From the pills, pills, pills, By your sobbing from the pills, Keeping time, time, time, As he kneels, kneels, kneels. In the blasphemy of crime, By the pulse he feels, feels; While the pills, pills, pills Are perfecting all their ills. Oh, the pills, pills, pills―― Pills, pills, pills! So ends my rhyming and my chiming on the pills. DAMER CAPE. _Vagrant Leaves_, No. 2., Nov. 1, 1866. ――――:o:―――― THE HELLS. Hear the echoes from the Hells―― German Hells! What a tale of selfishness their recollection tells! How fickle fortune battles With the ball that rolls and rattles On its devilish career! While the coins that oversprinkle, All the numbers seem to twinkle, With a simper or a sneer. Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of ruined rhyme. To the hum of speculation that annually swells From the Hells, Hells, Hells―― From the Hunters and the Punters of the Hells. Hear the merry laughing Hells, Baden Hells! Ringing out their call to happiness like wedding bells; Blinding eyes with lust of gain, Dead’ning hearts to others’ pain, With the molten gold and notes. Calling out, “We are misery’s antidotes!! Come and clutch us!” o’er their poison-beauty gloats Longing Doubt―― How the air resounding fills With the cries from out that Hall of Cure for Ills! How the swells At the wells, Dream of health or of wealth, how each tells Of the craving that impels To the winning and the sinning Of the Hells, Hells, Hells, To the losing and abusing of the Hells. Hear the losers at the Hells―― Homburg Hells! What an end of dread despondency their mien foretells! When fortune turns her back, And the promised Red looks Black, And the Black grows Red with shame, As it hears its worshipped name; All is lost In a timorous appealing to the mercy of Leblanc: In a sad expostulation with the croupiers of Leblanc: Playing higher, higher, higher, With a maddening desire And a desperate endeavour Now――now to win or never, Though it love and honour cost. Oh the Hells, Hells, Hells! What tale their echo tells Of despair! How they cling to Black and Red! What a tremor they outspread On the loving hearts that wait in hope at home. Yet the year it fully knows By the curses Or the purses How the fortune ebbs and flows! How the scandal stinks and smells By the sinking or the swelling in the budget of the Hells!