O! the hammers, hammers, hammers, Throbbing hammers, How they leap, how they skip, O’er the bosom of the ship, Ever beating and repeating Labour’s lay; Hark! they tell of human might, With an echoing delight, All the day; O! the battle must be won, And the toiling must be done, For the strife of each life Is for children and for wife; So they hammer, hammer, hammer, And the wild, sonorous clamour Is their stay. From “Poems and Songs,” by WILLIAM ALLAN.――Simpkin Marshall & Co., London, 1883. ――――:o:―――― REMINISCENCES OF SUMMER. See the frog, the slimy, green frog, Dozing away on that old rotten log; Seriously wondering What caused the sundering Of the tail that he wore when a wee pollywog. See the boy, the freckled schoolboy, Famed for cussedness, free from alloy; Watching the frog Perched on the log, With feelings akin to tumultuous joy. See the rock, the hard, flinty rock, Which the freckled-faced boy at the frog doth sock; Conscious he’s sinning, Yet gleefully grinning At the likely result of its terrific shock. See the grass, the treacherous grass, Slip from beneath his feet! Alas, Into the mud With a dull thud He falls, and rises a slimy mass. Now, see the frog, the hilarious frog, Dancing a jig on his old rotten log; Applying his toes To his broad, blunt nose As he laughs at the boy stuck fast in the bog. * * * * * Look at the switch, the hickory switch, Waiting to make that schoolboy twitch; When his mother knows The state of his clothes Won’t he raise his voice to its highest pitch. _Free Press Flashes_, 1883. ――――:o:―――― THAT AMATEUR FLUTE.