A NEGLECTED GENIUS.

PONE cowherd, as he tends the kine
G Among the winter mire,
Beats out, at times, some noble line,
That sets men’s hearts on fire.

Rude drawings of' a horse or tree,
Scratched with a bit of chalk,
May one day glorious pictures be,

A nation’s pride and talk.

So, from the lowly home, upsprings
A soldier, great and brave ;

And every heart its garland flings
Upon that hero’s grave.

But not to every man is given
A Wordsworth’s powers to know ;
Our gifts are as it pleases Heaven
Its treasures to bestow.

All cannot stand on glory’s roll
Messmates with Bonaparte,

Or ‘wake,’ as Turner * woke, ‘the soul
With tender strokes of art.’

But he who drives his furrow straight,
And sows the earth and reaps,

May yet consort with good and great,
In honour’s highest steeps.

Who grinds the corn, and milks the kine,
Helps much to win the day ;

This path is thine, and that is mine,
To each his ordered way!

No crow can ever be a swan,
No minnow play the whale,

The fussy daw may never don
The peacock’s starry tail ;—

But, says not that conceited smirk,
“Oh, isn’t it done well?

Come, all the world, and see my work—
Ain’t I just Raffaelle 2’

Shade of Apelles, look and grieve! .
Cry out, strong-minded aunt!

‘Jack, boy, thou may’st a sum achieve,
But never be a Grant!

‘Look at thy work again, my lad,
And tell me who it’s like ;

Such legs no mortal ever had,
Such arms could never strike,

 

* The names in italics are those of famous painters: Turner
and Grant are English. The latter is still living. Raffaelle, one
of the greatest of all painters, was born at Urbino, in Italy,
A. bd. H83. Apelles was a very great painter, who lived about
300 years before Christ.

 

‘That mouth was never meant to gape,
That neckless head to stir;

That body—what a monstrous shape !
A huge extinguisher !

‘His fingers? Well—you’ve made them five,
But no one holds them thus,

All carrot-wise. O, man alive,
Thou art a genius!

‘Come, stick to pot-hooks all thy days,
And words like A P E;

Thou’lt maybe yet the chaps amaze,
Some future Spelling Bee !’ G. §. 0.

 

 

! THE
WANDERER’S RETURN.

CHAPTER I.

  

Shoe morning an old sailor was

and a bundle in that, trudging
along the highroad. He had
a cheery werd for everybody,
and now and then he asked
whether he was steering
straight for Blackfoot. At
first the people stared, for as
Blackfoot was a very small
village, some three hundred
miles from the place where the
sailor left his ship, it was not quite so well known as
Hull or Liverpool.
thought, as the sailor was clearly a well-to-do man,
he would have taken the train and saved shoe-leather ;
but he knew nothing about trains—not he, having left
England when a lad, some fifty years ago. The
captain of the ‘Flying Swan’ laughed at Jack Waud
when he avowed ‘his purpose of walking into ‘the
Shires ;’ but Jack wasn’t to be laughed out of his
whim ; and, it being fine weather, he enjoyed his
cruise, as he called it, along the capital English roads,
and he delighted in the garden-like appearance of all
he saw. At length, a grey old towey he had not
seen for half a century was seen peeping out of some
trees. ‘Dear, how those trees have grown!” said

_dack to himself. «And here is Blackfoot once more!

Well, thank God for it!’ continued the old sailor,
taking off his hat piously. When he entered the
village, or rather got to the first straggling house,

-he knocked at the door, and asked, ‘Is there any one

named Waud living in Blackfoot now?’

The woman said, ‘No, not now; but she remem- |
bered very well an old man of that name, old Ben.

Waud he was called, for he died only two or three
years ago.’

‘Ah, father,’ said the sailor to himself, ‘I thought
I should hardly find you alive after fifty years ; but I

should have been glad to hear you say you had ~

forgiven me.’ :
After a pause of some time the sailor asked the
woman her name, and how many children she had,

 

seen, with a stick in this hand, -

Moreover, one would have .°

 

ay

\