The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, April, 1862

Jerry now wears a new hat!

'What poor slaves are the American people!' says the Times' own RUSSELL. 'They may abjure kings and princes, but they are ruled by hotel-keepers and waiters.' The following translation from the Persian shows, however, that a man may be a king or a prince and a hotel-keeper at the same time.

A ROYAL HOTEL-KEEPER

FROM THE PERSIAN. BY HENRY P. LELAND

IBRAM BEN ADHAM at his palace gate,
Sits, while in line his pages round him wait;
When a poor dervish, staff and sack in hand,
Straight would have entered IBRAM'S palace grand.
'Old man,' the pages asked, 'where goest thou now?'
'In that hotel,' he answered, with a bow.
The pages said,—'Ha! dare you call hotel
A palace, where the King of Balkh doth dwell?'
IBRAM the King next to the dervish spoke:
'My palace a hotel? Pray, where's the joke?'
'Who,' asked the dervish, 'owned this palace first?'
'My grandsire,' IBRAM said, while wrath he nursed.
'Who was the next proprietor?' please say.
'My father:' thus the king replied straightway.
'Who hired it then upon your father's death?'
'I did,' King IBRAM answered, out of breath.
'When you shall die, who shall within it dwell?'
'My son,' the King replied. 'Why ask'st thou? Tell!'
'IBRAM!' then spoke the dervish to him straight,
'I'll answer thee, nor longer make thee wait.
The place where travelers come, and go as well,
Is, really, not a palace, but—hotel!'

Yea, friends; and, as another genial poet has discovered, life itself is but a hostelrie or tavern, where some get the highest rooms, while others, of greater social weight, gravitate downwards into the first story, sinking like gold to the bottom of the hotel pan,—that is O.W. HOLMES', his idea, reader, not ours. Apropos of HOLMES and kings—his thousands of reader friends have ere this seen with pleasure that the Emperor of all the French was not unmindful of one of his brother-potentates,—in the world of song,—when he paid OLIVER WENDELL the courteous compliment which has of late gone the rounds, and which conferred as much honor on the giver as the taker thereof.

The Spring poems have begun. Vide licet.

TO AN EARLY BIRD

In homely phrase we oft are told
'Tis early birds that catch the worms;
But certainly that Spring bird there
Don't half believe the aforesaid terms.
He's sorry that he hither flew,
In hopes a forward March to find,
And towards warm climates, whence he came,
To backward march is sore inclined.
Lured by one ray of sunlight, he
Flew northward to our land of snow;
And now, with frozen toes, he stands
On frozen earth:—the worms—below!
Tu whit! whit! whit! he tries in vain
To whistle in a cheerful way;
He feels he's badly sold, and that—
He came too early in the day.
I sprinkle seed and crumbs around;
He quickly flies and famished eats:—
He would have starved to death had he
Relied on proverb-making cheats.

Of the same up-Springings, in higher vein, we have the following:—

APRIL

BY ED. SPRAGUE RAND

Now with the whistling rush of stormy winds,
'Mid weeping skies and smiling, sunny hours,
Comes the young Spring, and scatters, from the pines,
O'er the brown—woodland soft, balsamic showers.

Wake, azure squirrel cups, on grassy hills!
Peep forth, blue violets, upon the heath!
The epigræa from the withered leaves
Sends out the greeting of her perfumed breath.

Nodding anemones within the wood
Shake off the winter's sleep, and haste to greet;
Where in the autumn the blue asters stood,
The saxifrage creeps out, with downy feet.

Nature is waking! From a wreath of snow,
Close by the garden walls, the snowdrop springs;
And the air rings with tender melodies,
Where thro' the dark firs flash the bluebird's wings.

A few days hence, and o'er the distant hills
A tender robe of verdure shall be spread,
And life in myriad forms be manifest,
Where all seemed desolate, and dark, and dead.

E'en now, upon the sunny woodland slopes,
The fair vanessa flits with downy wing;
And in the marshes, with the night's approach,
The merry hylas in full chorus sing.

Patience and faith, all will be bright again.
Take from the present, for the future hours,
The tendered promise. In the storm and rain,
Remember suns shine brighter for the showers.