A CHARADE FOR THE TIMES.

BY THE LATE T. K. HERVEY.

HEY spoke of my First in days of yore
With bated breath and low;

And, to scare the shadow from wall and floor,
They kept the logs aglow.

They piled the faggot, and fed the blaze,
To keep out the shadow in ancient days;
And the blood ran slow, and the tale stood still,
If the east wind sighed on the window sill:
For the talk itself was of phantom things,
That gave no foot-fall, wore no wings,
Yet passed by night-how, none could say-
From seas or churchyards far away;
That showed like shadows, spoke like sighs,
Looked through the shutters with spectre eyes:
And as they stood by board or bed,
With awful message from the dead,

Were, each a guest unsought, unreckoned,

And always came in without my Second.

But my First, to-day, is a sort of bore-
If to say so be not sin-

Who is doing my Second evermore,
Yet never coming in.

When we catch a snob at this idle play,
We hand him at once to policeman A.
Such shed no awe on the rooms they haunt
From Saturday till Monday;

And we talk with them on the easy terms
Of a talk with Mrs. Grundy.

We stay by the board for these phantoms thin,
And we open the door, and we ask them in;
Or, with our gossips met in state,

Demand quite coolly, if they wait.

Dragged from the corners where they lurk,
We keep the phantoms hard at work:
But whence they come, or what express,
Philosophy has yet to guess.

'Tis time my First, for ill or good,

Should make my Whole now understood.

When the postman comes with his double knock,
We know that he knocks with letters;

And the welcome won by his well-known frock,
Is a welcome paid to his betters:

For my Second's notes have a cheery sound,
When struck by the red-coated varlet;

And a blessing follows my First on his rounds,
If this be my First in scarlet.

Well, they say that my First in what they do,
Are always knocking with letters too;

But the letters are very dark indeed,
And badly spelt, and hard to read,

And-sent from nowhere on the

map,

In vulgar phrase, 'not worth a rap
Bring nor remittances nor news,

But the message dull of a crack-brained Muse;

A crazy Muse, at will let loose

From some poor Bedlam of the soul,

To yield for the idler's useless use

The crazy jargon of my Whole!