_John Bull_―― Old Year, Old Year, I’m glad of the day―― From thy frost-bitten spring to thine autumn of blight Rain, rain hath oppressed us noon, morning, and night; Scant produce, unripened, mocks garden and farm; Flood and Tempest have waited on Famine’s alarm; While Leisure and Labour and Pleasure and Pain Have pined for the breath of thy summer in vain. With Sedition’s loud cry, have our annals been shamed, With a Senate obstructed, a credit defamed, With the cheers of a mob and the sneers of a press To rash to condemn and too prompt to caress, While the pulse of our commerce beats fitful and low―― _Old Year_―― False libeller, silence! and hark, ere I go: All my life throughout Europe the sword hath been sheathed; I have soothed the war-passions my brothers bequeathed; If want and Disaster _have_ marched by my hand, They have knit class to class, and endeared land to land; And hardier and wiser, you shall not repine At the trials you have passed through in ’Seventy-nine. ZIEGELSTEIN. (_Goymour Cuthbert_). ―――― SECOND PRIZE. _Wizard (of the North)――――Chieftain B._ _Wizard_―― Chieftain, O Chieftain, lament for the year! Of distress and disaster a history drear: For Cabul with its slain rises red on my sight; And grim Isandula, that massacre fight. They fought and they perished by field and by flood; But their victories rest bootless, and blood calls for blood. Weep, Albion, thy losses, thy glory grown pale! Weep, though gagged correspondents can’t tell the whole tale! _Chief_―― Go, prate to Midlothian, thou peace-preaching seer! If the wars of thy country so dreadful appear, Let the fields of Ulundi, Rorke’s Drift, and Ekowe Dispel with their glory such phantoms of woe. _Wizard_―― Ha! then turn to the East, who will there take thy side? Proud Chief, thou must break with the land of thy pride. Say, how strutted proud Turkey! how low now he lies! And new nations spring round while the old tyrant dies. Flourish freedom and peace where oppression once stood, And poor Turkey may scream for the loss of that brood. _Chief_―― Verbose rhetor, avaunt! I’ve well managed my clan; Right or wrong, I rely on their votes to a man, With our endless resources, no foeman we fear, So woe to king Theebaw――