Shapes of Clay

  Men come forth, O, be not cruel.
  Spare me, Lord—make them thy fuel.

ONE MOOD'S EXPRESSION.

  See, Lord, fanatics all arrayed
      For revolution!
  To foil their villainous crusade
  Unsheathe again the sacred blade
      Of persecution.
  What though through long disuse 't is grown
      A trifle rusty?
  'Gainst modern heresy, whose bone
  Is rotten, and the flesh fly-blown,
      It still is trusty.
  Of sterner stuff thine ancient foes,
      Unapprehensive,
  Sprang forth to meet thy biting blows;
  Our zealots chiefly to the nose
      Assume the offensive.
  Then wield the blade their necks to hack,
      Nor ever spare one.
  Thy crowns of martyrdom unpack,
  But see that every martyr lack
      The head to wear one.

SOMETHING IN THE PAPERS.

  'What's in the paper?' Oh, it's dev'lish dull:
  There's nothing happening at all—a lull
  After the war-storm. Mr. Someone's wife
  Killed by her lover with, I think, a knife.
  A fire on Blank Street and some babies—one,
  Two, three or four, I don't remember, done
  To quite a delicate and lovely brown.
  A husband shot by woman of the town—
  The same old story. Shipwreck somewhere south.
  The crew, all saved—or lost. Uncommon drouth
  Makes hundreds homeless up the River Mud—
  Though, come to think, I guess it was a flood.
  'T is feared some bank will burst—or else it won't
  They always burst, I fancy—or they don't;
  Who cares a cent?—the banker pays his coin
  And takes his chances: bullet in the groin—
  But that's another item—suicide—
  Fool lost his money (serve him right) and died.
  Heigh-ho! there's noth—Jerusalem! what's this:
  Tom Jones has failed! My God, what an abyss
  Of ruin!—owes me seven hundred clear!
  Was ever such a damned disastrous year!

IN THE BINNACLE.

The Church possesses the unerring compass whose needle points directly and persistently to the star of the eternal law of God.

Religious Weekly.

  The Church's compass, if you please,
  Has two or three (or more) degrees
    Of variation;
  And many a soul has gone to grief
  On this or that or t'other reef
  Through faith unreckoning or brief
    Miscalculation.
  Misguidance is of perils chief
    To navigation.
  The obsequious thing makes, too, you'll mark,
  Obeisance through a little arc
    Of declination;
  For Satan, fearing witches, drew
  From Death's pale horse, one day, a shoe,
  And nailed it to his door to undo
    Their machination.
  Since then the needle dips to woo
    His habitation.