“What is that, mother?”
“The funny man, child.
His hands are black, but his heart is mild.”
“May I touch him, mother?”
“’T were foolishly
done:
He is slightly touched already, my son.”
“O, why does he wear such a
ghastly grin?”
“That’s the outward sign of a joke within.”
“Will he crack it, mother?”
“Not so, my saint;
’T is meant for the Saturday Livercomplaint.”
“Does he suffer, mother?”
“God help him, yes!—
A thousand and fifty kinds of distress.”
“What makes him sweat so?”
“The demons that
lurk
In the fear of having to go to work.”
“Why doesn’t he end,
then, his life with a rope?”
“Abolition of Hell has deprived him of hope.”
MONTEFIORE.
I saw—’twas in a dream,
the other night—
A man whose hair with age was thin and
white:
One hundred years had bettered
by his birth,
And still his step was firm, his eye was
bright.
Before him and about him pressed a crowd.
Each head in reverence was bared and bowed,
And Jews and Gentiles in a
hundred tongues
Extolled his deeds and spoke his fame
aloud.
I joined the throng and, pushing forward,
cried,
“Montefiore!” with the rest,
and vied
In efforts to caress the hand
that ne’er
To want and worth had charity denied.
So closely round him swarmed our shouting
clan
He scarce could breathe, and taking from
a pan
A gleaming coin he tossed
it o’er our heads,
And in a moment was a lonely man!
