Seems to trace in words of fire,
   On the hearth some omen dire,
      Which the very heart will cramp;
      Faintly burns the lamp!

      Faintly burns the lamp!
   All is still as death around,
   And the eye in mist is drown'd;
   Every sense seems magic-bound.
   Stay! that heavy distant sound;
      Was it the wild huntsman's tramp?
      Faintly burns the lamp!

   With trembling hand the shepherd takes
   The flickering lamp, and towards the cradle,
   In which his infant child is laid,
   With tottering step his way he makes,
   Bumping against each stool and chair,
   And wondering who has put them there,
   Seeing in kettle, pot, and ladle,
   Faces that make the heart afraid:—
   At last the lamp the cradle shows
   Without the child—then out it goes.
   The embers which the strange light threw
   Grow faint—faint—faint—then go out too.

      All is dark as pitch,
   Dismal, desolate and drear,
   Sorrow would compel a tear,
   But the eyes are dry with fear.
   Some ill thing is hov'ring near,
      Werewolf—goblin—witch—
      All is dark as pitch.

   A minute passes, which appears
   As long as half-a-dozen years.
   But while the shepherd's eyeballs stare
   On the black space in dull despair,
   The door flies open, and his wife
   Stands on the threshold, looking wild
   And bearing in her arms the child.
   With her the silver moonbeams come,
   And cheer once more the shepherd's home,
   Waking his deadened soul once more to life.

"My gudeman, oh, my own gudeman! the danger now is past,
I thought I should have died with fear, but all is right at last;
The child is safe—just see its smile; my very heart it warms,—
I feel so strong, no power of ill could snatch it from my arms.

"I fear you will be anger'd sore to think the child was left;
Alas! I had set out upon a little harmless theft;
A stolen cabbage, as you know—such stealing is no crime—
Will always make the cattle thrive, if given at Christmas time.

"While I was in my neighbour's field, resolved my luck to try,
I heard a hurried rustling sound—a monstrous wolf passed by;
And, as he pass'd, a track of fire he seemed to leave behind;
I would have scream'd, but ah! methought my voice I could not find.

"Then, suddenly, just o'er my head, the sky, it seem'd, grew bright,
And close before my eyes there rush'd a form attired in white;
In speed 'twas like the lightning's flash, but yet, methought, it threw
A kindly glance upon me from an eye of gentle blue.

"And while I stood with wonder fix'd, half hopeful, half afraid,
The wolf came back, and at my feet a burthen gently laid.
It was my child; the moon was bright; the hideous beast was gone,
But something seemed to tell me that I was not quite alone."

   The shepherd mused upon the danger past.
    Till in a tone of joy he cried at last:
    "Throw open, throw open, the windows wide,
For now is the hour of my Lady's ride;
The Were-wolf was forced the child to spare,
He dreaded the lady with flowing hair."

BULLS AND BEARS.

THE animals of which we propose to treat,
are to be seen leading a civilised and peaceful
life, in and abour the purlieus of Change
Alley, London; their place of most especial
resort being Capel Court.

Although the subjects of this paper may
not be found described in any current
history of quadrupeds, the reader will not fail to
have observed frequent allusions to them of
late, in the various City articles of the daily
journals. He will there have read, especially
since the affair of the occupation of the
Principalities, how Prince Strongenough has
been carrying everything before him; and
how, in consequence, the Bulls have been
forcing the market. This simply means that
a certain class of stock-jobbers called Bulls,
have been doing their best to force up the value
of the Funds—for their mere amusement,
of course. In like manner, when we
read that Prince Stalkemoff, finding himself
outflanked, has made a retrograde movement,
and that the "Bears" are consequently in a
highly excited state, it need not be feared
that the animals so called in the Regent's
Park Gardens are becoming dangerous; all
that is intended to convey being, that another
class of stock-jobbers known as Bears, are
striving to depress the funded barometer, and
thus usher in a heavy "fall."

It may be said, without the least fear of
contradiction, that the British Stock
Exchange is one of the mightiest engines at
work in the political world, if indeed it be
not the most omnipotent. Monarchs,
diplomatists, statesmen, and generals, all depend
upon its breath for their existence. Diplomacy
and military strategy are children's
toys, the merest air-bubbles in the hands of
negotiators of foreign loans. Place all the
live emperors in the world, with all their
crafty, old, grayheaded prime ministers in one
scale, and in the other, Rothschild or Baring,
and the former would kick the beam.

The despot of some overgrown but pauper
country wants to march an army against a
neighbouring state, to commit some act of
spoliation; or he may only wish to construct
a railway, or to strengthen his fleet. In either
case he is obliged, as a preliminary proceeding,