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"Our lives are songs: God writes the words, And we set them to music at leisure; And the song is sad, or the song is glad, As we choose to fashion the measure. "We must write the song Whatever the words, Whatever its rhyme or meter; And if it is sad, we must make it glad, And if sweet, we must make it sweeter."

'That last argument of yours is a strong one, and rather than drive you to such extremities I would let you have it your own way, said Yellow-cap. 'But still I think this affair can be arranged. All I want, you see, is to sit on your throne; to make a rhyme to your name, and to trample you under the feet of the metrical system. Have nothing to do with that.

They sit they lounge turn o'er some idle rhyme; Then rising sudden to the glass they go, Or saunter forth with loitering step and slow. Castle of Indolence. Captain Oughton who commanded the Windsor Castle was an original.

If a theme call for nobler treatment, he becomes an unflagging fountain of ludicrously adequate blank-verse. Or again, he may deliver himself in rhyme. There is no form of utterance that comes amiss to him for interpreting the human comedy, or for broadening the farce into which that comedy is turned by him. Nothing can stop him when once he is in the vein. No appeals move him.

Such is the rhyme of "Uncle Peleg," or "Pillick," as it is pronounced, probably an historical ballad concerning some departed worthy of the Folger family of Nantucket. It begins "Old Uncle Pillick he built him a boat On the ba-a-ck side of Nantucket P'int; He rolled up his trowsers and set her afloat From the ba-a-ck side of Nantucket P'int." Like "Christabel," this remains a fragment.

The Young Lady said it was exceedingly difficult to write the next two lines, because not only rhyme but meaning had to be procured.

One very strange thing is that I could never find out where he got some of his many songs. At times they would be but bubbles blown out of a nursery rhyme, as was the following, which I heard him sing one evening to his little Dulcimer. There were about a score of sheep feeding in a paddock near him, their white wool dyed a pale rose in the light of the setting sun.

To stand and watch the rain through the window-panes, to lounge from the drawing-room to your chamber, to drum with your fingers upon the table to beat your brain for a thought which you vainly seek to weave into rhyme in praise of your inamorata all is unavailing. The rain is slow but ceaseless, and the hours are days to the unemployed mind.

Dare you fly out alone Through the shadows that wave, When the course is unknown And there's no one to save? You are bone of our bone, And for ever His slave!" And, following these words, came from somewhere in the air that voice like the thunder of a river. Jimbo knew only too well to whom it belonged as he listened to the rhyme of the West Wind

Take the strain, take the strain; First a heave, then a pull, then again. They'll come over; they'll come over; For the timber wolves are winning once again. Not a very elaborate piece of poetry, and sadly deficient in metre and rhyme; but it certainly did mean much to us when we heard our supporters singing it. We sang it to the tune of "Over there."