On some household eminence, On a clothes-line or a fence, Over ditches, drains, and thence O'er a brook, He, by high ambition led, Ever walked and balanced, Till the people, wondering, said, "How like Cooke!" Step by step did he proceed, Nerved by valor, not by greed, And at last the crowning deed Undertook. Misty was the midnight air, And the cliff was bleak and bare, When he came to do and dare, Just like Cooke. Through the darkness, o'er the flow, Stretched the line where he should go, Straight across as flies the crow Or the rook. One wild glance around he cast; Then he faced the ocean blast, And he strode the cable last Touched by Cooke. Vainly roared the angry seas, Vainly blew the ocean breeze; But, alas! the walker's knees Had a crook; And before he reached the rock Did they both together knock, And he stumbled with a shock-- Unlike Cooke! Downward dropping in the dark, Like an arrow to its mark, Or a fish-pole when a shark Bites the hook, Dropped the pole he could not save, Dropped the walker, and the wave Swift engulfed the rival brave Of J. Cooke! Came a roar across the sea Of sea-lions in their glee, In a tongue remarkably Like Chinook; And the maddened sea-gull seemed Still to utter, as he screamed, "Perish thus the wretch who deemed Himself Cooke!" But on misty moonlit nights Comes a skeleton in tights, Walks once more the giddy heights He mistook; And unseen to mortal eyes, Purged of grosser earthly ties, Now at last in spirit guise Outdoes Cooke. Still the sturdy ocean breeze Sweeps the spray of roaring seas, Where the Cliff House balconies Overlook; And the maidens in their prime, Reading of this mournful rhyme, Weep where, in the olden time, Walked J. Cooke. THE BALLAD OF THE EMEU Oh, say, have you seen at the Willows so green-- So charming and rurally true-- A singular bird, with a manner absurd, Which they call the Australian Emeu? Have you Ever seen this Australian Emeu? It trots all around with its head on the ground, Or erects it quite out of your view; And the ladies all cry, when its figure they spy, "Oh! what a sweet pretty Emeu! Oh! do Just look at that lovely Emeu!" One day to this spot, when the weather was hot, Came Matilda Hortense Fortescue; And beside her there came a youth of high name,-- Augustus Florell Montague: The two Both loved that wild, foreign Emeu.