Rain me sweet odors on the air, And wheel me up my Indian chair, And spread some book not overwise Flat out before my sleepy eyes. Who knows it not,--this dead recoil Of weary fibres stretched with toil,-- The pulse that flutters faint and low When Summer's seething breezes blow! O Nature! bare thy loving breast, And give thy child one hour of rest,-- One little hour to lie unseen Beneath thy scarf of leafy green! So, curtained by a singing pine, Its murmuring voice shall blend with mine, Till, lost in dreams, my faltering lay In sweeter music dies away. DE SAUTY AN ELECTRO-CHEMICAL ECLOGUE The first messages received through the submarine cable were sent by an electrical expert, a mysterious personage who signed himself De Sauty. Professor Blue-Nose PROFESSOR TELL me, O Provincial! speak, Ceruleo-Nasal! Lives there one De Sauty extant now among you, Whispering Boanerges, son of silent thunder, Holding talk with nations? Is there a De Sauty ambulant on Tellus, Bifid-cleft like mortals, dormient in nightcap, Having sight, smell, hearing, food-receiving feature Three times daily patent? Breathes there such a being, O Ceruleo-Nasal? Or is he a _mythus_,--ancient word for "humbug"-- Such as Livy told about the wolf that wet-nursed Romulus and Remus? Was he born of woman, this alleged De Sauty? Or a living product of galvanic action, Like the acarus bred in Crosse's flint-solution? Speak, thou Cyano-Rhinal! BLUE-NOSE Many things thou askest, jackknife-bearing stranger, Much-conjecturing mortal, pork-and-treacle-waster! Pretermit thy whittling, wheel thine ear-flap toward me, Thou shall hear them answered. When the charge galvanic tingled through the cable, At the polar focus of the wire electric Suddenly appeared a white-faced man among us Called himself "DE SAUTY." As the small opossum held in pouch maternal Grasps the nutrient organ whence the term mammalia, So the unknown stranger held the wire electric, Sucking in the current. When the current strengthened, bloomed the pale-faced stranger,-- Took no drink nor victual, yet grew fat and rosy,-- And from time to time, in sharp articulation, Said, "All right! DE SAUTY." From the lonely station passed the utterance, spreading Through the pines and hemlocks to the groves of steeples, Till the land was filled with loud reverberations Of "_All right_ DE SAUTY." When the current slackened, drooped the mystic stranger,-- Faded, faded, faded, as the stream grew weaker,-- Wasted to a shadow, with a hartshorn odor Of disintegration. Drops of deliquescence glistened on his forehead, Whitened round his feet the dust of efflorescence, Till one Monday morning, when the flow suspended, There was no De Sauty. Nothing but a cloud of elements organic, C. O. H. N. Ferrum, Chlor. Flu. Sil. Potassa, Cale. Sod. Phosph. Mag. Sulphur, Mang. (?) Alumin. (?) Cuprum, (?) Such as man is made of.