They cry, " We rot in these dark dens; "
        He careth not a tittle:
   They cry, "We swoon with toil:"  but he
       Thinks Ten Hours' work too little.

   Ghastly is the Dance of Death,
       Ghastlier the Dance of Being—
   A Masque fantastical and strange
       To the hearing and the seeing.

   Lo! here comes a reverend Doctor,
       In the midst of all our troubles,
   Wrangling and grimacing wildly
       Over his own learned bubbles.

   And he mingles with the Masquers,
       And he dances, and he sings,
   Scribbling on the eternal Heavens
       His grotesque imaginings.

   Meanwhile, in the lanes and alleys,
      Souls are slain for want of teaching,
   Which might all have sung one tone
   Of round music, had they known
      More of love and less of preaching.

   Ghastly is the Dance of Death,
      Ghastlier the Dance of Being—
   A Masque fantastical and grim
      To the hearing and the seeing.

   Here's a woman deck'd with pearls,
      As with stars the midnight sky,
   Clad in smooth and warm excess
      And soft superfluity.

   Here's another, hung with rags
      As with weeds of snaky motion,
   That clasp some mouldering palace wall
   On a deserted shore, and crawl
      Idly upon the idle ocean.

   Here's a thing that's half a saint,
      Half a soldier, all a monarch,
   Weighing down a people's life,
      Yet a most embodied Anarch.

   Like a bloodhound, lean and fierce,
      He gnaws Europe; yet his curship
   Talks of God in every act,
      And blasphemes him by such worship.

   Well, who's next? Oh, here's a flaring
      Bonnet Rouge; no mortal stiffer
   ln maintaining his own rights,
      And beheading folks who differ.

   Let those last two pair together,
      With a death's head for a crown
   And a thigh-bone for a sceptre,
      And they'll dance the nations down.

   Ghastly is the Dance of Death,
      Ghastlier the Dance of Being—
   A Masque fantastical and wild
      To the hearing and the seeing.

   Next we have a little statesman
      Of pacific disposition,
   Frowning like a very Mars,
      And talking of his warlike mission.

   After him there comes a trader,
      Bowing till he makes you sick,
   While he vends you a slow poison
      Of red-lead and turmeric.

   Here's a lord with Sunday club,
      Bright and light, to lounge and lunch in,
   Closing up the wayside shop
   Where the poor man used to stop,
      To drink his beer and eat his lunch in.

   Here's a set of idle fellows
      (Wrongfully call'd democratic),
   Inaugurating their Republic
   By breaking glass with stone and clubstick,
      Up from basement-floor to attic.

   Let them mingle with the Masquers,
      And with shouting shake each rafter:
   ln the midst of so much sadness,
      These wild knaves but move our laughter.

   Dost thou see this man? The morning
      Of his life was hard, stern work,
   And the evening closes round him,
      Desolate, and bare, and dark.

   All the toil and sore endeavour,
      The sharp fight fought every day,
   Leaves him still the same grim foeman
      Now that he is old and grey.

   Seest this other man? Birds dancing
      In the heavenward breath of Spring,
   Perfumed flowers in shelter' d gardens,
      Brooks that leap, and laugh, and sing:

   Butterflies within the sunshine,
      Living in one smile of Fate,
   Knowing but the world's adorning,
      Are the symbols of his state.

   Let both mingle with the Masquers,
      And dance on. These sharp extremes
   Are the miserable nightmares
      That behag our waking dreams.

   But the earth is slowly ripening,
      Like a great fruit in the sun,
   And will learn some better dancing
      Ere the centuries are done.

ROBERTSON IN RUSSIA.

MONSIEUR ROBERTSON, whose acquaintance
we made some months ago, and who was then
introduced to us as an artist in ghosts,
practising in Paris at the close of the last
century, has to say, that he was not only
a manufacturer of phantoms, but was a
Power of the Air in another sense, as one of
the most successful balloon travellers of his
own time, and that he did not practise in
France only, but raised ghosts and ascended
to the sky in many countries. He spent
seven years in Russia; and, of Russia as it
was fifty years ago, he tells a trustworthy
tale.

Inducement enough certainly there was
for Monsieur Robertson's expedition to St.
Petersburgh and Moscow. Since Peter the
Great had decreed civilisation to his empire
or his capitals—perhaps we may as well say
only to his capitals—every effort had been
made to carry out his design by encouraging
the visits of Italians, Germans, Frenchmen,
or any other foreigners who had wits, or the