We're born to rule the human race,
And futurity shall see, oh,
'Mid the world's heroes take their place
That half-immortal Trio

Funny Folks. September 27, 1879.

THE UNIONIST EDITOR's Creed.

WE du believe in freedom's cause,
Except when it in Dublin is;
We do detest Coercion laws,

But not when Erin troublin' is.
It's wal enough for men to spout

Of justice-in elections

But when you're snuffin' Home Rule out-
You're bound to make corrections !

We du believe the Irish want
To do away with juries-
And, for our methods, now we can't
See what on airth more pure is.
When we bring men to common sense
We coax 'em-yes-with fetters.
But other things we reverence-
Partic❜larly forged letters.

We du believe with all our hearts

In the great Press's freedom;
We hit out straight-but poisoned darts
Reserve for such as need' em.
Palsied the arm that forges lies!
Cussed be calumniators!
[N. B. This rule nohow applies
When you fight agitators.]

We du believe whatever trash

'll keep the people in blindness;
Thet we the Irishmen can thrash
Right inter brotherly kindness;
Thet Balfour's bill, an' powder an' ball,
Air goodwill's strongest magnets;
Thet peace, to make it stick at all,
Must be druv in with bagnets!
Pall Mall Gazette. April 28, 1887.

G. W.

"J. C." TO HIMSELF.
From his favourite Poet.

"I DU believe it's wise an' good
To sen' out furrin missions;
Thet is, on sartin understood
An' orthydox conditions ;
I mean '£3,900' per ann.,
Two thousan'' more for outfit,
An' me to recommend the man
The place 'ould jest about fit."

THE RIGHT HON. PROFESSOR CHAMBERLAIN, G. C. B., M. P., ETC., ETC., Returns to town after a short voyage.

PROFESSOR CHAMBERLAIN Undertakes any Fishy Business for the NOBILITY, CLERGY, OR GENTRY, In the most distant Foreign or Colonial Terri-tories.

Who'd expect to see a tater
All on eend at bein' biled?

Ez fer war, I call it murder-
There you hev it plain an' flat;
I don't want to go no furder

Than my Testyment fer thet; God hez sed so plump an' fairly, It's ez long ez it is broad, An' you've gut to git up airly

Ef you want to take in God.

Wut's the use o' meetin'-goin'
Every Sabbath, wet or dry,
Ef it's right to go amowin'

Feller-men like oats an' rye?
I dunno but wut it's pooty

Trainin' round in bobtail coats

But it's curus Christian dooty

This ere cuttin' folks's throats.

Gone, to help the stealer stealing
Bigger pens to cram with slaves,-
Help the men who're always dealing
Insults on their father's graves,-
Help the strong to grind the feeble,-
Wrong the many for the few,-
Helping those who'd not be able,
Renegaders, but for you!

Let our staunch old leader proudly
Still plead on with trumpet tongue,
And proclaim for justice loudly
For the weak against the strong.
Clang the bells in every steeple,
Call all true men to disown
The traducers of the people,

The deserters of their own.

WM. GUISE.

The Liberal and Radical. January 14, 1888.

·:0:

THE OFFICIAL EXPLANATION.

Anent the account of the interview with James Russell Lowell published by Julian Hawthorne, the Chicago News had the following clever verses in imitation of Hosea Biglow:ONE night aside the fire at hum,

Ez I wus settin' nappin',

Deown from the lower hall there come
The seound of some one rappin'.
The son uv old Nat Hawthorne he-
Julian, I think his name wuz-
Uv course he feound a friend in me,
Not knowin' what his game wuz,

And ez we visited a spell.

Our talk ranged wide an wider. And ef we struck dry subjects-well, We washed 'em deown with cider. Neow, with that cider coursin' thru My system an' a playin' Upon my tongue, I hardly knew Just what I was a sayin'.

I kin remember that I spun

A hifalutin' story

Abeout the Prince of Wales, an' one
About old Queen Victory.

But sakes alive! I never dreamed
The cuss would get it printed-
(By that old gal I'm much esteemed,
Ez she hez often hinted).

Oh, if I had that critter now,

You bet your boots I'd larn him
In mighty lively fashion heow

To walk the chalk, gol darn him!
Meanwhile, between his folks an' mine
The breach grows wide an' wider,
And, by the way, it's my design
To give up drinkin' cider.

Received from the Milwaukee Public Library. December

24, 1886.

He that ought to ha' clung while livin'

In his grand old eagle-nest,

He that ought to stand so fearless

While the wrecks around are hurled,

Holding up a beacon peerless

To the oppressed of all the world

:0:

TENNYSON'S LATEST.

(After Mr. Russell Lowell's "The Rose.")

IN his chamber sat the poet,

Striving to make verses free.

"I've a poem," said he; "I'll show it

They'll stand anything from me!

Public praise I know is hollow,

But to publish I'm opprest; Cash will publication follow,

And I've had too long a rest."

Hies a reader on the morrow

Through the busy street called "Strand"; Sees the notice-hastes to borrow

From a friend the verses grand.

Gets them-reads them; thinks he, "Surely,
Tennyson, not this your own?
'Hands all Round '-'tis nonsense, purely,
Worthy Salisbury alone!"

In his chamber sits the poet

Pale his face, his eye is dim ;
See the table-gold o'erflows it—
Publishers have sent it him.
For a time no word he utters-

Fullest hearts the slowest speak-
But at length he feebly mutters,
"I'm astonished at my cheek! "

The Weekly Dispatch. June 25, 1882.

:0:

THE SAGA OF AHAB DOOLIttle.

J. T. G.

WHO hath not thought himself a poet? Who,
Feeling the stubbed pin-feathers pricking through
His greenish gosling-down, but straight misdeems
Himself anointed? They must run their course,
These later measles of the fledgling mind,
Pitting the adolescent rose with brown,
And after, leaving scars; and we must bear,
Who come of other stirp, no end of roil,
Slacken our strings, disorient ourselves,
And turn our ears to huge conchyliar valves
To hear the shell-hum that would fain be sea.

O guarding thorn of Life's dehiscent bud,
Exasperation! Did we clip thee close,
Disarm ourselves with non-resistent shears,
And leave our minds demassachusetted,

What fence 'gainst inroad of the spouting throng?
For Fame's a bird that in her wayward sweep
Gossips to all; then, raven-like, comes home
Hoarse-voiced as autumn, and, as autumn leaves
Behind her, blown by all the postal winds,
Letters and manuscripts from unknown hands.
Thus came not Ahab's: his he brought himself,
One morn, so clear with impecunious gold.
I said: "Chaucer yet lives, and Calderon !
And, letting down the gangways of the mind
For shipment from the piers of common life,

O'er Learning's ballast meant some lighter freight
To stow, for export to Macarian Isles

But it was not to be: a tauroid knock

Shook the ash-panels of my door with pain,
And to my vexed "Come in!" Ahab appeared.
Homespun, at least,-thereat I swiftly felt
Somewhat of comfort,-tall, knock-kneed, and gaunt :
Face windy-red, hands horny, large, and loose,

That groped for mine, and finding, dropped at once

As half ashamed and thereupon he grinned.

I waited, silent, till the silence grew

Oppressive but he bore it like a man ;

Then, as my face still queried, opened wide

The stiff portcullis of his rustic speech,

Whence issued words: "You'd hardly kalkelate
That I'm a poet, but I kind o' guess

I be one; so the people say to hum."
Then from his cavernous armpit drew and gave
The singing leaves, not such as erst I knew.
But strange, disjointed, where the unmeasured feet
Staggered allwhither in pursuit of rhyme,
And could not find it: assonance instead,
Cases and verbs misplaced-remediable those-
Broad-shouldered coarseness, fondly meant for wit.

I turned the leaves; his small, gray, hungry eye
Stuck like a burr; agape with hope his mouth.
What could I say? the worn conventional phrase
We use on such occasions,-better wait,
Verse must have time; its seed, like timothy-grass,
Sown in the fall to sprout the following spring,
Is often winter-killed: none can decide;

A single rain-drop prints the eocene,
While crowbars fail on lias: so with song:
The Doom is born in each thing's primitive stuff.

Perchance he understood not; yet I thrust
Some hypodermic hope within his flesh,
Unconsciously; erelong he came again.
Would I but see his latest? I did see;
Shuddered and answered him in a sterner wise.

I love to put the bars up, shutting out
My pasture from the thistle-cropping beasts
Or squealing hybrids, who have range enough
On our New England commons,-whom the Fiend,
Encouragement-of-Native-Talent, feeds,
With windy provender, in Waverley,
And Flag, and Ledger, weakly manger-racks.

Months passed the catbird on the elm-tree sang
What "Free from Ahab!" seemed, and I believed.
But, issuing forth one autumn morn, that shone
As earth were made October twenty-seventh
(Some ancient Bible gives the date), he shot
Across my path as sped from Ensign's bow,
More grewsome, haggard-seeming than before.
Ere from his sinister armpit his right hand

Could pluck the sheets, I thundered forth, "Aroint !"'

Not using the Anglo-Saxon shibboleth, But exorcismal terms, unusual, fierce, Such as would make a saint disintimate. The witless terror in his face nigh stayed My speech, but I was firm and passed him by. Ah, not three weeks were sped ere he again Waylaid me in the meadows, with these words: "I saw thet suthin' riled you, the last time; Be you in sperrits now?"-and drew again— But why go on? I met him yesterday, The nineteenth time,-pale, sad, but patient still. When Hakon steered the dragons, there was place, Though but a thrall's, beside the eagle-helms, For him who rhymed instead of rougher work, For speech is thwarted deed: the Berserk fire But smoulders now in strange attempts at verse, While hammering sword-blows mend the halting rhyme, Give mood and tense unto the well-thewed arm, And turn these ignorant Ahabs into bards! From Diversions of the Echo Club, by Bayard Taylor. These somewhat ponderous lines are written in imitation of Lowell's serious poems, such as "The Cathedral."

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.

An English edition of The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table was published some years ago by Messrs. Chatto and Windus, with an Introduction by Mr. George Augustus Sala. Holmes was not then well known, or understood, in this country, yet surely such a veteran litérateur as Sala might have found some more appropriate opening sentence for his Introduction than this:" Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes is essentially what is termed a 'funny fellow.''

Written of Artemus Ward, Bret Harte, or Mark Twain, the assertion might have been true, though not new, as applied to Holmes it is neither the one, nor the other.

Pathos there is in plenty, with dry humour and playful wit, which occasionally tempt a smile, as in the following poem, though most assuredly it cannot be termed "funny" in the ordinary acceptation of the word.

CONTENTMENT.

"Man wants but little here below."

LITTLE I ask; my wants are few ;
I only wish a hut of stone
(A very plain brown stone will do),
That I may call my own ;-
And close at hand is such a one,
In yonder street that fronts the sun.

Plain food is quite enough for me;

Three courses are as good as ten :If Nature can subsist on three,

Thank Heaven for three. Amen! I always thought cold victual nice,— My choice would be vanilla-ice.

I care not much for gold or land ;—

Give me a mortgage here and there.

Some good bank-stock, some note of hand,
Or trifling railroad share,—

I only ask that Fortune send
A little more than I shall spend.

Honours are silly toys, I know,

And titles are but empty names; I would, perhaps, be Plenipo

But only near St. James;
I'm very sure I should not care
To fill our Gubernator's chair.

Jewels are baubles; 'tis a sin

To care for such unfruitful things ;One good-sized diamond in a pin,

Some, not so large, in rings,

A ruby, and a pearl, or so,
Will do for me;-I laugh at show.

My dame should dress in cheap attire

(Good, heavy silks are never dear);

I own perhaps I might desire

Some shawls of true Cashmere,Some marrowy crapes of China silk, Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk.

I would not have the horse I drive
So fast that folks must stop and stare;
An easy gait-two, forty-five-
Suits me; I do not care ;-
Perhaps, for just a single spurt,
Some seconds less would do no hurt.

Of pictures, I should like to own

Titians and Raphaels three or fourI love so much their style and toneOne Turner, and no more

(A landscape, foreground golden dirt, The sunshine painted with a squirt).

Of books but few,-some fifty score

For daily use, and bound for wear; The rest upon an upper floor ;

Some little luxury there

Of red morocco's gilded gleam,
And vellum rich as country cream.

Busts, cameos, gems,-such things as these,
Which others often show for pride,
I value for their power to please,

And selfish churls deride;

One Stradivarius, I confess,

Two Meerschaums I would fain possess.

Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn,
Nor ape the glittering upstart fool;
Shall not carved tables serve my turn,
But all must be of buhl?
Give grasping pomp its double share,—
I ask but one recumbent chair.

Thus humble let me live and die,

Nor long for Midas' golden touch;
If Heaven more generous gifts deny,
I shall not miss them much,-
Too grateful for the blessing lent
Of simple tastes and mind content!

From The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.

CONTENTMENT.

(A Parody.)

LITTLE I ask; my wants are few
I only wish a hut of stone,
Or one of good plain brick will do
That I may call my own.
And close at hand in Downing Street,
Is just the house my wants to meet.

I care not much for gold or land-
Give me an office fairly paid.
The Premiership was wisely planned

For statesmen such as I was made.
And then, perhaps, five thou' a year
Is not too much of worldly gear.

Honours are silly toys, I know,

And titles are but empty names;