Don't we, Charley? - Our Muther,
Whenever we whips one-anuther,

Tries to whip us-an' we run —
Don't we, Charley? - An' nen, bime-by,
Nen she gives us cake-an' pie -
Don't she, Charley? - when we come in
An' p'omise never to do it agin!

He's named Charley. - I'm Willie
An' I'm got the purtiest name!
But Uncle Bob he calls me "Billy"
Don't he, Charley? - 'Nour filly

We named "Billy," the same

Ist like me! An' our Ma said

66

'At Bob put foolishnuss into our head! Didn' she, Charley? - An' she don't know Much about boys! - 'Cause Bob said so!

Baby's a funniest feller!

Naint no hair on his head
Is they, Charley? It's meller
Wite up there! An' ef Belle er

Us ask wuz we that way, Ma said, "Yes; an' yer Pa's head wuz soft as that, An' it's that way yet!"-An' Pa grabs his hat An' says, "Yes, childern, she's right about Pa'Cause that's the reason he married yer Ma!"

An' our Ma says 'at "Belle couldn'

Ketch nothin' at all but ist "bows!'
An' Pa says 'at "you're soft as puddun!".
An' Uncle Bob says "you're a good-un –

'Cause he can tell by yer nose!" Didn' he, Charley? And when Belle'll play In the poller on th' pianer, some day,

Bob makes up funny songs about you,

Till she gits mad-like he wants her to!

Our sister Fanny, she's 'leven

Years old. 'At's mucher 'an I Ain't it, Charley? . . . I'm seven! But our sister Fanny's in Heaven! Nere's where you go ef you die!

Don't you, Charley? Nen you has wings·
Ist like Fanny! — an' purtiest things! -
Don't you, Charley? An' nen you can fly —
Ist fly-an' ever'thing!... Wisht I'd die!

James Whitcomb Riley

66

FAITHLESS SALLY BROWN

Young Ben he was a nice young man,
A carpenter by trade;

And he fell in love with Sally Brown,
That was a lady's maid.

But as they fetched a walk one day,
They met a press-gang crew;
And Sally she did faint away,

Whilst Ben he was brought to.

The boatswain swore with wicked words,
Enough to shock a saint,

That though she did seem in a fit,

'Twas nothing but a feint.

Come, girl," said he, "hold up your head,
He'll be as good as me;

For when your swain is in our boat,

A boatswain he will be."

So when they'd made their game of her,

And taken off her elf,

She roused, and found she only was
A coming to herself.

"And is he gone, and is he gone?"

Alas! they've taken my beau, Ben,

To sail with old Benbow;
And her woe began to run afresh,
As if she'd said, “Gee woe!”

Says he, "They've only taken him
To the Tender-ship, you see;'
The Tender-ship," cried Sally Brown,
"What a hard-ship that must be!

"O! would I were a mermaid now, For then I'd follow him;

But, O! I'm not a fish-woman,

And so I cannot swim.

Alas! I was not born beneath
The virgin and the scales,
So I must curse my cruel stars,
And walk about in Wales."

Now Ben had sailed to many a place
That's underneath the world;
But in two years the ship came home,
And all her sails were furled.

But when he called on Sally Brown,
To see how she got on,
He found she'd got another Ben,
Whose Christian name was John.

"O, Sally Brown, O, Sally Brown,
How could you serve me so?
I've met with many a breeze before,
But never such a blow!"

Then reading on his 'bacco-box,
He heaved a heavy sigh,
And then began to eye his pipe,
And then to pipe his eye.

And then he tried to sing "All's Well,"
But could not, though he tried;
His head was turned, and so he chewed
His pigtail till he died.

His death, which happened in his berth,

At forty-odd befell:

They went and told the sexton, and

The sexton tolled the bell.

Thomas Hood

FIRST LOVE

O my earliest love, who, ere I number'd
Ten sweet summers, made my bosom thrill!
Will a swallow - or a swift, or some bird -
Fly to her and say, I love her still?

Say my life's a desert drear and arid,
To its one green spot I aye recur:
Never, never - although three times married -
Have I cared a jot for aught but her.

No, mine own! though early forced to leave you,
Still my heart was there where first we met;
In those "Lodgings with an ample sea-view,"
Which were, forty years ago, "To Let."

There I saw her first, our landlord's oldest
Little daughter. On a thing so fair

Thou, O Sun,
Everything,

There she sat

Than a star

who (so they say) beholdest
hast gazed, I tell thee, ne'er.

so near me, yet remoter

a blue-eyed, bashful imp:

On her lap she held a happy bloater,

'Twixt her lips a yet more happy shrimp.

And I loved her, and our troth we plighted
On the morrow by the shingly shore:

In a fortnight to be disunited

By a bitter fate forevermore.

O my own, my beautiful, my blue-eyed!

To be young once more, and bite my thumb

At the world and all its cares with you, I'd
Give no inconsiderable sum.

Hand in hand we tramp'd the golden seaweed,

Soon as o'er the gray cliff peep'd the dawn: Side by side, when came the hour for tea, we'd Crunch the mottled shrimp and hairy prawn:

Has she wedded some gigantic shrimper,

That sweet mite with whom I loved to play? Is she girt with babes that whine and whimper, That bright being who was always gay?

Yes - she has at least a dozen wee things!
Yes I see her darning corduroys,
Scouring floors, and setting out the tea-things,
For a howling herd of hungry boys,

In a home that reeks of tar and sperm-oil!
But at intervals she thinks, I know,

Of those days which we, afar from turmoil,
Spent together forty years ago.

O my earliest love, still unforgotten,

With your downcast eyes of dreamy blue!
Never, somehow, could I seem to cotton
To another as I did to you!

Charles Stuart Calverley

A DIALOGUE FROM PLATO

"Le temps le mieux employé est celui qu' on perd."

I'd read three hours. Both notes and text
Were fast a mist becoming;

In bounced a vagrant bee, perplexed,
And filled the room with humming,

Then out. The casement's leafage sways,

And, parted light, discloses

Miss Di., with hat and book,

Of muslin mixed with roses.

a maze

"You're reading Greek?" "I am — and you?” "O, mine's a mere romancer!"