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Then would I sweetly sail away

Unto the Happy Isles,

And coast about them day by day,
For many hundred miles.

I should not care to go ashore;
I wish to be alone,

Beyond the reach of any bore
Or of the telephone,

Beyond the newsboys' steady cry

About a suicide;

Perhaps I'm wrong, but when folks die
I wish they had not died.

I want to skirt the Happy Isles
Where no banks ever fail,
Where nothing mortal ever riles,
I want to sail and sail!

I want to steal awhile away
From every cumbering care,

And steal and steal and steal all day;
Why don't you?-I don't dare.

UNKNOWN.

"THE NIGHT AFTER CHRISTMAS." 57

"THE NIGHT AFTER CHRISTMAS."

'Twas the night after Christmas, and all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, excepting a mouse. The stockings were flung in haste over the chair, For hopes of St. Nicholas were no longer there. The children were restlessly tossing in bed,

For the pie and the candy were heavy as lead, While mamma in her kerchief, and I in my gown, Had just made up our minds that we would not lie down,

When out on the lawn there rose such a clatter, I sprang from my chair to see what was the mat

ter.

Away to the window I went with a dash,

Flung open the shutter, and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow, Gave a luster of noon-day to objects below, When what to my long-anxious eyes should appear,

But a horse and a sleigh, both old-fashioned and queer:

With a little old driver, so solemn and slow,
I knew at a glance it must be Dr. Brough.

I drew in my head, and was turning around, When upstairs came the Doctor, with scarcely a sound.

He wore a thick overcoat, made long ago,

And the beard on his chin was white with the

snow.

He spoke a few words, and went straight to his work,

He felt all the pulses,-then turned with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose,

With a nod of his head, to the chimney he goes,— "A spoonful of oil, ma'am, if you have it handy, No nuts and no raisins; no pies and no candy; These tender young stomachs cannot well digest All the sweets that they get; toys and books are the best.

But I know my advice will not find many friends, For the custom of Christmas the other way tends. The fathers and mothers, and Santa Claus, too, Are exceedingly blind. Well, a good-night to you!"

And I heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight,

"These feastings and candies make Doctors'

bills right."

UNKNOWN.

IF YOU WANT A KISS, WHY, TAKE IT. 59

IF YOU WANT A KISS, WHY, TAKE IT.

There's a jolly Saxon proverb

That is pretty much like this,—
That a man is half in heaven

If he has a woman's kiss.
There is danger in delaying,
For the sweetness may forsake it;
So I tell you, bashful lover,

If you want a kiss, why, take it.

Never let another fellow

Steal a march on you in this;
Never let a laughing maiden
See you spoiling for a kiss.
There's a royal way to kissing,

And the jolly ones who make it
Have a motto that is winning,-
If you want a kiss, why, take it.

Any fool may face a cannon,
Anybody wear a crown,

But a man must win a woman
If he'd have her for his own.
Would you have the golden apple,

You must find the tree and shake it;

If the thing is worth the having,
And you want a kiss, why, take it.

Who would burn upon a desert
With a forest smiling by?

Who would change his sunny summer
For a bleak and wintry sky?
Oh, I tell you there is magic,
And you cannot, cannot break it;
For the sweetest part of loving
Is to want a kiss, and take it.

UNKNOWN.

DARWINISM IN THE KITCHEN.

I was takin' off my bonnet

One arternoon at three,
When a hinseck jumped upon it
As proved to be a flea.

Then I takes it to the grate,

Between the bars to stick it,

But I hadn't long to wait

Ere it changed into a cricket.

Says I, "Surelie my senses
Is a-gettin' in a fog!"
So to drown it I commences,

When it halters to a frog.

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