LITERARY SQUABBLES.

H God! the petty fools of rhyme
"That shriek and sweat in pigmy wars
Before the stony face of Time,

And look'd at by the silent stars :

Who hate each other for a song,

And do their little best to bite

And pinch their brethren in the throng,
And scratch the very dead for spite:

And strain to make an inch of room

For their sweet selves, and cannot hear
The sullen Lethe rolling doom

On them and theirs and all things here:

When one small touch of Charity

Could lift them nearer God-like state

Than if the crowded Orb should cry

Like those who cried Diana great:

And I too, talk, and lose the touch

I talk of. Surely, after all,

The noblest answer unto such

Is perfect stillness when they brawl.

PLAGUE upon the people fell,
A famine after laid them low,

Then thorpe and byre arose in fire,

For on them brake the sudden foe;

So thick they died the people cried

"The Gods are moved against the land."

The Priest in horror about his altar

"Help us from famine

And plague and strife!

What would you have of us?

Human life?

Were it our nearest,

Were it our dearest,

(Answer, O answer)

We give you his life."

11.

But still the foeman spoil'd and burn'd,

And cattle died, and deer in wood, And bird in air, and fishes turn'd

And whiten'd all the rolling flood;

And dead men lay all over the way,

Or down in a furrow scathed with flame:

And ever and aye the Priesthood moan'd Till at last it seem'd that an answer came. "The King is happy

In child and wife;

Take you his dearest,

Give us a life."

III.

The Priest went out by heath and hill;

The King was hunting in the wild; They found the mother sitting still;

She cast her arms about the child.

The child was only eight summers old,

His beauty still with his years increased, His face was ruddy, his hair was gold,

He seem'd a victim due to the priest.

The Priest beheld him,

And cried with joy,

"The Gods have answer'd:

We give them the boy."

IV.

The King return'd from out the wild,
He bore but little game in hand;

The mother said "They have taken the child
To spill his blood and heal the land:
The land is sick, the people diseased,
And blight and famine on all the lea:
The holy Gods, they must be appeased,
So I pray you tell the truth to me.

They have taken our son,

They will have his life.

Is he your dearest ?

Or I, the wife?"