So sang with a dolorous note A voice that I heard from the beach; On the sable waters it seemed to float Like a mortal part of speech. The sea was Oblivion's sea, And I cried as I plunged to swim: "The Unaverage Man shall reside with me." But he didn't--I stayed with him! THE FREE TRADER'S LAMENT. Oft from a trading-boat I purchased spice And shells and corals, brought for my inspection From the fair tropics--paid a Christian price And was content in my fool's paradise, Where never had been heard the word "Protection." 'T was my sole island; there I dwelt alone-- No customs-house, collector nor collection, But a man came, who, in a pious tone Condoled with me that I had never known The manifest advantage of Protection. So, when the trading-boat arrived one day, He threw a stink-pot into its mid-section. The traders paddled for their lives away, Nor came again into that haunted bay, The blessed home thereafter of Protection. Then down he sat, that philanthropic man, And spat upon some mud of his selection, And worked it, with his knuckles in a pan, To shapes of shells and coral things, and span A thread of song in glory of Protection. He baked them in the sun. His air devout Enchanted me. I made a genuflexion: "God help you, gentle sir," I said. "No doubt," He answered gravely, "I'll get on without Assistance now that we have got Protection." Thenceforth I bought his wares--at what a price For shells and corals of such imperfection! "Ah, now," said he, "your lot is truly nice." But still in all that isle there was no spice To season to my taste that dish, Protection. SUBTERRANEAN PHANTASIES. I died. As meekly in the earth I lay, With shriveled fingers reverently folded, The worm--uncivil engineer!--my clay Tunneled industriously, and the mole did. My body could not dodge them, but my soul did; For that had flown from this terrestrial ball And I was rid of it for good and all. So there I lay, debating what to do-- What measures might most usefully be taken To circumvent the subterranean crew Of anthropophagi and save my bacon. My fortitude was all this while unshaken, But any gentleman, of course, protests Against receiving uninvited guests. However proud he might be of his meats, Not even Apicius, nor, I think, Lucullus, Wasted on tramps his culinary sweets; "_Aut Caesar_," say judicious hosts, "_aut nullus_." And though when Marcius came unbidden Tullus Aufidius feasted him because he starved, Marcius by Tullus afterward was carved. We feed the hungry, as the book commands (For men might question else our orthodoxy) But do not care to see the outstretched hands, And so we minister to them by proxy. When Want, in his improper person, knocks he Finds we're engaged. The graveworm's very fresh To think we like his presence in the flesh.