SELECT POETRY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume II, Issue 262, 4 November 1867, Page 2

SELECT POETRY.

VOLUNTEER DRILLING. Sweet Amy said, with pleading eyes, ' Dear Charlie, tell me (will you ?-) The words I've heard your captain say,— I should so like to drill you.' * What, Amy, pet, you take comraandl Well, Amy. I'm quite willing; In such a company as yours, I cant't have too much drilling. ' Stand over there, and sing out clear Like this — 'Squad— stand at ease' — 'Oh, Charles, you'll wake papa upstairs, Don't shout like that, dear, please.' | 'I stand at ease like this. you see, And then I scarce need mention, The next command you'll have to give Is, 'Now then, j-'quad — ' attention.' 'Now, Amy, smartly after me, You're sure, dear, it don't bore you, 'Forward'— 'Quick March' — ' Halt' — 'Front' 'Right dress;'— There now, I'm close before you. ' Present arms.'— Well, it does look odd; (You don't believe I'd trifle;) We hold our arms straight out like this In drill without the rifle. ' Now say, ' Salute your officer.' ' Oh, Charles, for shame, how can you? I thought that you were at some trick, You horrid cheating man, jou.' Charles ' ordered arms;' without command She smoothed her rumpled hair, Touted aiul frowned, and blushed— and then — Said sofdy, 'As you were.' Once a Week.

A recent circular of the Cardinal Archbishop of Be.san-,-on to his clergy, exhorting theni to make efforts to obtain donations fromi heir flocks for charitable purposes, con'ains this curious passage: — i have compromised my present and my future. I give to the poor and to churches, and secretly or openly t ) a host of people ia distress, us much as 1 can, even more than-jj can. Ido not keep a carriage. I wear shoes with holes in them, and my cassock is pat hed. You have seen more than once my patched skeves. I laugh at all that. God knows why Ido it. lam anxious to save in my pecuniary expeudiures for the service of my Master, and am content to wear UU livery. Horace Walpole records in his Waipoliana an I In<h bail, which he pronounces to be the hest he ever met wiih. ' I hate that woman.' said a gentleman looking at a person who had been his nurse; 'I hate her, for when I was a child, she changed nic at nurse.' This was indeed a perplexing assertion; but we have a similar instance recorded in the autobiography of an Irishman, who gravely informs us that he 'ran away early in lite from his father on discovering he was only his uncle.' ' VVe see.' said ?wift, in one of his most sarcastic moods, • what God thinks of riches by the people he gives them to.'