Low in the tomb of glory
      The old man’s ashes lie—­
    Unuttered this my story,
      Unwritten to human eye;
    And the young man, blessed and blessing,
      Walks over the shady town,
    The evil passions repressing,
      And his head bent humbly down.

    Perhaps he marvels why treasure
      Of the judge to his credit is set,
    And an old revival measure
      Should have been the statesman’s pet. 
    But he hears the invitation,
      And sees the streaming eyes
    Of the old man lost to the nation,
      And forgiven beyond the skies.

DOMINION OVER THE FISH.

“A gift-book for Christmas.  A poem preferred.  Limited text, and profuse illustration.”  What should it be?

As if by invocation, the Ancient Mariner rose before me!  He stood in the doorway of my office, and held me with his glittering eye.  He lifted his skinny hand to his long gray beard, and then gravely tipped his oiled hat.  “The reader for Spry, Stromboli, and Smith?”

I had that honor, and handed him a chair.  He sat in it after the manner of a flounder, concentrated his eye upon me like a star-fish, and produced a roll of manuscript with the fluttering claws of a lobster.  Then he stirred and squirmed, like an elderly eel, looking distrustfully into the vestibule.  I closed the door and begged to be informed of his business.

“I have a great work for you,” he said mysteriously, proffering his manuscript.  As he leaned over to do this, I saw a shining something on the top of his head, but the thick white hair concealed it when he resumed his place.  The manuscript smelled as if it had contained mackerel, and looked as if it had come from the bottom of the sea.  I found, curiously enough, some fish-scales adhering to it, and its title very oddly confirmed these testimonies—­“Five Years in the Great Deep.”

I glanced at the author with some surprise.  He was the quaintest of mariners, and if I had met him leagues under the sea, I should have thought him in his proper element.  His locks were like dry sea-weed; his cheeks were so swollen that they might have contained gills, but this was probably tobacco.  When he wiped his nose with a handkerchief like a scoop-net, some shells and pebbles fell from his pocket, and his ears flapped like a pair of ventrals.  I remarked as he pursued the lost articles over the floor, that he wore a microscope strapped in a leathern case, and a geological hammer belted to his side.  He walked as if habituated to swimming, and when he shrugged his shoulders I expected to see a dorsal fin burst out of the back of his jacket.  He might have been sixty years of age, but looked much older, and behaved like a well-born person, though, superficially judged, he might have lived in Billingsgate.

“A good title for a fiction,” I said encouragingly.

“I never penned a line of fiction in my life,” exclaimed my visitor sternly.