THE REPROOF AND REPLY.

"FIE, Mr. Coleridge!—and can this be you? Break two commandments? and in church-time too! Have you not heard, or have you heard in vain, The birth and parentage-recording strain? Confessions shrill, that out-shrill'd mack'rel

drown

Fresh from the drop, the youth not yet cut down.
Letter to sweet-heart-the last dying speech-
And didn't all this begin in Sabbath-breach?
You, that knew better! In broad open day.
Steal in, steal out, and steal our flowers away? ?
What could possess you? Ah! sweet youth, I fear
The chap with horns and tail was at your ear!"

Such sounds of late, accusing fancy brought
to the Poet's thought.

From fair

Now hear the meek Parnassian youth's reply:A bow, a pleading look, a downcast eye,—

And then:

"Fair dame! a visionary wight,

Hard by your hill-side mansion sparkling white,
His thoughts all hovering round the Muses' home,
Long hath it been your poet's wont to roam,
And many a morn, on his becharmed sense
So rich a stream of music issued thence
He deem'd himself, as it flowed warbling on,
Beside the vocal fount of Helicon !

But when, as if to settle the concern,

A nymph too he beheld, in many a turn,
Guiding the sweet rill from its fontal urn,- [heard
Say, can you blame?-No! none that saw and
Could blame a bard, that he thus inly stirr'd;
A muse beholding in each fervent trait,

Took Mary for Polly Hymnia!

Or haply as there stood beside the maid
One loftier form in sable stole array'd,
If with regretful thought he hail'd in thee
his long-lost friend, Mol Pomene!

But most of you, soft warblings, I complain!
'Twas ye that from the bee-hive of my brain
Lured the wild fancies forth, a freakish rout,
And witch'd the air with dreams turn'd inside out.

Thus all conspir'd-each power of eye and ear, And this gay month, th' enchantress of the year, To cheat poor me (no conjurer, God wot!) And's self accomplice in the plot.

Can then wonder if I went astray?

you

Not bards alone, nor lovers mad as they ;—
All nature day-dreams in the month of May.
And if I pluck'd each flower that sweetest blows,-
Who walks in sleep, needs follow must his nose.
Thus, long accustom'd on the twy-fork'd hill,
To pluck both flower and floweret at my will;
The garden's maze, like No-man's-land, I tread,
Nor common law, nor statute in my head;
For my own proper smell, sight, fancy, feeling,
With autocratic hand at once repealing

Five Acts of Parliament 'gainst private stealing!

But yet from

who despairs of grace?

There's no spring-gun or man-trap in that face!
Let Moses then look black, and Aaron blue,

That look as if they had little else to do:
For speaks, "Poor youth! he's but a waif!
The spoons all right? the hen and chickens safe?
Well, well, he shall not forfeit our regards-
The Eighth Commandment was not made for
Bards!"

CHOLERA CURED BEFORE HAND.

Or a premonition promulgated gratis for the use of the Useful Classes, specially those resident in St. Giles's, Saffron Hill, Bethnal Green, &c.; and likewise, inasmuch as the good man is merciful even to the beasts, for the benefit of the Bulls and Bears of the Stock Exchange.

PAINS ventral, subventral,

In stomach or entrail,

Think no longer mere prefaces

For grins, groans, and wry faces;

But off to the doctor, fast as ye can crawl!-
Yet far better 'twould be not to have them at all.

Now to 'scape inward aches,
Eat no plums nor plum-cakes;
Cry avaunt! new potatoe―
And don't drink, like old Cato.
Ah! beware of Dispipsy,
And don't ye get tipsy!

For tho' gin and whiskey

May make you feel frisky,
They're but crimps to Dispipsy;
And nose to tail, with this gipsy
Comes, black as a porpus,

The diabolus ipse,

Call'd Cholery Morpus;

[to feed him,

Who with horns, hoofs, and tail, croaks for carrion

Tho' being a Devil, no one never has seed him!

Ah! then my dear honies,
There's no cure for you

For loves nor for monies:

You'll find it too true.

Och the hallabaloo !

Och! och! how you'll wail,
When the offal-fed vagrant

Shall turn you as blue

As the gas-light unfragrant,

That gushes in jets from beneath his own tail;— "Till swift as the mail,

He at last brings the cramps on,
That will twist you like Samson.

So without further blethring,
Dear mudlarks! my brethren!
Of all scents and degrees,
(Yourselves and your shes)
Forswear all cabal, lads,
Wakes, unions, and rows,
Hot dreams, and cold salads

And don't pig in sties that would suffocate sows! Quit Cobbett's, O'Connell's, and Beelzebub's

banners,

And whitewash at once bowels, rooms, hands, and manners!

COLOGNE.

IN Köhln, a town of monks and bones,
And pavements fang'd with murderous stones,
And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches;
I counted two and seventy stenches,

All well defined, and several stinks !

Ye Nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks, The river Rhine, it is well known,

Doth wash your city of Cologne ;

But tell me, Nymphs! what power divine
Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?

ON MY JOYFUL DEPARTURE FROM
THE SAME CITY.

As I am rhymer,

And now at least a merry one,

Mr. Mum's Rudesheimer

And the church of St. Geryon

Are the two things alone

That deserve to be known

In the body and soul-stinking town of Cologne.