On isles within a distant zone, Where bows are slighted or unknown, Of toughest wood they say is made A missile with a curving blade, Which at an angle cleaves the air, And smites its victim unaware. But, should a hand unskilful throw, It works an unexpected woe, Swift on its owner whirling back Like levin on its deadly track. So from malicious lips slung forth, False words of calumny or wrath Recoil upon the utterer's heart, Inflicting with remorseful dart The festering wound, so slow to heal In breasts that are not brass or steel. [Illustration] THE WRONG PLACE. Friend Colin reared his country seat Close to a group of noble trees, He blessed their shadows in the heat, He blessed their music in the breeze. Grown old and sere, he dreads their fall, 'Tis safety waging war with taste; He cries, "Down with them one and all, Were never wych elms so misplaced." So they who neither thought nor planned Hold for secure some transient good, And having built upon the sand, Declaim against the wind and flood. THE WRONG TIME. Some indiscreet Abderite boys Within a limpet's hollow, Offer'd in laurel-juice blue flies As victims to Apollo. The god appeased will bless, they thought, Our tasks of prose and rhyme; So they the flitting insects caught, But lost the flitting time. When Pedagogue their progress tries, Nor finds the lesson done, In vain they plead the sacrifice, He whips them every one. TRAVELLING FOR EXCITEMENT. I heard the great gorilla roar, My icy blood did curdling creep, Astride the Erymanthian boar, The brute came crashing through my sleep. I woke, and there all fleecy white, My dainty dog in sunshine played, His feathery paw, which caused the fright, Upon my bosom gently laid. "Thank heaven," I gasped, and quivering cried, For still the roaring shook my ear, "Why seek Gaboona's deadly tide, When I can thrill in safety here?" [Illustration] THE HAWSER. We saw a crew in bygone years Bear out a hawser long and good, Which to the tune of mighty cheers That stirred our hearts and stunned our ears, Drew forth a barque from shoal and mud. Large-hearted love thus flies to save Some victim of life's treacherous sea, From the oppressor's deadly cave, From calumny's o'erwhelming wave, Or sordid sink of poverty. TRAINED CORMORANTS. These cormorants bear a metal ring, The channel of their greed to stay, So trained--they are not taught to sing-- They dive at will and catch and bring, But cannot gorge the prey. When orators in their excess Blab forth what prudence would conceal, Say, could their partisans wish less Than for a ring their throats to press, And throttle half their zeal? THE BAT.