Ballade Of The Cricket

TO T. W. LANG.

The burden of hard hitting: slog away! Here shalt thou score a "five" and there a "four," And then upon thy bat shalt lean, and say, That thou art in for an uncommon score. Yea, the loud ring applauding thee shall roar, And thou to rival THORNTON shalt aspire, When lo, the Umpire gives thee "leg before,"-- "This is the end of every man's desire!"

The burden of much bowling, when the stay Of all thy team is "collared," swift or slower, When "bailers" break not in their wonted way, And "Yorkers" come not off as here-to-fore, When length balls shoot no more, ah never more, When all deliveries lose their former fire, When bats seem broader than the broad ton-door,-- "This is the end of every man's desire!

The burden of long fielding, when the clay Clings to thy shoon in sudden shower's downpour, And running still thou stumblest, or the ray Of blazing suns doth bite and burn thee sore, And blind thee till, forgetful of thy lore, Thou dost most mournfully misjudge a "skyer," And lose a match the Fates cannot restore,-- "This is the end of every man's desire!"

ENVOY.

Alas, yet liefer on Life's hither shore Would I be some poor Player on scant hire, Than King among the old, who play no more,-- "This is the end of every man's desire!"

BALLADE OF THE BOOK-MAN'S PARADISE.

Here is a Heaven, or here, or there,-- A Heaven there is, for me and you, Where bargains meet for purses spare, Like ours, are not so far and few. Thuanus' bees go humming through The learned groves, 'neath rainless skies, O'er volumes old and volumes new, Within that Book-man's Paradise!

There treasures bound for Longepierre Keep brilliant their morocco blue, There Hookes' Amanda is not rare, Nor early tracts upon Peru! Racine is common as Rotrou, No Shakespeare Quarto search defies, And Caxtons grow as blossoms grew, Within that Book-man's Paradise!

There's Eve,--not our first mother fair,-- But Clovis Eve, a binder true; Thither does Bauzonnet repair, Derome, Le Gascon, Padeloup! But never come the cropping crew That dock a volume's honest size, Nor they that "letter" backs askew, Within that Book-man's Paradise!

ENVOY.

Friend, do not Heber and De Thou, And Scott, and Southey, kind and wise, La chasse au bouquin still pursue Within that Book-man's Paradise?

BALLADE OF WORLDLY WEALTH.