Lines To A Stupid Picture.

"--the music of the moon     Sleeps in the plain eggs of the nightingale."     Aylmer's Field.     Five geese,--a landscape damp and wild,--     A stunted, not too pretty, child,     Beneath a battered gingham;     Such things, to say the least, require     A Muse of more-than-average Fire     Effectively to sing 'em.     And yet--Why should they? Souls of mark     Have sprung from such;--e'en Joan of Arc     Had scarce a grander duty;     Not always ('tis a maxim trite)     From righteous sources comes the right,--     From beautiful, the beauty.     Who shall decide where seed is sown?     Maybe some priceless germ was blown     To this unwholesome marish;     (And what must grow will still increase,     Though cackled round by half the geese     And ganders in the parish.)     Maybe this homely face may hide     A Stal before whose mannish pride     Our frailer sex shall tremble;     Perchance this audience anserine     May hiss (O fluttering Muse of mine!)--     May hiss--a future Kemble!     Or say the gingham shadows o'er     An undeveloped Hannah More!--     A latent Mrs. Trimmer!!     Who shall affirm it?--who deny?--     Since of the truth nor you nor I     Discern the faintest glimmer?     So then--Caps off, my Masters all;     Reserve your final word,--recall     Your all-too-hasty strictures;     Caps off, I say, for Wisdom sees     Undreamed potentialities     In most unhopeful pictures.