let the proper training begin early in life, so
shall the best secure the result, and make "the
Child the Father of the Man."

THE MODERN JOSHUA.

A TYNESIDE TALE.

I.

To drag the wheels of Time, and stay their rolling,
    While at their usual speed they rattle by,
Like railway trains that never wait for coaling,
    But on their course swift as an arrow fly,
Has proved a problem beyond man's controlling,
    Though some men have been bold enough to try;
And Joshua thereby gainèd high renown,
Through whom the sun was stayed from going
            down.

II.
King Mycerinus* stole a march on Time
    (Herodotus relates, 'mong other scandals),
Spending his years in revelry sublime,
    And turning night to day with countless candles;
Tom Moore, whose wit is ever in its prime
    When wine and wassail are the theme he handles,
Sings that, to clog his wings, each jolly soul
    Should seize old Time, and souse him in the bowl.

* Herodotus, book ii. ch. cxxxiii.

III.

"Necessity's the mother of invention,"
    The proverb says; but as her father's name
Has ne'er been brought to light, 'tis my intention
    To that paternity to urge the claim
Of one, whose 'cuteness I'm about to mention,—
    A modern Joshua, all unknown to fame,
Who late, without a miracle to brag on,
Contrived the wheels of Time to clap a drag on.

IV.

A northern vicar, whose extensive parish
Shows population scant, and hamlets rarish,
Rode forth one day to its remotest border,
To see his distant flock were all in order;
To warn the careless, and to cheer the sighing,
Relieve the poor, console the sick and dying,
Reprove Job White for that last drunken frolic,
Prescribe some "doctor's stuff" for Sally's colic,
Rebuke the loungers at the "Cat and Bagpipes,"
For boozing half the night and smoking shag pipes;
To write to London about Smith's ''Blind
          Pension,"
To act as Makepeace in some dire dissension;
Collect the club-pence of each thrifty matron,
And blow up those who let their payments late run;
To see about a "place" for Coulson's daughter,
Where she may practise all his wife has taught her;
To urge Joe Scott to send his lads to school,
Instead of hunting rats in "Miller's Pool;"
In short, discharging all those various duties
Which bind him to his flock with ever new ties;
Making the priest round every village steeple
The friend, adviser, pastor, of his people;
While through the whole he works the gospel
         leaven,
Teaching men, still on earth, to live for heaven.
But to my tale, which all this time is waiting,
As if my Pegasus had stopped for baiting.

V.

The church was decked at morning-tide,
    The bridesmaids fluttered fair,
And bride and groom wait side by side,
    But where's the vicar?—Where?

VI.

They've sought him baith in cot and ha',
    He's naewhere to be seen;
And much they fear he's rade awa'
    To far off Halton Green.

VII.

Here was a fix! For twelve o'clock drew near,
    While for their truant vicar they stood sighing:
That hour, by night, to ghosts and goblins dear,
    By day to ardent lovers sorely trying;
Because, if soon the parson don't appear,
    Until next day they must postpone his tying
In nuptial noose as man and wife their neck fast;
Then what a bore to spoil the wedding breakfast!

VIII.

Meanwhile our vicar, passing to the next on
    His list of visitees, had ta'en his seat
By Molly Brown's bedside, to enlarge some text on,
    Which in her present sickness he judged meet;
When, looking up, he saw Jock Graves, the sexton,
    Rush to the window in a blaze of heat,
Exclaiming, breathless, as he popped his head in,
"The weddin', sur! Ye've clean forgot the
           weddin'!"

IX.

"The wedding! Careless mortal I must be!
    You're right, Jock; I'd forgotten all about it."
Then, pulling out his watch, cried, "Let me see!
    Shall I have time yet? No; I greatly doubt it.
However, country clocks don't all agree;
    I'll have a try; there's nothing done without it.
While o'er my head there hangs, to urge a man on,
The bugbear of that Sixty-second Canon."

X.

"Suspensio per triennium ipso facto"
    Is there pronounced on any luckless loon
Of parish priest, who ventures 'gainst this Act to
    Unite a pair of lovers, late or soon,
Except at certain hours, laid down, hoc pacto,
    'Twixt eight o'clock A.M. and twelve at noon,
Save those who show of dignity such high sense
As to provide themselves a "special license."

XI.

This was exacted in the good old days,
    Which every whipper-snapper now disparages,
Its object being, as the Prayer-book says,
    To hinder, as one ought, clandestine marriages.
Our honest church abhors all back-stairs ways,
    Which surely lead to family miscarriages,
And by this canon brings folks to a dead lock
Who choose unlawful hours to enter wedlock.

XII.

Our vicar, not having a moment to spare,
Ran straight to the stable and got out his mare;
He sprang on her back, and he gave her the reins;
He scoured across moors, over fields, along lanes.
Dick Turpin himself didn't make shorter work
As he spurred on Black Bess in his gallop to York;
Nor did famed Tam O'Shanter, who quaked in his
            breeches,
Faster urge his grey Meg as he rode from the
           witches.

XIII.

Like young Lochinvar, who "came out of the west,
And through all the wide Border his steed was the
           best,
He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for
           stone,
He swam"—no Esk river, because there was none;
But ere he arrived at the parish church gate,
The bride all but fainted, the priest was so late;