Select Poetry.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 360, 4 January 1879, Page 3

Select Poetry.

THE EARLY FLY. Now, ere to Phoebus' fiery steeds The Eastern gates unclose, The early ily exultant lights Upon the sleeper's nose. Now, off it sails ; now back it comes, By fear nor snore deterred, As gay of heart and light of wing As kden's garden bird. Now looks it with a miner's eye The nasal surface o'er ; Now paus-s at, some favorite spot And sinks its little bore. Now on his side the victim turns And heav s a mifrhty sigh ; Then Howard-like gits up and gits This watchful little ily. Now gaily it resumes its work, When fill again is still ; Now deeper than before inserts Its trenchant little bill. Nov/ fiercely starts the sleeper up. Anil wildly round him glares - Now pours wild words a torrent fortii, As many as he dares. Now grapples he the morning air That early, liy to catch ; _ New grasps his nose and gives it sucli A Icmg,*delicious scratch. Now settles back to sleep again. And as he settles, thinks : A piuk mosquito bar will fix This v/retched little Jenks. TOOTHACHE. To have it out or not—that is the question ; Whether 'tis better for the jaws to suffer The pangs and torments of an aching tooth, Or to take s eel against a host of troubles -Vnd, i y extracting, end them? To pull—to tugNo more ; and by a tug to say we end The toothache, and a thousand natural ills The jaw is heir to—' tis a consummation 'Devoutly to be wished. To pull—to tug— To tug ' perchance to break—ay, there s the rub ; Forin that wrench what agonies may come, When we have half-ciied -dged the stubborn foe, Must give us pause ; there's the respect That makes an'aching tooth of so long a lite ; _ Por who would bear the whips and sting* of pain, The old wife's nostrum, dentist s contumely, The pangs of hope deferred, kind sleep delay, When he himso'f inioht his quietus make Eor one poor shillin : ? Who could fardels heir, To groan and sink beneath a load of pain, _ But that the dread of something lodged within, The linen twisted forceps, from whos ■ pangs No jaw at ea-e returns, puzzles the will And makes it rather bear the ills it has Than ily to others that it knows not of ? Thus dentists do make cowards of us all ; And thus the native hue of lesolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of fear ; \nd many a one, whose courage seeks the door With this regard, his footsteps turns away, Scared at the name of dentist.