The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1878-08-01

But now Il is night, and the crowds have departed
The vast dim halls are still and deserted,
Only the ghost-like watchmen go,
Through Skinner and shadow to and fro;
While the moon in the sky,
With it's half-shut eye.
Peers smilingly in at his rival below.
At this mysterious hour, what Ia II
That comes to pay the Fair visit
The gates are well barred,
With faithful guard
without and within; and yet fis elest
Somebody-or somethins-is entering here
There is q Parin underground,
Where dwells another nation:
Where neither lawyer nor priest is found,
Nor money nor taxation;
And scarce glimmer, aud scarce q sound
Reaches those solitudes profound,
But silence and darkness close Il round
horrible habitation!
Its streets are the sewers, where rats abound
Where swarms unstiied, unstarved, undrowped
Their ravenous population.
Underground Paris has heard Of the Fair;
And mp from the river, from alley and square,
To the wonderful palace the rats repair;
And one old forager, grizzled and spare
The wisest to plan and the bodest to dare,
To smell out a prize or to find out snare
In some dark corner, beneath some stair
Il never learned how, and never knew where)
Has gnawed his way into the grand affair;
First one rat, and then pair,
And now dozen or more are there
They caper and scamper, and blink and stare,
But little hungry rat will care
For the loveliest lacquered or naid ware,
Jewels most precious, or stufs most rare -
There's marvellous smell of cheese in the air
They all make a rush for the delicate fare;
But the shrewd old fellow tqueaks ont, "Bewsre' !
'Tis prize indeed, but say forbear
For cats may catch us and men may scare,
And well-set trap is q rats depair
But if we wise, and would have our share
With perfect safety to hide and hair,
Nov listen, and we will our plans prepare"
The watchman rouses, the rats are gone;
On thousand windows CLEANS the dawn;
And now once more
Through every door,
With hustle and hustle, the great crowds pour;
And nobody hears a soft little sound,
As Of saving or gnawing, somewhere underground.
At length, the judges, going their round,
Awarding the prizes, enter the hall,
Where, amid cheeses big and small,
Reposes the sovereign OF them all.
They put their tape und it, and tap II and bore It,
And bowling before it,
As if to adore it,
Like worshipers of the sun, they stand
Slice in hand,
Pleased and bland
While their bosoms glow and their hearts expand.
They smell and they taste;
And, the rind replaced,
The foremost, smacking. bis lips, says: "Mes-
seurs
OF all fine cheese at market or fair
Holland or Rochefort, Stiton or Cheshire,
Neufchate, Mianese--
There never was cheese,
am free to declare,
That at all could compare
With this great Gruyere -
In short, SO exceedingly we'll it pleases,
They award it prize over all the cheeses
That prize is the pride of the whole Swiss nation;
And the town of Mule, in its exultatiop,
without dissenting voice. DEGREES
To the poor Of Paris gift of the cheese.
Paris, in grateful recognition
Or this munificence, sends commission
-Four stately officials, of high position
And in behalf q tEsef fFS% PS9t ,hs he Exhibition,
With speeches and tossts, the swiss for tne,.
The speeches they made. the toasts they drank.
Eight Norn,andy horses, strong and swift,
At the entrance wait
For the golden freight;
And ell the porters are there to lift,
prepared Tor a long and a strong embrace
IN inoving His Greatness little space.
They strain at the signal, each man in his place:
Down tumbles, down crumbles, the King of the
Cheeses,
with seven men, all in heap together
Up scramble the portersr with laughter and
While sudden, mighty amazement seizes
The high officials, until they find
curious bore
In the platform floor,
And another to match at the neither rind-
Just one big rat-hole, and no more;
BY which, as it seemed, had ventured in
One rat at first and hundred had followed,
Aud feasted, and left-to the vast chagrin
or the worthy bur2hers of Nulle-as thin
And shabby shell as ever was followed;
Now nothing but just
A crushed-in crust,
A cart-load Of scraps and pungent dust
So the newspapers say but though they call
King Cheese hoax, he was hardly that.
And the poor he fed, as you see, after all
For who is so poor as a Paris rat?
y. T. 1ronbrfdge. IN 81. Nicholas