FROM "CURIOSITY"

THE NEWS

No tongue so vile but finds a kindred ear; Swift flies each tale of laughter, shame, or folly,

Caught by Paul Pry and carried home to
Polly;

On this each foul calumniator leans,
And nods and hints the villany he means:
Full well he knows what latent wildfire lies
In the close whisper and the dark surmise;
A muffled word, a wordless wink has woke
A warmer throb than if a Dexter spoke;
And he, o'er Everett's periods who would
nod,

To track a secret, half the town has trod.

O thou, from whose rank breath nor sex

can save,

Nor sacred virtue, nor the powerless grave,

Felon unwhipped! than whom in yonder cells

Full many a groaning wretch less guilty dwells,

Blush-if of honest blood a drop remains To steal its lonely way along thy veins, Blush-if the bronze, long hardened on thy cheek,

Has left a spot where that poor drop can speak;

Blush to be branded with the slanderer's name,

And, though thou dreadst not sin, at least dread shame.

We hear, indeed, but shudder while we hear The insidious falsehood and the heartless jeer;

For each dark libel that thou lickest to

What keeps her waking in that dreary hour?

See where the volume on her pillow lies Claims Radcliffe or Chapone those frequent sighs?

'Tis some wild legend now her kind eye fills,

And now cold terror every fibre chills;
Still she reads on - in fiction's labyrinth

lost,

--

Of tyrant fathers, and of true love crossed; Of clanking fetters, low, mysterious groans, Blood-crusted daggers, and uncoffined bones,