And offer'd them part of his fare.

"I never harm'd them, and they won't harm me: Let the proud and the rich be cravens!"

I did not like that strange beggar man,
He look'd so up at the heavens.

Anon he shook out his empty old poke;

"There's the crumbs," saith he, "for the ravens !"

It made me angry to see his face,

It had such a jesting look;

But while I made up my mind to speak,

A small case-bottle he took:

Quoth he, "Though I gather the green water-cress,

My drink is not of the brook!"

Full manners-like he tender'd the dram;

Oh, it came of a dainty cask!

But, whenever it came to his turn to pull,

"Your leave, good Sir, I must ask;

But I always wipe the brim with my sleeve, When a hangman sups at my flask!"

And then he laugh'd so loudly and long,
The churl was quite out of breath;

I thought the very Old One was come
To mock me before my death,

And wish'd I had buried the dead men's bones
That were lying about the heath!

But the beggar gave me a jolly clap―
"Come, let us pledge each other,

For all the wide world is dead beside,
And we are brother and brother-
I've a yearning for thee in my heart,
As if we had come of one mother.

"I've a yearning for thee in my heart
That almost makes me weep,
For as I pass'd from town to town
The folks were all stone-asleep,—

But when I saw thee sitting aloft,
It made me both laugh and leap!"

Now a curse (I thought) be on his love,
And a curse upon his mirth,—

An' it were not for that beggai man

I'd be the King of the earth,—

But I promised myself, an hour should come To make him rue his birth!