The planets regard me with scorn, and say That I always come bothering in their way. Dame Venus and her sisters Call me one of those crazy twisters, 'His tail is too great, and his nucleus too small. Such an ill-made night stroller's worth nothing at all.' That I'm a scandal they cry or lisp, And call me a dreamer or Will-o'-the-wisp. And down on earth a-squinting, I see the learned ones printing, 'He's neither firm nor settled, nor would be, Though he should spin to all eternity.' E'en Humboldt, who handles nothing lightly, Treats me in his Cosmos far from politely, And should he write--I ask all-- And am I such a rascal?-- 'The wandering comet, much thinner than foam, With the smallest corps takes up the greatest room.' But bide yon star-gazing spitefuls!--bide? You don't know me yet from the innermost side. Some day I'll catch you--curse ye? And make you cry for mercy? Then you'll go through me, and I'll meet your hope, For with meteors I'll smash up your telescope. GUANO SONG. Ich weiss eine friedliche Stelle Im schweigenden Ocean, Krystallhell schäumet die Welle Zum Felsengestade hinan. I know of a peaceful island Afar in the silent sea, Where around the rocky highland Pure billows are foaming free. In the harbour no ship is resting, No sailor is on the strand; And thousands of white birds nesting, Are the guards of the lonely land. Ever pondering pious questions, They labour right faithfully, For blessed are their digestions, And flowing like poetry. For the birds are all 'Philosophen,' To the principal precept inclined; If the body be properly open, Then all will go well with the mind. And the children pursue more enlightened What their fathers in silence begun. To a mountain it rises, and whitened By rays of a tropical sun. In the rosiest light these sages Look down at the future and say, In the course of historical ages We shall fill up the ocean some day. And the recognition of merit Is theirs in these later days, For in Suabian land we hear it When the Böblinger Rapsbauer[5] says: 'God bless you--guano sea-gull, Of the far away coast of the west: In spite of my countryman Hegel, The stuff which you make is the best.' ************ [Footnote 5: Böblinger Rapsbauer. A Böbling farmer who plants rape-seed. Böblingen is the Little Pedlington of Germany. It is possible that the author intimates by this name the title of a very obscure provincial newspaper.--Translator.] ************ ASPHALTUM.