. Whims and oddities : in prose and verse. s hushed, and, with a look profound,The Dominie lays ope the learned page ; 166 THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. (So be it called) although he doth expoundWithout a book, both Greek and Latin sage;Now telleth he of Romes rude infant age,How Romulus was bred in savage wood,By wet-nurse wolf, devoid of wolfish rage;And laid foundation-stone of walls of mud,But watered it, alas! with warm fraternal blood. XXII. Anon, he turns to that Homeric war,How Troy was sieged like Londonderry town ;And stout Achilles at his jaunting-car,Dragged mighty Hector with a bloody c
. Whims and oddities : in prose and verse. s hushed, and, with a look profound,The Dominie lays ope the learned page ; 166 THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. (So be it called) although he doth expoundWithout a book, both Greek and Latin sage;Now telleth he of Romes rude infant age,How Romulus was bred in savage wood,By wet-nurse wolf, devoid of wolfish rage;And laid foundation-stone of walls of mud,But watered it, alas! with warm fraternal blood. XXII. Anon, he turns to that Homeric war,How Troy was sieged like Londonderry town ;And stout Achilles at his jaunting-car,Dragged mighty Hector with a bloody crown:And eke the bard, that sung of their renown,In garb of Greece most beggar-like and torn,He paints, with colly, wandring up and down :Because, at once, in seven cities born ;And so, of parish rights, was, all his days, forlorn. XXIII. Anon, through old Mythology he goes,Of gods defunct, and all their pedigrees,But shuns their scandalous amours, and showsHow Plato wise, and clear-eyd Socrates,Confessd not to those heathen hes and shes;. 0 ! THERE S NOTHING HALF SO SWEET IN LIFE, THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 169 But thro the clouds of the Olympic copeBeheld St. Peter, with his holy keys,And ownd their love was naught, and bowd to Pope,Whilst all their purblind race in Pagan mist did grope. XXIV. From such quaint themes he turns, at last, aside,To new philosophies, that still are green,And shows what rail-roads have been trackd to guideThe wheels of great political machine ;If English corn should grow abroad, I ween,And gold be made of gold, or paper sheet;How many pigs be born to each spalpeen ;And ah! how man shall thrive beyond his meat,—With twenty souls alive, to one square sod of peat! XXV. Here, he makes end; and all the fry of youth,That stood around with serious look intense,Close up again their gaping eyes and mouth,Which they had opened to his eloquence,As if their hearing were a threefold sense;But now the current of his words is done,And whether any fruits shall spri
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