Grind, grind, grind,

Till the brain begins to swim; Grind, grind, grind,

Till the eyes are heavy and dim. Homer, Virgil, Euclid,

With numerous others, I ween,
Till over my lessons I fall asleep
And get them all in a dream.
O Dominies, why do you give,

Such lessons for students to get?
'Tis wearing out their precious lives
By keeping them up so late.
Grind, grind, grind.

Throughout the livelong night; This harassing cannot be borne, For it passes human might.

*

Grind-grind-grind,

In the dull December light; Grind-grind-grind,

And work with all my might! But oh! if, while I work,

The seeds cf death are sown,

What profit will it be

If honor's all my own?

*

Oh! but for one short hour
To close my weary eyes,
But visions cross my mind

Of losing every prize.

A little sleep would ease my limbs
And cool my aching head;

But I must not think of ease or rest
When stretched upon my bed.
With body weary and worn,

With eyelids heavy and red,

A young man sat, and a longing glance Was thrown on his lowly bed.

Grind-grind-grind,

Till your head is like to break; Work throughout the live-long night, For your honor is at stake.

Aberdeen University Magazine, June, 1854.

FIN.

(This little Work is now exceedingly scarce.)

THE SONG OF EXAMS.

WITH eyelids heavy and red, with fingers inky and chill.
A student sat in his lodgings alone, plying his weary quill—
Scratch! scratch! scratch! 'mid translations, and cribs, and
crams,

And still, in a croak no crow could match, he sang this "Song of Exams" :

"Work! work! work! while the cock is crowing aloof, And work! work! work! while the cats serenade on the roof; It's oh! to be a slave with the most unspeakable Turk, Who neither professors nor colleges has, if this is Christian work.

"Work! work! work! till the head begins to swim ;

And work! work! work! till the eyes are heavy and dimMathematics, and logic, and phil., philosophy, logic and math., Till with props. and deductions the brain is crammed, and no sensibility hath.

"Oh! Profs., with well-lined nests!-oh! Profs., with incomes good!

The solutions of your questions stiff are solutions of brains and blood

Scratch! scratch! scratch! 'mid translations, and cribs, and

crams,

Writing at once, with our heart's best blood, death warrants as well as exams.

But why do I talk of death? that phantom of grisly bone ; I hardly fear its terrible shape, it seems so like my own; It seems so like my own, because of the way I sweat, And oh! this session of endless toil is not nearly ended yet.

Work! work! work! my labour never flags;

And what's it all for? a mortar board, a gown to be torn in

"Work! work! work! from weary chime to chime, And work! work! work! as prisoners work for crimePhilosophy, logic, and math,, mathematics, and logic and phil., Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumbed, and I have to take a pill.

"Work! work! work! in the dull December light; And work! work! work! when the weather is warm and bright;

While underneath my window caller haddies!" the fishwives screech,

And, of course, no boots are handy, and the coals are out of reach.

"Oh! but to breathe the breath of a glass of barley bree, With my heels upon the mantel-piece where no such heels

should be ;

A woman sang this song:

Oh, that into men's hearts it would sink! This song of anguish, and ruin and wrong,

She sang this song of the Drink.

Gin, and brandy, and rum,

Rum, and brandy, and gin,

Till the eyes are blind, and the tongue is dumb, And the heart is rotten within.

O men, with souls to be saved,

O men, drawing living breath,

It is not liquor you're pouring out,

But misery, ruin, and death."

TO AN UTTER STRANGER, WITH WHOM THE BARD HAD

BUMPED HEADS AT A CORNER.

OUR heads have met, and, if thine smarts
Like mine, you hope they won't again.
Friends who saw the painful scene

Laughed till laughter grew a pain.

I only know we bumped them once,
I only know we looked insane :

Our heads have met (mine seemed in parts).—

I hope they'll never meet again.

Then we fell, but lent a hand

To raise each other from the wet.
My head's alter'd form above
Prevents my hat from fitting yet.
Friends no doubt we seemed to be,
And pardon begged in phrases set :

Our heads have clashed, and still mine smarts,—
I would our heads had never met.

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REMINISCENCES OF A "GRINDER."

I REMEMBER, I remember,
The garret where I GROUND,
While slowly on the wheels of time
The circling hours went round,
As rendering Tully's florid page,
Or Virgil's polished lay,

I lengthened out the weary night
To meet the weary day.

I remember, I remember,
How hard I strove to SHINE,
But always some superior LIGHT
Arose eclipsing mine;

Another gave a better PHRASE,

Or fairly struck me dumb,

By showing I'd erred in mood and tense,

With QUALIS, QUIS or QUUM !

I remember, I remember,

Those versions, three per week,

Which I did strive, as few have striven,

To write in Attic Greek;

Yet oft the Doctor by mistake,

Though never by design,

Gave better marks to idle rogues,
Who copied theirs from mine.

I remember, I remember,

The X.'s and the Y.'s

O'er which I frequent toiled in vain,
Till slumber sealed my eyes;
The pentagons, the polygons,
The spheroids and the planes,
The conjugates and ordinates,
Which nightly vexed my brains.

THE AGE OF SIGHS.

ONE more unfortunate
Laid on the shelf;
Loveless-without a mate,

All by herself.
Speak not too tenderly,
Kiss her with care,
For awfully vain is she
Now, as once fair.

Gaze on her lineaments!
Fingers like filaments!
Poor hopeless creature,
Stamped on each feature

Is grief and despair.
Look at her there,
Braiding her hair-
How she caresses
The fast thinning tresses,

Dreaming that some still consider her fair.

Was she a beauty once?

Yet could not ensnare

Never a stupid dunce
Into her lair!

Had she no sweetheart?
Had she no lover?
Had she no dearer one
Still than all other;
Nearer and dearer one,
Coming to bother?
Yes, by the dozens
She counted her cousins,
Once a young milliner,
With as much sin in her
As milliners now possess;
Equally fond of dress-

Craving for show,
Throwing her kisses

And smiling-the sinner-
At all the young coxcombs
Going to dinner.
Now, never a smile

Gets she all the lone while
Where'er she may go.

Alas! for the scarcity
Of masculine pity?
Oh! 'tis most pitiful

Near a whole cityful

Beau she had none

1885.

OLD Year, unfortunate,
Fatal in trust;
To many disconsolate,
Fatally bust.

Ope the Bank carefully,
Ope, if you dare,
People's deposits
Are very scarce there.
Think of it tearfully,
Think of it fearfully.

No watch this Christmas?

Last year, I declare,

A watch I could wear;

But now it is naught,
It is gone,

It is bought;

It is hung at my uncle's
With gems and carbuncles.
For the Savings Bank bust,
Wherein was my trust,
And it scattered my fortune
And brought me to crusts.
Turn the key carefully,
Swing back the door.
See the securities

Lie on the floor.

A few other parodies of Hood's Poems may be enumerated, which are not of sufficient interest to be reprinted. "The Age" for June 6, 1885, contained a poem, called, "The Song of the Streets," deploring the noises of London. In the Manchester "Free Lance" there was a parody (of purely local interest) of "I remember, I remember," entitled "Manchester Musings;" and a Manchester clothier, named Whitham, advertises his goods in a handbill containing a very fair parody of "The Bridge of Sighs." In The Saturday Review of August 29, 1885, there was a political poem, "A Case of Conscience," modelled upon "The Dream of Eugene Aram.”

FURTHER PARODIES

OF THE POEMS OF

Alfred, Lord Tennyson,

POET LAUREATE.

-:0: -

LTHOUGH several numbers of Parodies have already been devoted to this Author, there still remain many excellent burlesques of his writings, which, for the sake of the completeness of this collection, must be quoted. The popularity of Tennyson's poems is in nothing more manifest than in the number of Parodies, and imitations, they give rise to, and the numerous collectors of Tennysoniana will no doubt be grateful for having these harmless, playful skits preserved from oblivion. The order observed in the following Parodies is that adopted in recent editions of the Poet Laureate's works.

0:

MARIANA.

MARIANA ON

THE SECOND FLOOR,
WAITING FOR HER LODgers.

(Another subject for the Pre-Raphaelites.)
WITH polish bright the coffee pots
Were newly cleaned up, one and all,
And hooks and pegs were screwed in lots.
To hold the hats in the entrance hall,
The drugget was still clean and strange,
Unhampered was the Bramah latch
And unconsumed the congreve match
Beside the new-set kitchen range.

She only said, "The Season's dreary,
I thought there would be some."
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
When will the great rush come?'

"

Upon the middle of the night
Waking she heard the cabs below;
Some gents sang out before 'twas light-
From Smithfield Bars the oxen's low
Came to her in a fit of gloom,
In sleep she dreamt of beds forlorn,
Till carts and busses woke the morn
About the lonely furnished room.

She only said, "It's very dreary,"
I thought there would be some.
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
And yet no lodgers come!"
About a stone's throw from the wall,
A man with blackened features swept,
And round him, large and small,
Ill-manner'd boys for mischief crept.
Hard by an organ's dismal moan
Play'd worn-out tunes of nigger airs,

And mock'd with "Sich a gittin' up stairs;"
Yet no one came to mount her own.

She only said, "It's very dreary,
I thought there would be some.'
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
And yet no lodgers come."

All day within those lonely walls,
The maid kept clean to let folks in;
The lilac blew i' the grate; the squalls
Of coop'd up children did begin ;
Yet no one came a room to seek,
No strangers waited at the door,
No lodgers viewed the second floor,
No people asked, "How much a week?"
She only said, "It's very dreary,
They do not come," she said.
She said, I am aweary, aweary,
And cannot let a bed."

The men who came to mend the roof,
The tax collector, and the sound
Which to the weary maid aloof
The pot-boy made, did all confound
Her sense, but most she loathed the hour
When all the last up-trains were in
Without the lodgers, and the din
Of wheels began to lose its power.

Then said she, "This is very dreary,
They will not come," she said,
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
Why won't they hire my bed?'

The Month, by ALBERT SMITH and JOHN LEECH, 1851.

MARY ANNE; OR, THE LAW OF DIVORCE.
BY ALFRED TENNISBALL.

[If the poor had more justice, they would need less charity.-Jeremy Bentham.

THE cats were mewing in the street,
With many a mew of love's delight;
Policeman X's heavy feet

Returning marked old Time's dull flight,
While, as the laggard hours wore on,
In nightcap, in her wretched room
Waiting until her husband come,
Sat Mary Anne in tears alone.
She only said: "I'm very weary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said " And if he cometh beery,
He's sure to punch my head!
Her tears fell all that bitter even,
As sighing she sat there alone,
She 'gan to weep at half-past seven,
And she was weeping there at one.
After the flitting of the bats,
She gazed adown the dreary street,
But nought her aching sight did meet,
Save one policeman and two cats.

She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "And if he cometh beery,
He's sure to punch my head!

About the middle of the night,
She heard a key clink in the latch,

She went to take her spouse a light,

He cursed her first, and then the match.

A wretched life-no hope of change

Even in her sleep she is forlorn,

In tears at night, in tears at morn
Like her within the "moated grange,"

She only said "Dear John, I'm weary,
You break my heart," she said-
He hiccuped forth-" Best not come near me,
Or I shall break your head!"

About a mile from that sad home

Our river's sluggish waters creep;

She sought that bridge where wretches come,

To woo oblivion dark and deep,
Maddened by patient love's despite,
With haggard cheek with salt tears wet,
She stood upon the parapet,

And glared a last glance on the night.

Once more she said-" My life is dreary,

Oh! aching heart and restless head,
Love long has lost all power to cheer me,
But soon I shall be dead!"

A downward plunge-one stifled scream,-
No more she'll watch, and weep, and sigh,
She sank beneath the gurgling stream,
Whose murmers were her lullaby!
Oh! think awhile on lives like these:
Why should the rich aione divorce?
Why drive the poor from bad to worse,
Because of Doctors' Commons fees?

For many a Mary Anne's aweary,
Oh! widowed wife-oh! lonely bed;
And many a husband reels home beery,
To punch his poor wife's head!

Yet these must live in hate together,
Because they're poor-they can't afford
To snap their galling, golden tether;
While you, my lady, and my lord,
As neatly as you can your clothes,
Can change your names by process easy,
Ye pay your fees-and, an it please ye,
Adieu for aye to taunts and blows.

The poor wife only sighs:
"I'm weary,
He cometh not to bed;-
Death only can divorce me dreary,
Oh! would that I were dead!"

Tait's Magazine, 1858.

0:

THE OWL.

THE OWL'D YARN.

WHEN the cats were home, and light was come,
And dew was cold upon the ground,

Outside a door, with stop bell dumb,

A whirring wheel has stopped its round.
A whirring wheel has stopped its round.
Alone and warming, by rubbing, his hands,
A " night-riding wheelist" shivering stands.
In vain he tries to "click the latch,"

To move the door that bars his way;

A lecture from his dad he'll catch;
"We rode all night" has had its day!
"We rode all night" has had its day!

While he knows that the tale has too often been told,
He stands there still trying and shivering with cold.
R. P. HIND, "Harberton," Torquay.

Wheeling Annual, 1885.

:0:

THE BALLAD OF "ORIANA."

YULE-TIDE.

SIT we in the ancient hall,

Oh, my gracious!

Listening to the nor' wind's squall,

Oh, my gracious!

Thrice our empty flagons fall,
Ten good wassail bowls withal,

Oh, my gracious!

The hours wax long, and then grow small, Oh, my gracious!

The hours were long that had been short,
Oh, my gracious!

When like babes our homes we sought,
Oh, my gracious!
Was I led by rage or sport.
To offer fight for level quart?
Oh, my gracious!

Know I not but that I fought,

Oh, my gracious!

'Neath the gas-light's feeble flutter,
Oh, my gracious!

Like a roll of helpless butter,
Oh, my gracious!

Lay I in the filthy gutter,
Till my kinsmen on a shutter,

Oh, my gracious!

Raised me in prostration utter,

Oh, my gracious!

They with solemn step and slow,
Oh, my gracious!

To my habitation go,

Oh, my gracious!

Did my bosom's partner show

Pity in my abject woe?

Oh, my gracious!

Or commiserate me ?-no!

Oh, my gracious!