Though in common belief a Witch's curse
Involves all these horrible things and worse-
As ignorant bumpkins all profess,

No Bumpkin makes a poke the less
At the back or ribs of old Eleanor S.!

As if she were only a sack of barley; Or gives her credit for greater might Than the Powers of Darkness confer at night On that other old woman, the parish Charley;

Ay, now's the time for a Witch to call
On her Imps and Sucklings one and all-
Newes, Pyewacket, or Peck in the Crown,
(As Matthew Hopkins has handed them down,)
Dick, and Willet, and Sugar-and-Sack,
Greedy Grizel, Jarmara the Black,

Vinegar Tom and the rest of the pack—
Ay, now's the nick for her friend old Harry
To come "with his tail" like the bold Glengarry,
And drive her foes from their savage job

As a mad Black Bullock would scatter a mob:
But no such matter is down in the bond;
And spite of her cries that never cease,
But scare the ducks and astonish the geese,
The Dame is dragg'd to the fatal pond!

And now they come to the water's brim-
And in they bundle her-sink or swim;

Though it's twenty to one that the wretch must drown,

With twenty sticks to hold her down;
Including the help to the self-same end,
Which a travelling Pedlar stops to lend.
A Pedlar!-Yes!-The same !-the same!
Who sold the Horn to the drowning Dame!
And now is foremost amid the stir,

With a token only revealed to her;

A token that makes her shudder and shriek,
And point with her finger, and strive to speak-

But before she can utter the name of the Devil,
Her head is under the water level!

Moral.

There are folks about town-to name no namesWho much resemble that deafest of Dames;

And over their tea, and muffins, and crumpets, Circulate many a scandalous word,

And whisper tales they could only have heard
Through some such Diabolical Trumpets!

THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER.

I.

ALACK! 'tis melancholy theme to think How Learning doth in rugged states abide, And, like her bashful owl, obscurely blink, In pensive glooms and corners, scarcely spied; Not, as in Founders' Halls and domes of pride, Served with grave homage, like a tragic queen, But with one lonely priest compell'd to hide, In midst of foggy moors and mosses green, In that clay cabin hight the College of Kilreen!

II.

This College looketh South and West alsoe,
Because it hath a cast in windows twain;
Crazy and crack'd they be, and wind doth blow
Thorough transparent holes in every pane,
Which Dan, with many paines, makes whole
again

With nether garments, which his thrift doth teach,

To stand for glass, like pronouns, and when rain Stormeth, he puts, "once more unto the breach," Outside and in, tho' broke, yet so he mendeth each.

III.

And in the midst a little door there is, Whereon a board that doth congratulate With painted letters, red as blood I wis, Thus written, "Children taken in to Bate z” And oft, indeed, the inward of that gate, Most ventriloque, doth utter tender squeak, And moans of infants that bemoan their fate, In midst of sounds of Latin, French, and Greek, Which, all i' the Irish tongue, he teacheth them to speak.

IV.

For some are meant to right illegal wrongs,
And some for Doctors of Divinitie,

Whom he doth teach to murder the dead tongues,
And soe win academical degree;

But some are bred for service of the sea,
Howbeit, their store of learning is but small,
For mickle waste he counteth it would be
To stock a head with bookish wares at all,
Only to be knocked off by ruthless cannon ball.

V.

Six babes he sways,-some little and some big,
Divided into classes six ;-alsoe,

He keeps a parlour boarder of a pig,
That in the College fareth to and fro,
And picketh up the urchins' crumbs below-
And eke the learned rudiments they scan,
And thus his A, B, C, doth wisely know-
Hereafter to be shown in caravan,

And raise the wonderment of many a learned man

VI.

Alsoe, he schools some tame familiar fowls,
Whereof, above his head, some two or three
Sit darkly squatting, like Minerva's owls,

But on the branches of no living tree,
And overlook the learned family;

While, sometimes, Partlet, from her gloomy perch,
Drops feather on the nose of Dominie,

Meanwhile, with serious eye, he makes research In leaves of that sour tree of knowledge-now a birch.

VII.

No chair he hath, the awful Pedagogue, Such as would magisterial hams imbed, But sitteth lowly on a beechen log, Secure in high authority and dread: Large, as a dome for learning, seems his head, And like Apollo's, all beset with rays, Because his locks are so unkempt and red, And stand abroad in many several ways:No laurel crown he wears, howbeit his cap is baise

VIII.

And, underneath, a pair of shaggy brows
O'erhang as many eyes of gizzard hue,
That inward giblet of a fowl, which shows
A mongrel tint, that is ne brown ne blue;
His nose, it is a coral to the view;
Well nourish'd with Pierian Potheen,-

For much he loves his native mountain dew-
But to depict the dye would lack, I ween,
A bottle-red, in terms, as well as bottle-green.

IX.

As for his coat, 'tis such a jerkin short
As Spencer had, ere he composed his Tails;
But underneath he hath no vest, nor aught,
So that the wind his airy breast assails;
Below, he wears the nether garb of males,
Of crimson plush, but non-plushed at the knee :-
Thence further down the native red prevails,
Of his own naked fleecy hosierie :-

Two sandals, without soles, complete his cap-a-pie.

X.

Nathless, for dignity, he now doth lap
His function in a magisterial gown,

That shows more countries in it than a map,-
Blue tinct, and red, and green, and russet brown,
Besides some blots, standing for country-town,
And eke some rents, for streams and rivers wide;
But, sometimes, bashful when he looks adown,
He turns the garment of the other side,
Hopeful that so the holes may never be espied!

XI.

And soe he sits, amidst the little pack
That look for shady or for sunny noon,
Within his visage, like an almanack,—
His quiet smile foretelling gracious boon:
But when his mouth droops down, like rainy
moon,

With horrid chill each little heart unwarms, Knowing, that infant show'rs will follow soon, And with forebodings of near wrath and storms They sit, like timid hares, all trembling on their forms.

XII.

Ah! luckless wight, who cannot then repeat "Corduroy Colloquy,”—or “Ki, Kæ, Kod,”Full soon his tears shall make his turfy seat More sodden, tho' already made of sod, For Dan shall whip him with the word of God,Severe by rule, and not by nature mild, He never spoils the child and spares the rod, But spoils the rod and never spares the child, And soe with holy rule deems he is reconciled.

XIII.

But surely the just sky will never wink
At men who take delight in childish thrce,