Scholar of Reason, Grace, and Providence,
Restrain thy bursting and indignant tears;
With tenderest might unerring Wisdom steers
Through those mad seas the bark of Innocence.
Doth thy heart burn for vengeance on the deed--
Some barbarous deed wrought out by cruelty
On woman, or on famish'd childhood's need,
Yea, on these fond dumb dogs--doth thy heart bleed
For pity, child of sensibility?
Those tears are gracious, and thy wrath most right
Yet patience, patience; there is comfort still;
The Judge is just; a world of love and light
Remains to counterpoise the load of ill,
And the poor victim's cup with angel's food to fill.
For, as my Psycotherion has long ago informed you, I hope there is some
sort of heaven yet in reserve for the brute creation: if otherwise, in
respect of costermongers' donkeys, Kamskatdales' gaunt starved dogs, the
Guacho's horse, spurred deep with three-inch rowels, the angler's worm,
Strasburgh geese, and poor footsore curs harnessed to ill-balanced
trucks--for all these and many more I, for one, sadly stand in need of
consolation. Meanwhile, let us change the subject. After a dose of cruel
cogitations, and this corrupting converse with Phalaris and Domitian,
what better sweetener of thoughts than an "olive-branch" in the waters
of Marah? Spend a moment in the nursery; it is happily fashionable now,
as well as pleasurable, to sport awhile with Nature's prettiest
playthings; the praises of children are always at the tip of my--pen,
that is, tongue, you remember, and often have I told the world, in all
the pride of print, of my fond infantile predilections: then let this
little Chanson be added to the rest; we will call it