POETRY.
A HEAD MASTER'S SOLILOQUY.
" A FRIEND in the playground, a scholar in school,
A master to teach, and a master to rule ; Who holds a firm hand without using the cane, And guides boys by love 'stead of forcing by pain.
A gentleman also, I'm bound to admit, High-minded and zealous, and every way fit For the post that he holds,—and a Christian too ; But alas ! a Dissenter ; and so he won't do For a master of Perse, where one's social position Is really, you see, an essential condition.
No doubt, he is all very well in his line, But a Noncon. shall never be colleague of mine ; His creed must be false, though his life's in the right, And a Methodist is not respectable, quite ;- One hardly knows what, but there's something about him Which makes it a duty for Churchmen to scout him.
What matter his virtues, his scholarship too !
A Dissenter takes rank with a Turk or a Jew ; And to speak my mind plainly, I hate the whole crew.
What, then, must be done ? It is time he should know That at Perse his Dissent is not yet comme it fact.
And though for five years Mr. M— has been Master, And dismissal may prove a most painful disaster, Yet schismatics are vulgar, Dissent unrefined, And my teachers shall all hold a creed to my mind.
Indeed, 'tis a service I owe to the school, And to snub a Dissenter's an excellent rule ; So I'll write him a letter, and tell him 'twere best That a bird of his feather should find a new nest." J. D.
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