When Liberverm resigned the chairOf This or That in college, whereFor two decades he'd gorged his brainWith more than it could well contain,In order to relieve the stressHe took to writing for the press.Then Pondronummus said, "I'll helpThis mine of talent to devel'p;"And straightway bought with coin and creditTheThundergustfor him to edit.The great man seized the pen and inkAnd wrote so hard he couldn't think;Ideas grew beneath his fistAnd flew like falcons from his wrist.His pen shot sparks all kinds of waysTill all the rivers were ablaze,And where the coruscations fellMen uttered words I dare not spell.Eftsoons with corrugated brow,Wet towels bound about his pow,Locked legs and failing appetite,He thought so hard he couldn't write.His soaring fancies, chickenwise,Came home to roost and wouldn't rise.With dimmer light and milder heatHis goose-quill staggered o'er the sheet,Then dragged, then stopped; the finish came—He couldn't even write his name.TheThundergustin three short weeksHad risen, roared, and split its cheeks.Said Pondronummus, "How unjust!The storm I raised has laid my dust!"When, Moneybagger, you have aughtInvested in a vein of thought,Be sure you've purchased not, instead,That salted claim, a bookworm's head.
O very remarkable mortal,What food is engaging your jawsAnd staining with amber their portal?"It's 'baccy I chaws."And why do you sway in your walking,To right and left many degrees,And hitch up your trousers when talking?"I follers the seas."Great indolent shark in the rollers,Is "'baccy," too, one of your faults?—You, too, display maculate molars."I dines upon salts."Strange diet!—intestinal pain itIs commonly given to nip.And how can you ever obtain it?"I follers the ship."
"I beg you to note," said a Man to a Goose,As he plucked from her bosom the plumage all loose,"That pillows and cushions of feathers and bedsAs warm as maids' hearts and as soft as their heads,Increase of life's comforts the general sum—Which raises the standard of living." "Come, come,"The Goose said, impatiently, "tell me or cease,How that is of any advantage to geese.""What, what!" said the man—"you are very obtuse!Consumption no profit to those who produce?No good to accrue to Supply from a grandProgressive expansion, all round, of Demand?Luxurious habits no benefit bringTo those who purvey the luxurious thing?Consider, I pray you, my friend, how the growthOf luxury promises—" "Promises," quothThe sufferer, "what?—to what course is it pledgedTo pay me for being so often defledged?""Accustomed"—this notion the plucker expressedAs he ripped out a handful of down from her breast—"To one kind of luxury, people soon yearnFor others and ever for others in turn;And the man who to-night on your feathers will rest,His mutton or bacon or beef to digest,His hunger to-morrow will wish to assuageBy dining on goose with a dressing of sage."
"I've found the secret of your charm," I said,Expounding with complacency my guess.Alas! the charm, even as I named it, fled,For all its secret was unconsciousness.
I reckon that ye never knew,That dandy slugger, Tom Carew,He had a touch as light an' freeAs that of any honey-bee;But where it lit there wasn't muchTo jestify another touch.O, what a Sunday-school it wasTo watch him puttin' up his pawsAn' roominate upon their heft—Particular his holy left!Tom was my style—that's all I say;Some others may be equal gay.What's come of him? Dunno, I'm sure—He's dead—which make his fate obscure.I only started in to clearOne vital p'int in his career,Which is to say—afore he diedHe soiled his erming mighty snide.Ye see he took to politicsAnd learnt them statesmen-fellers' tricks;Pulled wires, wore stovepipe hats, used scent,Just like he was the President;Went to the Legislator; spokeRight out agin the British yoke—But that was right. He let his hairGrow long to qualify for Mayor,An' once or twice he poked his snootIn Congress like a low galoot!It had to come—no gent can hopeTo wrastle God agin the rope.Tom went from bad to wuss. Being dead,I s'pose it oughtn't to be said,For sech inikities as flowFrom politics ain't fit to know;But, if you think it's actin' whiteTo tell it—Thomas throwed a fight!
As time rolled on the whole world came to beA desolation and a darksome curse;And some one said: "The changes that you seeIn the fair frame of things, from bad to worse,Are wrought by strikes. The sun withdrew his glimmerBecause the moon assisted with her shimmer."Then, when poor Luna, straining very hard,Doubled her light to serve a darkling world,He called her 'scab,' and meanly would retardHer rising: and at last the villain hurledA heavy beam which knocked her o'er the LionInto the nebula of great O'Ryan."The planets all had struck some time before,Demanding what they said were equal rights:Some pointing out that others had far moreThat a fair dividend of satellites.So all went out—though those the best provided,If they had dared, would rather have abided."The stars struck too—I think it was becauseThe comets had more liberty than they,And were not bound by any hampering laws,Whiletheywere fixed; and there are those who sayThe comets' tresses nettled poor Altair,An aged orb that hasn't any hair."The earth's the only one that isn't inThe movement—I suppose because she's watchedWith horror and disgust how her fair skinHer pranking parasites have fouled and blotchedWith blood and grease in every labor riot,When seeing any purse or throat to fly at."
"The world is dull," I cried in my despair:"Its myths and fables are no longer fair."Roll back thy centuries, O Father Time.To Greece transport me in her golden prime."Give back the beautiful old Gods again—The sportive Nymphs, the Dryad's jocund train,"Pan piping on his reeds, the Naiades,The Sirens singing by the sleepy seas."Nay, show me but a Gorgon and I'll dareTo lift mine eyes to her peculiar hair"(The fatal horrors of her snaky pate,That stiffen men into a stony state)"And die—erecting, as my soul goes hence,A statue of myself, without expense."Straight as I spoke I heard the voice of Fate:"Look up, my lad, the Gorgon sisters wait."Raising my eyes, I saw Medusa stand,Stheno, Euryale, on either hand.I gazed unpetrified and unappalled—The girls had aged and were entirely bald!
Sleep fell upon my senses and I dreamedLong years had circled since my life had fled.The world was different, and all things seemedRemote and strange, like noises to the dead.And one great Voice there was; and something said:"Posterity is speaking—rightly deemedInfallible:" and so I gave attention,Hoping Posterity my name would mention."Illustrious Spirit," said the Voice, "appear!While we confirm eternally thy fame,Before our dread tribunal answer, here,Why do no statues celebrate thy name,No monuments thy services proclaim?Why did not thy contemporaries rearTo thee some schoolhouse or memorial college?It looks almighty queer, you must acknowledge."Up spake I hotly: "That is where you err!"But some one thundered in my ear: "You shan'tBe interrupting these proceedings, sir;The question was addressed to General Grant."Some other things were spoken which I can'tDistinctly now recall, but I infer,By certain flushings of my cheeks and forehead,Posterity's environment is torrid.Then heard I (this was in a dream, remark)Another Voice, clear, comfortable, strong,As Grant's great shade, replying from the dark,Said in a tone that rang the earth along,And thrilled the senses of the Judges' throng:"I'd rather you would question why, in parkAnd street, my monuments were not erectedThan why they were." Then, waking, I reflected.
Enoch Arden was an ableSeaman; hear of his mishap—Not in wild mendacious fable,As 't was told by t' other chap;For I hold it is a youthfulIndiscretion to tell lies,And the writer that is truthfulHas the reader that is wise.Enoch Arden, able seaman,On an isle was cast away,And before he was a freemanTime had touched him up with gray.Long he searched the fair horizon,Seated on a mountain top;Vessel ne'er he set his eyes onThat would undertake to stop.Seeing that his sight was growingDim and dimmer, day by day,Enoch said he must be going.So he rose and went away—Went away and so continuedTill he lost his lonely isle:Mr. Arden was so sinewedHe could row for many a mile.Compass he had not, nor sextant,To direct him o'er the sea:Ere 't was known that he was extant,At his widow's home was he.When he saw the hills and hollowsAnd the streets he could but know,He gave utterance as followsTo the sentiments below:"Blast my tarry toplights! (shiver,Too, my timbers!) but, I say,W'at a larruk to diskiver,I have lost me blessid way!"W'at, alas, would be my bloomin'Fate if Philip now I see,Which I lammed?—or my old 'oman,Which has frequent bastedme?"Scenes of childhood swam around himAt the thought of such a lot:In a swoon his Annie found himAnd conveyed him to her cot.'T was the very house, the garden,Where their honeymoon was passed:'T was the place where Mrs. ArdenWould have mourned him to the last.Ah, what grief she'd known without him!Now what tears of joy she shed!Enoch Arden looked about him:"Shanghaied!"—that was all he said.
Two bodies are lying in Phoenix Park,Grim and bloody and stiff and stark,And a Land League man with averted eyeCrosses himself as he hurries by.And he says to his conscience under his breath:"I have had no hand in this deed of death!"A Fenian, making a circuit wideAnd passing them by on the other side,Shudders and crosses himself and cries:"Who says that I did it, he lies, he lies!"Gingerly stepping across the gore,Pat Satan comes after the two before,Makes, in a solemnly comical way,The sign of the cross and is heard to say:"O dear, what a terrible sight to see,For babes like them and a saint like me!"1882.
I ne'er could be entirely fondOf any maiden who's a blonde,And no brunette that e'er I sawHad charms my heart's wholewarmth to draw.Yet sure no girl was ever madeJust half of light and half of shade.And so, this happy mean to get,I love a blonde and a brunette.
Study good women and ignore the rest,For he best knows the sex who knows the best.
From pride, joy, hate, greed, melancholy—From any kind of vice, or folly,Bias, propensity or passionThat is in prevalence and fashion,Save one, the sufferer or loverMay, by the grace of God, recover:Alone that spiritual tetter,The zeal to make creation better,Glows still immedicably warmer.Who knows of a reformed reformer?
Hail, peerless Pun! thou last and best,Most rare and excellent bequestOf dying idiot to the witHe died of, rat-like, in a pit!Thyself disguised, in many a wayThou let'st thy sudden splendor play,Adorning all where'er it turns,As the revealing bull's-eye burns,Of the dim thief, and plays its trickUpon the lock he means to pick.Yet sometimes, too, thou dost appearAs boldly as a brigadierTricked out with marks and signs, all o'er,Of rank, brigade, division, corps,To show by every means he canAn officer is not a man;Or naked, with a lordly swagger,Proud as a cur without a wagger,Who says: "See simple worth prevail—All dog, sir—not a bit of tail!"'T is then men give thee loudest welcome,As if thou wert a soul from Hell come.O obvious Pun! thou hast the graceOf skeleton clock without a case—With all its boweling displayed,And all its organs on parade.Dear Pun, you're common ground of bliss,WherePunchand I can meet and kiss;Than thee my wit can stoop no low'r—No higher his does ever soar.
O statesmen, what would you be at,With torches, flags and bands?You make me first throw up my hat,And then my hands.
Dear, if I never saw your face again;If all the music of your voice were muteAs that of a forlorn and broken lute;If only in my dreams I might attainThe benediction of your touch, how vainWere Faith to justify the old pursuitOf happiness, or Reason to confuteThe pessimist philosophy of pain.Yet Love not altogether is unwise,For still the wind would murmur in the corn,And still the sun would splendor all the mere;And I—I could not, dearest, choose but hearYour voice upon the breeze and see your eyesShine in the glory of the summer morn.
Down in the state of Maine, the story goes,A woman, to secure a lapsing pension,Married a soldier—though the good Lord knowsThat very common act scarce calls for mention.What makes it worthy to be writ and read—The man she married had been nine hours dead!Now, marrying a corpse is not an actFamiliar to our daily observation,And so I crave her pardon if the factSuggests this interesting speculation:Should some mischance restore the man to lifeWould she be then a widow, or a wife?Let casuists contest the point; I'm notDisposed to grapple with so great a matter.'T would tie my thinker in a double knotAnd drive me staring mad as any hatter—Though I submit that hatters are, in fact,Sane, and all other human beings cracked.Small thought have I of Destiny or Chance;Luck seems to me the same thing as Intention;In metaphysics I could ne'er advance,And think it of the Devil's own invention.Enough of joy to know though when I wedImustbe married, yet Imaybe dead.
"Resolved that we will post," the tradesmen say,"All names of debtors who do never pay.""Whose shall be first?" inquires the ready scribe—"Who are the chiefs of the marauding tribe?"Lo! high Parnassus, lifting from the plain,Upon his hoary peak, a noble fane!Within that temple all the names are scrolledOf village bards upon a slab of gold;To that bad eminence, my friend, aspire,And copy thou the Roll of Fame, entire.Yet not to total shame those names devote,But add in mercy this explaining note:"These cheat because the law makes theft a crime,And they obey all laws but laws of rhyme."
"Let music flourish!" So he said and died.Hark! ere he's gone the minstrelsy begins:The symphonies ascend, a swelling tide,Melodious thunders fill the welkin wide—The grand old lawyers, chinning on their chins!
"Authority, authority!" they shoutWhose minds, not large enough to hold a doubt,Some chance opinion ever entertain,By dogma billeted upon their brain."Ha!" they exclaim with choreatic glee,"Here's Dabster if you won't give in to me—Dabster, sir, Dabster, to whom all men lookWith reverence!" The fellow wrote a book.It matters not that many another wightHas thought more deeply, could more wisely writeOn t' other side—that you yourself possessKnowledge where Dabster did but faintly guess.God help you if ambitious to persuadeThe fools who take opinion ready-madeAnd "recognize authorities." Be sureNo tittle of their folly they'll abjureFor all that you can say. But write it down,Publish and die and get a great renown—Faith! how they'll snap it up, misread, misquote,Swear that they had a hand in all you wrote,And ride your fame like monkeys on a goat!
The King of Scotland, years and years ago,Convened his courtiers in a gallant rowAnd thus addressed them:"Gentle sirs, from youAbundant counsel I have had, and true:What laws to make to serve the public weal;What laws of Nature's making to repeal;What old religion is the only true one,And what the greater merit of some new one;What friends of yours my favor have forgot;Which of your enemies against me plot.In harvests ample to augment my treasures,Behold the fruits of your sagacious measures!The punctual planets, to their periods just,Attest your wisdom and approve my trust.Lo! the reward your shining virtues bring:The grateful placemen bless their useful king!But while you quaff the nectar of my favorI mean somewhat to modify its flavorBy just infusing a peculiar dashOf tonic bitter in the calabash.And should you, too abstemious, disdain it,Egad! I'll hold your noses till you drain it!"You know, you dogs, your master long has feltA keen distemper in the royal pelt—A testy, superficial irritation,Brought home, I fancy, from some foreign nation.For this a thousand simples you've prescribed—Unguents external, draughts to be imbibed.You've plundered Scotland of its plants, the seasYou've ravished, and despoiled the Hebrides,To brew me remedies which, in probation,Were sovereign only in their application.In vain, and eke in pain, have I appliedYour flattering unctions to my soul and hide:Physic and hope have been my daily food—I've swallowed treacle by the holy rood!"Your wisdom, which sufficed to guide the yearAnd tame the seasons in their mad career,When set to higher purposes has failed meAnd added anguish to the ills that ailed me.Nor that alone, but each ambitious leechHis rivals' skill has labored to impeachBy hints equivocal in secret speech.For years, to conquer our respective broils,We've plied each other with pacific oils.In vain: your turbulence is unallayed,My flame unquenched; your rioting unstayed;My life so wretched from your strife to save itThat death were welcome did I dare to brave it.With zeal inspired by your intemperate pranks,My subjects muster in contending ranks.Those fling their banners to the startled breezeTo champion some royal ointment; theseThe standard of some royal purge displayAnd 'neath that ensign wage a wasteful fray!Brave tongues are thundering from sea to sea,Torrents of sweat roll reeking o'er the lea!My people perish in their martial fear,And rival bagpipes cleave the royal ear!"Now, caitiffs, tremble, for this very hourYour injured sovereign shall assert his power!Behold this lotion, carefully compoundOf all the poisons you for me have found—Of biting washes such as tan the skin,And drastic drinks to vex the parts within.What aggravates an ailment will produce—I mean to rub you with this dreadful juice!Divided counsels you no more shall hatch—At last you shall unanimously scratch.Kneel, villains, kneel, and doff your shirts—God bless us!They'll seem, when you resume them, robes of Nessus!"The sovereign ceased, and, sealing what he spoke,From Arthur's Seat confirming thunders broke.The conscious culprits, to their fate resigned,Sank to their knees, all piously inclined.This act, from high Ben Lomond where she floats,The thrifty goddess, Caledonia, notes.Glibly as nimble sixpence, down she tiltsHeadlong, and ravishes away their kilts,Tears off each plaid and all their shirts discloses,Removes each shirt and their broad backs exposes.The king advanced—then cursing fled amainDashing the phial to the stony plain(Where't straight became a fountain brimming o'er,Whence Father Tweed derives his liquid store)For lo! already on each backsansstitchThe red sign manual of the Rosy Witch![Footnote 1: A famous height overlooking Edinburgh.]
I fell asleep and dreamed that IWas flung, like Vulcan, from the sky;Like him was lamed—another part:His leg was crippled and my heart.I woke in time to see my loveConceal a letter in her glove.
When lion and lamb have together lain downSpectators cry out, all in chorus;"The lamb doesn't shrink nor the lion frown—A miracle's working before us!"But 't is patent why Hot-head his wrath holds in,And Faint-heart her terror and loathing;For the one's but an ass in a lion's skin,The other a wolf in sheep's clothing.
The Superintendent of an Almshouse. A Pauper.
Soyou'reunthankful—you'll not eat the bird?You sit about the place all day and gird.I understand you'll not attend the ballThat's to be given to-night in Pauper Hall.
Why, that is true, precisely as you've heard:I have no teeth and I will eat no bird.
Ah! see how good is Providence. BecauseOf teeth He has denuded both your jawsThe fowl's made tender; you can overcome itBy suction; or at least—well, you can gum it,Attesting thus the dictum of the preachersThat Providence is good to all His creatures—Turkeys excepted. Come, ungrateful friend,If our Thanksgiving dinner you'll attendYou shall say grace—ask God to bless at leastThe soft and liquid portions of the feast.
Without those teeth my speech is rather thick—He'll hardly understand Gum Arabic.No, I'll not dine to-day. As to the ball,'Tis known to you that I've no legs at all.I had the gout—hereditary; so,As it could not be cornered in my toeThey cut my legs off in the fond beliefThat shortening me would make my anguish brief.Lacking my legs I could not prosecuteWith any good advantage a pursuit;And so, because my father chose to courtHeaven's favor with his ortolans and Port(Thanksgiving every day!) the Lord suppliedSaws for my legs, an almshouse for my prideAnd, once a year, a bird for my inside.No, I'll not dance—my light fantastic toeTook to its heels some twenty years ago.Some small repairs would be required for puttingMy feelings on a saltatory footing.(Sings)O the legless man's an unhappy chap—Tum-hi, tum-hi, tum-he o'haddy.The favors o' fortune fall not in his lap—Tum-hi, tum-heedle-do hum.The plums of office avoid his plateNo matter how much he may stump the State—Tum-hi, ho-heeee.The grass grows never beneath his feet,But he cannot hope to make both ends meet—Tum-hi.With a gleeless eye and a somber heart,He plays the role of his mortal part:Wholly himself he can never be.O, a soleless corporation is he!Tum.
The chapel bell is calling, thankless friend,Balls you may not, but church youshall, attend.Some recognition cannot be deniedTo the great mercy that has turned asideThe sword of death from us and let it fallUpon the people's necks in Montreal;That spared our city, steeple, roof and dome,And drowned the Texans out of house and home;Blessed all our continent with peace, to floodThe Balkan with a cataclysm of blood.Compared with blessings of so high degree,Your private woes look mighty small—to me.
L'AUDACE.
Daughter of God! Audacity divine—Of clowns the terror and of brains the sign—Not thou the inspirer of the rushing fool,Not thine of idiots the vocal drool:Thy bastard sister of the brow of brass,Presumption, actuates the charging ass.Sky-born Audacity! of thee who singsShould strike with freer hand than mine the strings;The notes should mount on pinions true and strong,For thou, the subject shouldst sustain the song,Till angels lean from Heaven, a breathless throng!Alas! with reeling heads and wavering tails,They (notes, not angels) drop and the hymn fails;The minstrel's tender fingers and his thumbsAre torn to rags upon the lyre he strums.Have done! the lofty thesis makes demandFor stronger voices and a harder hand:Night-howling apes to make the notes aspire,And Poet Riley's fist to slug the rebel wire!
Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen,The wisest and the best of men,Betook him to the place where satWith folded feet upon a matOf precious stones beneath a palm,In sweet and everlasting calm,That ancient and immortal gent,The God of Rational Content.As tranquil and unmoved as Fate,The deity reposed in state,With palm to palm and sole to sole,And beaded breast and beetling jowl,And belly spread upon his thighs,And costly diamonds for eyes.As Chunder Sen approached and kneltTo show the reverence he felt;Then beat his head upon the sodTo prove his fealty to the god;And then by gestures signifiedThe other sentiments inside;The god's right eye (as Chunder Sen,The wisest and the best of men,Half-fancied) grew by just a thoughtMore narrow than it truly ought.Yet still that prince of devotees,Persistent upon bended kneesAnd elbows bored into the earth,Declared the god's exceeding worth,And begged his favor. Then at last,Within that cavernous and vastThoracic space was heard a soundLike that of water underground—A gurgling note that found a ventAt mouth of that Immortal GentIn such a chuckle as no earHad e'er been privileged to hear!Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen,The wisest, greatest, best of men,Heard with a natural surpriseThat mighty midriff improvise.And greater yet the marvel wasWhen from between those massive jawsFell words to make the views more plainThe god was pleased to entertain:"Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen,"So ran the rede in speech of men—"Foremost of mortals in assentTo creed of Rational Content,Why come you here to impetrateA blessing on your scurvy pate?Can you not rationally beContent without disturbing me?Can you not take a hint—a wink—Of what of all this rot I think?Is laughter lost upon you quite,To check you in your pious rite?What! know you not we gods protestThat all religion is a jest?You take me seriously?—youAbout me make a great ado(When I but wish to be alone)With attitudes supine and prone,With genuflexions and with prayers,And putting on of solemn airs,To draw my mind from the surveyOf Rational Content away!Learn once for all, if learn you can,This truth, significant to man:A pious person is by oddsThe one most hateful to the gods."Then stretching forth his great right hand,Which shadowed all that sunny land,That deity bestowed a touchWhich Chunder Sen not overmuchEnjoyed—a touch divine that madeThe sufferer hear stars! They playedAnd sang as on Creation's mornWhen spheric harmony was born.Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen,The most astonished man of men,Fell straight asleep, and when he wokeThe deity nor moved nor spoke,But sat beneath that ancient palmIn sweet and everlasting calm.
The lily cranks, the lily cranks,The loppy, loony lasses!They multiply in rising ranksTo execute their solemn pranks,They moon along in masses.Blow, sweet lily, in the shade! O,Sunflower decorate the dado!The maiden ass, the maiden ass,The tall and tailless jenny!In limp attire as green as grass,She stands, a monumental brass,The one of one too many.Blow, sweet lily, in the shade! O,Sunflower decorate the dado!
God said: "Let there be noise." The dawning fireOf Independence gilded every spire.
Time was the local poets sang their songsBeneath their breath in terror of the thongsI snapped about their shins. Though mild the strokeBards, like the conies, are "a feeble folk,"Fearing all noises but the one they makeThemselves—at which all other mortals quake.Now from their cracked and disobedient throats,Like rats from sewers scampering, their notesPour forth to move, where'er the season serves,If not our legs to dance, at least our nerves;As once a ram's-horn solo maddened allThe sober-minded stones in Jerich's wall.A year's exemption from the critic's curseMends the bard's courage but impairs his verse.Thus poolside frogs, when croaking in the night,Are frayed to silence by a meteor's flight,Or by the sudden plashing of a stoneFrom some adjacent cottage garden thrown,But straight renew the song with double dinWhene'er the light goes out or man goes in.Shall I with arms unbraced (my casque unlatched,My falchion pawned, my buckler, too, attached)Resume the cuishes and the broad cuirass,Accomplishing my body all in brass,And arm in battle royal to opposeA village poet singing through the nose,Or strolling troubadour his lyre who strumsWith clumsy hand whose fingers all are thumbs?No, let them rhyme; I fought them once beforeAnd stilled their songs—but, Satan! how they swore!—Cuffed them upon the mouth whene'er their throatsThey cleared for action with their sweetest notes;Twisted their ears (they'd oft tormented mine)And damned them roundly all along the line;Clubbed the whole crew from the Parnassian slopes,A wreck of broken heads and broken hopes!What gained I so? I feathered every curseLaunched at the village bards with lilting verse.The town approved and christened me (to show itsHigh admiration) Chief of Local Poets!
Dull were the days and sober,The mountains were brown and bare,For the season was sad OctoberAnd a dirge was in the air.The mated starlings flew overTo the isles of the southern sea.She wept for her warrior lover—Wept and exclaimed: "Ah, me!"Long years have I mourned my darlingIn his battle-bed at rest;And it's O, to be a starling,With a mate to share my nest!"The angels pitied her sorrow,Restoring her warrior's life;And he came to her arms on the morrowTo claim her and take her to wife.An aged lover—a portly,Bald lover, a trifle too stiff,With manners that would have been courtly,And would have been graceful, if—If the angels had only restored himWithout the additional yearsThat had passed since the enemy bored himTo death with their long, sharp spears.As it was, he bored her, and she rambledAway with her father's young groom,And the old lover smiled as he ambledContentedly back to the tomb.
Wild wanton Luxury lays waste the landWith difficulty tilled by Thrift's hard hand!Then dies the State!—and, in its carcass found,The millionaires, all maggot-like, abound.Alas! was it for this that Warren died,And Arnold sold himself to t' other side,Stark piled at Bennington his British dead,And Gates at Camden, Lee at Monmouth, fled?—For this that Perry did the foeman fleece,And Hull surrender to preserve the peace?Degenerate countrymen, renounce, I pray,The slothful ease, the luxury, the gayAnd gallant trappings of this idle life,And be more fit for one another's wife.
A bull imprisoned in a stallBroke boldly the confining wall,And found himself, when out of bounds,Within a washerwoman's grounds.Where, hanging on a line to dry,A crimson skirt inflamed his eye.With bellowings that woke the dead,He bent his formidable head,With pointed horns and gnarly forehead;Then, planting firm his shoulders horrid,Began, with rage made half insane,To paw the arid earth amain,Flinging the dust upon his flanksIn desolating clouds and banks,The while his eyes' uneasy whiteBetrayed his doubt what foe the brightRed tent concealed, perchance, from sight.The garment, which, all undismayed,Had never paled a single shade,Now found a tongue—a dangling sock,Left carelessly inside the smock:"I must insist, my gracious liege,That you'll be pleased to raise the siege:My colors I will never strike.I know your sex—you're all alike.Some small experience I've had—You're not the first I've driven mad."