MORAL.

All tales should point a moral, and why not the Devil's

tail,

For Milton tells us Sin 's ended foul, in many a scale.
This earth is only haunted in the way of Spirit kind,
With the good or evil angels, of the good or evil mind;
And while Moderation blesses with a beneficial use,
The Devil in excesses takes advantage of abuse,

And though Superstition fill all the earth with fancied

hosts,

Be prudent, gay, and just, and you'll find no knocks or ghosts.

YE ANCIENT MARINER.

[A High menial party sa a few select friends in Pork Place, near Fifth Avenue,]

THERE was a merry wedding feast,

Ere whiles in New York,

And with the custom of the East,
They ate of beans, eke pork.

The merrie dance it moved about

In sooth of either sex,

The men they drink-ed of brown stout,

The maids of double X.

And loud and long the glasses clank,
And still they spin and still they waltz,
And nine times nine they all have drank
Of this most potent juice of malts.

[A Bill presented to the reader.]

Amid the guests there was a wight,
A jolly dog was he to swill,
And oft Sir William was he hight,
And eke was yclept he simply, Bill.

Amid the guests he saw a form

On whom he not could choose but gaze,

A tarpaulin beneath his arm,

His jacket of the greenest baize.

With striped breeches met his coat,
His shoon were whilom tarry black,
Black as the ribbon round his throat,
Which fluttered wildly at his back.

But wilder was his stony eye,

That frozen eye of marble blue;
As eyne of salmon when they die,
Or calves-foot jelly, pots of glue.

An

eye that glared, an eye that froze,
An eye of heifer, or of ox,
And red was his strawberry nose,

And pitted like a pepper box.

[Sir Wm. striketh upon a Tar, and is stuck.] And there that mariner doth stand, With his mesmeric, eldrick stare,

His beard he stroketh with his hand,
And still Sir William can but gaze
Upon his orange-colored hair,

With marvel and amaze,

And yet nor muscle can he stir,

Nor look from off that green, green beard,
Which waved like floating sea-weed weird,
Before that Ancient Mariner,

[Sir Wm. heareth the Baden Baden, and he is about to be off by the first train, but Aquarius issueth the writ of ne exeat, and attacheth Sir Wm.'s button-hole.]

And now the fiddle and trombone

Do tell the polka hath begun,

And fain Sir William would be gone,
And starteth he to run.

Then cried that Ancient Mariner-
"I charge thee by thy soul
That from my side thou must not stir,"
Then seized his button-hole!

"For I've a tale that thou must hear,
A tale yet never told;

Then mark you, while unto thine ear
I will a tale unfold."