Page images
PDF
EPUB

He said that I was proud, mother, that I look'd for rank and gold,

He said I did not love him, — he said my words were cold; He said I'd kept him off and on, in hopes of higher game, And it may be that I did, mother; but who hasn't done the same?

I did not know my heart, mother, I know it now too late;

I thought that I without a pang could wed some nobler

mate;

But no nobler suitor sought me, and he has taken wing, And my heart is gone, and I am left a lone and blighted thing.

You may lay me in my bed, mother, — my head is throbbing

sore;

And, mother, prithee, let the sheets be duly aired before; And, if you'd please, my mother dear, your poor desponding child,

Draw me a pot of beer, mother, and mother, draw it mild!

William E. Aytoun

In the Bon Gaultier Ballads

ODE TO TOBACCO

Thou who, when fears attack,
Bidst them avaunt, and Black
Care, at the horseman's back
Perching, unseatest;

Sweet, when the morn is gray;
Sweet, when they've cleared away
Lunch; and at close of day
Possibly sweetest:

I have a liking old

For thee, though manifold
Stories, I know, are told,
Not to thy credit;

How one (or two at most)
Drops make a cat a ghost-

Useless, except to roast-
Doctors have said it:

How they who use fusees
All grow by slow degrees
Brainless as chimpanzees,
Meagre as lizards;

Go mad, and beat their wives;
Plunge (after shocking lives)
Razors and carving knives
Into their gizzards.

Confound such knavish tricks!
Yet know I five or six
Smokers who freely mix

'Still with their neighbors;
Jones (who, I'm glad to say,
Asked leave of Mrs. J.) –
Daily absorbs a clay

After his labors.

Cats may have had their goose
Cooked by tobacco-juice;

Still why deny its use

Thoughtfully taken?

We're not as tabbies are:

Smith, take a fresh cigar!

Jones, the tobacco-jar!

Here's to thee, Bacon!

Charles Stuart Calverley

THE SCHOOLMASTER

ABROAD WITH HIS SON

O what harper could worthily harp it,
Mine Edward! this wide-stretching wold
(Look out wold) with its wonderful carpet
Of emerald, purple, and gold!

Look well at it also look sharp, it

Is getting so cold.

The purple is heather (erica);

The yellow, gorse call'd sometimes "whin."
Cruel boys on its prickles might spike a
Green beetle as if on a pin.

You may roll in it, if you would like a
Few holes in your skin.

You wouldn't? Then think of how kind you Should be to the insects who crave

Your compassion — and then, look behind you At yon barley-ears! Don't they look brave As they undulate - (undulate, mind you,

From unda, a wave).

[ocr errors]

The noise of those sheep-bells, how faint it Sounds here (on account of our height)! And this hillock itself — who could paint it, With its changes of shadow and light?

[ocr errors]

Is it not- (never, Eddy, say “ain't it ") —
A marvelous sight?

Then yon desolate eerie morasses,

The haunts of the snipe and the hern-
(I shall question the two upper classes
On aquatiles, when we return)
Why, I see on them absolute masses
Of filix or fern.

How it interests e'en a beginner
(Or tiro) like dear little Ned!
Is he listening? As I am a sinner

He's asleep - he is wagging his head.
Wake up! I'll go home to my dinner,
And you to your bed.

The boundless ineffable prairie;

The splendor of mountain and lake With their hues that seem ever to vary; The mighty pine forests which shake In the wind, and in which the unwary May tread on a snake;

And this wold with its heathery garment -
Are themes undeniably great.

But - although there is not any harm in't—
It's perhaps little good to dilate
On their charms to a dull little varmint

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, That was built in such a logical way

It ran a hundred years to a day,

And then, of a sudden, it—ah, but stay,
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,

Frightening people out of their wits, -
Have you ever heard of that, I say?

[ocr errors]

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus was then alive,
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock's army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.

It was on the terrible Earthquake-day
That the deacon finished the one-hoss shay.

Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,
There is always somewhere a weakest spot, -
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, lurking still,
Find it somewhere you must and will,
Above or below, or within or without,
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,

That a chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out.

But the deacon swore (as deacons do,
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou ")
He would build one shay to beat the taown
'N' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';

It should be so built that it couldn' break daown: "Fur," said the deacon, "'t's mighty plain

That the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain; 'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,

Is only jest

T' make that place uz strong uz the rest."

So the deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke, -
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thills;

The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees,
The panels of white-wood that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;

The hubs of logs from the "Settler's Ellum,"
Last of its timber, they couldn't sell 'em,

[ocr errors]

Never an axe had seen their chips,

And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,

Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin, too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;

Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through.'
"There," said the deacon, "Naow she'll dew!"

Do! I tell you, I rather guess

She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,

[ocr errors]

Children and grandchildren where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-Earthquake-day!

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED; it came and found
The deacon's masterpiece strong and sound,

« PreviousContinue »