Pensive, at eve, on the hard world I mus'd, And my poor heart was sad: so at the moon I gazed, and sigh'd, and sigh'd! for ah! how soon Eve darkens into night! Mine eye perus'd With tearful vacancy the dampy grass, Which wept and glitter'd in the paly ray: And I did pause me on my lonely way, And muse me on those wretched ones, who pass O'er the black heath of sorrow. But alas! Most of MYSELF I thought: when it befel That the sooth SPIRIT of the breezy wood Breath'd in mine ear--"All this is very well; But much of _one_ thing is for _no-thing_ good." Ah! my poor heart's inexplicable swell! NEHEMIAH HIGGINBOTHAM. SONNET II. TO SIMPLICITY. O! I do love thee, meek simplicity! For of thy lays, the lulling simpleness Goes to my heart, and soothes each small distress, Distress, though small, yet haply great to me! 'Tis true, on lady fortune's gentlest pad, I amble on; yet, though I know not why, So sad I am!--but should a friend and I Grow cool and miff, oh, I am very sad! And then with sonnets, and with sympathy. My dreamy bosom's mystic woes I pall; Now of my false friend 'plaining plaintively, Now raving at mankind in gener-al But whether sad or fierce, 'tis simple all, All very simple, meek SIMPLICITY! NEHEMIAH HIGGINBOTHAM. SONNET III. ON A RUINED HOUSE WHICH JACK BUILT. And this reft house is that, the which he built, Lamented Jack! and here his malt he piled, Cautious in vain! These rats that squeak'd so wild, Squeak, not unconscious of their fathers' guilt. Did ye not see her gleaming through the glade? Belike 'twas she, the Maiden all forlorn. What though she milk no cow with crumpled horn, Yet, aye she haunts the dale where erst she stray'd: And, aye beside her stalks her amorous knight! Still on his thighs his wonted brogues are worn, And through those brogues, still tatter'd and betorn, His hindward charms gleam an unearthly white; As when through broken clouds, at night's high moon. Peeps in fair fragments forth--the full-orb'd harvest moon! NEHEMIAH HIGGINBOTHAM.[44] The moralist rightly says, "There is nothing permanent in this uncertain world;" and even most friendships do not partake of the "Munition of Rocks." Alas! the spirit of impartiality now compels me to record, that the inseparable Trio; even the three "Groscolliases" themselves, had, somehow or other, been touched with the negative magnet, and their particles, in opposition, flew off "as far as from hence to the utmost pole." I never rightly understood the cause of this dissension, but shrewdly suspected that that unwelcome and insidious intruder, Mr. Nehemiah Higginbotham, had no inconsiderable share in it.