BOOKS PUBLISHED IN BLUE AND GOLD, BY TICKNOR, AND FIELDS. Longfellow's Poems. 2 vols. $ 2.00. Longfellow's Prose. 2 vols. $ 2.00. Whittled s Poems. 2 vols. $2.00. Leigh Hunt's Poems. 2 vols. $2.00. Tennyson's Poems. 2 vols. $2.00. Gerald Massey's Poems. $ i.oo. Lowell's Poems. 2 vols. $2.00. PercivaVs Poems. 2 vols. $2.00. MothenveWs Poems. $1.00. Owen Meredith's Poems. $ i.oo. Owen Merediths Lucile. $.1.00. Sydney Dobell 's Poems. $ I. oo. Bowring's Matins and Vespers. $ I.oo. Allinghairfs Poems. $ i.oo. Horace. Translated by Theodore Martin. $ i.oo Mrs. Jameson's Characteristics. of Women. $ i.oo. Mrs. Jameson' s Loves of the Poets. $1.00. Mrs. Jameson's Diary. $ i.oo. Mrs. Jameson's Sketches of Art. $ I.oo. Mrs. Jameson's Legends of the Madonna. $ i.oo. Mrs. Jameson's Italian Painters. $ i.oo. Mrs. Jameson's Studies and Stories. $ I.oo. Saxe's Poems. $ i.oo. dough's Poems. $ I . oo. Holmes' s Poems. $ i.oo. Adelaide Procter's Poems. $ i.oo. POEMS JOHN G. S AXE, COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. TWENTY-SEVENTH EDITION. BOSTON: TICK NOR AND FIELDS. 1864. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by JOHN G. SAXE, in the Clrk's Office of the District Court of the Di.-trict of Massachusetts. University Press, Cambridge : Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. CONTENTS. PROGRESS, AND OTHER POEMS. FAOB Dedication 3 Progress: A Satire 5 The Proud Miss MacBride 22 The Briefless Barrister 35 Rhyme of the Rail 38 The Rape of the Lock 41 A Rhymed Epistle 54 The Dog Days 68 On a Recent Classic Controversy 60 The Ghost-Player 61 On an El-Read Lawyer 63 A Benedict's Appeal to a Bachelor 64 Boys 68 Woman's Will 69 The Cold- Water Man 70 On an Ugly Person sitting for a Daguerrotype ... 73 A College Reminiscence 74 Family Quarrels 77 Sonnet to a Clam 78 A Reasonable Petition 79 Guneopathy 8 f A Philosophical Query fc2 IV CONTENTS. Comic Miseries 88 The Old Chnpel-Bell 86 The Lady Ann 92 Girlhood 96 Bereavement 98 My Boyhood 99 The Times 101 Carmen Lastum 119 The Devil of Names 125 Phaethon 130 Pyramus and Thisbe 134 Polyphemus and Ulysses 139 Orpheus and Eurydice 143 THE MONEY-KING, AND OTHER POEMS. Dedication 151 Preface 153 The Money-Kins 155 I 'm Growing Old 17ft SpesestVates ,.. 172 The Way of the World ....'"." 173 The Head and the Heart 175 My Castle in Spain 176 A Reflective Retrospect 178 1 Do, yon think he is Married?' 182 Early Rising 184 Ideal and Real 186 How the Money goes 1S9 Tale of a Dog 191 Little Jerry, the Miller 195 How Cyrus laid the Cable 198 The Jolly Mariner 201 Ye Tailyor-Man 205 Town and Country: an Eclogue 207 My Familiar 211 CONTENTS. V How the Lawyers got a Patron Saint 214 The King and the Cottager 216 Love and Lucre . 223 Death and Cupid 226 The Family Alan .-....'. 228 Ne Crede Colon 230 Clara to Cloe 232 Cloe to Clara 235 Wishing 238 Richard of Gloster 240 Ho-Ho of the Golden Belt 246 Tom Brown's Day in Gotham ........ 252 Post-Prandial Verses 261 Lines on my Thirty-ninth Birthday 264 Sonnet to 265 The Cockney 266 Love's Calendar 269 Augusta 270 Ye Pedagogue 271 The Lawyer's Valentine 274 Anacreontic 276 The Choice of King Midas 277 Where there 's a Will there 's a Way 281 Saint Jonathan 283 Song of Saratoga 286 The Portrait 288 Epigrams 289 The Press 292 NOTE PROGRESS, OTHER POEMS. TO HON. GEOKGE P. MARSH, UNITED STATES MINISTER RESIDENT AT CONSTANTINOPLE. DEAR Sra,: I dedicate this little Volume to you, not in your capacity as the honored Representative of your country at a Foreign Court, nor yet in your higher character, as one of the foremost scholars of the age ; but rather, as is more befitting, in token of my esteem for your private virtues, and in grateful acknowledgment of your personal friendship. I hesitate less to avail myself of your kind permission to use your name in this place, since it was greatly owing to your flattering judgment of my first elaborate essay at verse writing, that other pieces were subsequently undertaken, and that these are now here collected. In christening the book, I have chosen, for several reasons, to conform to the customary nomenclature which allows every kind of literature to be ' Po- etry,' that is not written in the fashion of prose ; yet I have no quarrel with that nicer rule of modern criticism which assigns to all metrical compositions of a mainly facetious or satirical char- acter, a place rather on the border than fairly within the domain of legitimate poesy. If I have excluded several trifles which some of my friends would like to have seen with the rest, it was be- cause I could not afford to make the volume larger at any risk of making it worse. Should the verses which I have ventured to retain, receive, in their present form, the favor which has been accorded to most of the poems separately, I am very sure no on* will be more gratified than yourself, except it be Your sincere friend, and humble servant, JOHN GODFREY SAXE. BURLINGTON, VERMONT, 184rf. PROGRESS: A SATIRE. IN this, our happy and * progressive ' age, When all alike ambitious cares engage ; When beardless boys to sudden sages grow, And ' Miss ' her nurse abandons for a beau ; When for their dogmas Non-Resistants tight, When dunces lecture, and when dandies write When, martial honors to the children thrown, Each five-foot minor is a ' Major ' grown ; When matrons, seized with oratoric pangs, Give happy birth to masculine harangues, And spinsters, trembling for the nation's fate, Neglect their stockings to preserve the State ; When critic-wits their brazen lustre shed On golden authors whom they never read, With parrot praise of ' Roman grandeur ' speak, And in bad English eulogize the Greek ; When facts like these no reprehension bring, May not, uncensured, an Attorney sing ? In sooth he may ; and though ' unborn ' to climb Parnassus' heights, and ' build the lofty rhyme,' Though FLACCUS fret, and warningly advise That ' middling verses gods and men despise/ Yet will he sing, to Yankee license true, In spite of Horace and ' Minerva ' too ! My theme is PROGRESS, never-tiring theme Of prosing dulness, and poetic dream ; Beloved of Optimists, who still protest Whatever happens happens for the best ; Who prate of ' evil ' as a thing unknown, A fancied color, or a seeming tone, A vague chimera cherished by the dull, The empty product of an emptier skull. Expert logicians they ! to show at will, By ill philosophy, that naught is ill ! Should some sly rogue, the city's constant curse, Deplete your pocket and relieve your purse, Or if, approaching with ill-omened tread, Some bolder burglar break, your house and head, Hold, friend, thy rage ! nay, let the rascal flee ; No evil has been done the world, or thee : Here comes Philosophy will make it plain Thy seeming loss is universal gain ! * Thy heap of gold was clearly grown too great, 'T were best the poor should share thy large estate While misers gather, that the knaves should steal, Is most conducive to the general weal ; Thus thieves the wrongs of avarice efface, And stand the friends and stewards of the race ; Thus every moral ill but serves, in fact, Some other equal ill to counteract.' A SATIRE. 7 Sublime Philosophy ! benignant light ! Which sees in every pair of wrongs, a right ; Which finds no evil or in sin or pain, And proves that decalogues are writ in vain ! Hail, mighty PROGRESS ! loftiest we find Thy stalking strides in science of the mind. What boots it now that LOCKE was learned and wise ? What boots it now that men have ears and eyes ? * Pure Reason ' in their stead now hears and sees, And walks apart in stately scorn of these ; Laughs at experience,' spurns ' induction ' hence, Scouting the senses,' and transcending sense. No more shall flippant ignorance inquire, * If German breasts may feel poetic fire,' Nor German dulness write ten folios full, To show, for once, that Dutchmen are not dull. 1 For here Philosophy, acute, refined, Sings all the marvels of the human mind In strains so passing k dainty sweet ' to hear, That e'en the nursery turns a ravished ear 1 Here Wit and Fancy in scholastic bowers Twine beauteous wreaths of metaphysic flowers; Here 'Speculation pours her dazzling light, Here grand Invention wings a daring flight, And soars ambitious to the lofty moon, Whence, haply, freighted with some precious boon, Some old ' Philosophy ' in fog incased, Or new * Religion ' for the changing taste, She straight descends to Learning's blest abodes, Just simultaneous with the Paris modes 1 8 PROGRESS t Here PLATO'S dogmas eloquently speak, Not as of yore, in grand and graceful Greek, But, (quite beyond the dreaming sage's hope Of future glory in his fancy's scope.) Translated down, as by some wizard touch, Find ' immortality * in good high Dutch ! Happy the youth, in this our golden age, Condemned no more to con the prosy page Of LOCKE and BACON, antiquated fools, Now justly banished from our moral schools. By easier modes philosophy is taught, Than through the medium of laborious thought. Imagination kindly serves instead, And saves the pupil many an aching head. Room for the sages ! hither comes a throng Of blooming Platos trippingly along. In dress how fitted to beguile the fair ! What intellectual, stately heads of hair ! Hark to the Oracle ! to Wisdom's tone Breathed in a fragrant zephyr of Cologne. That boy in gloves, the leader of the van, Talks of the ' outer ' and the ' inner man/ And knits his girlish brow in stout resolve Some mountain-sized ' idea ' to ' evolve.' Delusive toil! thus in their infant days, When children mimic manly deeds in plays, Long will they sit, and eager ' bob for whale ' Within the ocean of a water-pail 1 The next, whose looks unluckily reveal The ears portentous that his locks conceal, A SATIRE. 9 Prates of the 'orbs' with such a knowing frown, You deem he puffs some lithographic town In Western wilds, where yet unbroken ranks Of thrifty beavers build unchartered 'banks,' And prowling panthers occupy the lots Adorned with churches on the paper plots ! But ah ! what suff 'ring harp is this we hear ? What jarring sounds invade the wounded ear ? Who o'er the lyre a hand spasmodic flings, And grinds harsh discord from the tortured strings V The Sacred Muses, at the sound dismayed, Retreat disordered to their native shade, And PHCEBUS hastens to his high abode, And ORPHEUS frowns to hear an 4 Orphic ode ' 1 Talk not, ye jockeys, of the wondrous speed That marks your Northern or your Southern steed See Progress fly o'er Education's course ! Not far-famed Derby owns a fleeter horse ! On rare Improvement's ' short and easy ' road, How swift her flight to Learning's blest abode ! In other times 't was many years ago The scholar's course was toilsome, rough, and slow, The fair Humanities were sought in tears, And came, the trophy of laborious years. Now Learning's shrine each idle youth may seek, And, spending there a shilling and a week, (At lightest cost of study, cash, and lungs,) Come back, like Rumor, with a hundred tongues ! What boots such progress, when the golden load From heedless haste is lost upon the road ? 1* 10 When each great science, to the student'? pace, Stands like the wicket in a hurdle race, Which to o'erleap is all the courser's mind, And all his glory that 't is left behind ! Nor less, O Progress, are thy newest rules Enforced and honored in the ' Ladies' Schools;' Where Education, in its nobler sense, Gives place to Learning's shallowest pretence ; Where hapless maids, in spite of wish or taste, On vain ' accomplishments ' their moments waste ; By cruel parents here condemned to wrench Their tender throats in mispronouncing French ; Here doomed to force, by unrelenting knocks, Reluctant music from a tortured box ; Here taught, in inky shades and rigid lines, To perpetrate equivocal ' designs ; ' ' Drawings ' that prove their title plainly true, By showing nature ' drawn,' arid * quartered ' too ! Jn ancient times, I 've heard my grandam tell, Young maids were taught to read, and write, and spell ; (Neglected arts ! once learned by rigid rules, As prime essentials in the ' common schools ; ') Well taught beside in many a useful art To mend the manners and improve the heart ; Nor yet unskilled to turn the busy wheel, To ply the shuttle, and to twirl the reel, Could thrifty tasks with cheerful grace pursue, Themselves ' accomplished,' and their duties too. Of tongues, each maiden had but one, 't is said, (Enough, 't was thought, to serve a lady's head,) A SATIRE. 11 But that was ENGLISH, great and glorious tongue That CHATHAM spoke, and MILTON, SHAKSPEARE, sung! Let thoughts too idle to be fitly dressed In sturdy Saxon, be in French expressed ; Let lovers breathe Italian, like, in sooth, Its singers, soft, emasculate, and smooth ; But for a tongue whose ample powers embrace Beauty and force, sublimity and grace, Ornate or plain, harmonious, yet strong, And formed alike for eloquence and song, Give me the ENGLISH, aptest tongue to paint A sage or dunce, a villain or a saint, To spur the slothful, counsel the distressed, To lash the oppressor, and to soothe the oppressed, To lend fantastic Humor freest scope To marshal all his laughter-moving troop, Give Pathos power, and Fancy lightest wings, And Wit his merriest whims and keenest stings ! . The march of Progress let the Muse explore In pseudo-science and empiric lore. O sacred Science 1 how art thou profaned, When shallow quacks and vagrants, unrestrained, Flaunt in thy robes, and vagabonds are known To brawl thy name, who never wrote their own ; When crazy theorists their addled schemes (Unseemly product of dyspeptic dreams) Impute to thee ! as courtesans of yore Their spurious bantlings left at Mars's door ; When each projector of a patent pill, Or happy founder of a coffee-mill, 12 Invokes thine aid to celebrate his wares, And crown with gold his philanthropic cares ; Thus Islam's hawkers piously proclaim Their figs and pippins in the Prophet's name ! Some sage Physician, studious to advance The art of healing, and its praise enhance, By observation ' scientific ' finds (What else were hidden from inferior minds) That WATER 's useful in a thousand ways, To cherish health, and lengthen out our days : A mighty solvent in its simple scope, And quite ' specific ' with Castilian soap ! The doctor's labors let the thoughtless scorn, See ! a new ' science ' to the world is born ; 4 Disease is dirt ! all pain the patient feels Is but the soiling of the vital wheels ; To wash away all particles impure, And cleanse the system, plainly, is to cure ! ' Thus shouts the doctor, eloquent, and proud To teach his ' science ' to the gaping crowd ; Like * Father Mathew,' eager to allure Afflicted mortals to his * water-cure ' 1 'T is thus that modern sciences ' are made, By bold assumption, puffing, and parade. Take three stale ' truths ; ' a dozen facts/ sumed ; Two known * effects,' and fifty more presumed ; 4 Affinities ' a score, to sense unknown, And, just as ' Zuctw, non lucendo ' shown, A SATIRE. 13 Add but a name of pompous Anglo- Greek, And only not impossible to speak, The work is done ; a ' science ' stands confest, And countless welcomes greet the queenly guest In closest girdle, O reluctant Muse, In scantiest skirts, and lightest-stepping shoes, 8 Prepare to follow FASHION'S gay advance, And thread the mazes of her motley dance ; And, marking well each momentary hue, And transient form, that meets the wondering view, In kindred colors, gentle Muse, essay Her Protean phases fitly to portray. To-day, she slowly drags a cumbrous trail, And ' Ton ' rejoices in its length of tail ; To-morrow, changing her capricious sport, She trims her flounces just as much too short ; To-day, right jauntily, a hat she wears That scarce affords a shelter to her ears ; To-morrow, haply, searching long in vain, You spy her features down a Leghorn lane ; To-day, she glides along with queenly grace, To-morrow ambles in a mincing pace. To-day, erect, she loves a martial air, And envious train-bands emulate the fair ; To-morrow, changing as her whim may serve, ' She stoops to conquer' in a ' Grecian curve.' 3 To-day, with careful negligence arrayed In scanty folds, of woven zephyrs made, She moves like Dian in her woody bowers, Or Flora floating o'er a bed of flowers ; 14 PROGRESS : To-morrow, laden with a motley freight, Of startling bulk and formidable weight, She waddles forth, ambitious to amaze The vulgar crowd, who giggle as they gaze ! Despotic Fashion ! potent is her sway, Whom half the world full loyally obey, Kings bow submissive to her stern decrees, And proud Republics bend their necks and knees ; Where'er we turn the attentive eye, is seen The worshipped presence of the modish queen ; In Dress, Philosophy, Religion, Art, Whate'er employs the head, or hand, or heart. Is some fine lady quite o'ercome with woes, From an unyielding pimple on her nose, Some unaccustomed ' buzzing in her ears,' Or other marvel to alarm her fears ? Fashion, with skill and judgment ever nice, At once advises ' medical advice ; ' Then names her doctor, who, arrived in haste, Proceeds accordant with the laws of taste. If real ills afflict the modish dame, Her blind idolatry is still the same ; Less grievous far, she deems it, to endure Genteel malpractice, than a vulgar cure. If, spite of gilded pills and golden fees, Her dear dyspepsia grows a dire disease, And Docter DAPPER proves a shallow rogue, The world must own that both were much in vogue What impious mockery, when, with soulless art, Fashion, intrusive, seeks to rule the heart ; A SATIRE, 15 Directs how grief may tastefully be borne ; Instructs Bereavement just how long to mourn ; Shows Sorrow how by nice degrees to fade, And marks its measure in a ribbon's shade ! More impious still, when, through her wanton laws, She desecrates Religion's sacred cause ; Shows how ' the narrow road ' is easiest trod, And how, genteelest, worms may worship God ; How sacred rites may bear a worldly grace, And self-abasement wear a haughty face ; How sinners, long in Folly's mazes whirled, With pomp and splendor may * renounce the world ; How * with all saints hereafter to appear,' Yet quite escape the vulgar portion here 1 Imperial Fashion ! her impartial care Things most momentous, and most trivial, share. Now crushing conscience (her invet'rate foe), And now a waist, and now, perchance, a toe ; At once for pistols and ' the Polka ' votes, And shapes alike our characters and coats ; The gravest question which the world divides, And lightest riddle, in a breath decides : ' If wrong may not, by circumstance, be right,' * If black cravats be more genteel than white,' 4 If by her " bishop," or her " grace," alone, A genuine lady, or a church, is known ; ' Problems like these she solves with graceful air, At once a casuist and a connoisseur 1 Does some sleek knave, whom magic money-bags Have raised above his fellow-knaves in rags, 16 PROGRKSS: Some willing minion of unblushing Vice, Who boasts that ' Virtue ever has her price,' Does he, unpitying, blast thy sister's fame, Or doom thy daughter to undying shame, To bow her head beneath the eye of scorn, And droop and wither in her maiden morn ? Fashion ' regrets,' declares ' 't was very wrong,' And, quite dejected, hums an opera song ! Impartial friend ! your cause to her appealed, Yourself and foe she summons to the field, "Where Honor carefully the case observes, And nicely weighs it in a scale of nerves ! Despotic rite ! whose fierce vindictive reign Boasts, unrebuked, its countless victims slain, While Christian rulers, recreant, support The pagan honors of thy bloody court, And ' Freedom's champions ' spurn their hallowed trust, Kneel at thy nod, and basely iitk the dust ! Degraded Congress ! once the honored scene Of patriot deeds ; where men of solemn mien, In virtue strong, in understanding clear, Earnest, though courteous, and, though smooth, sin- cere, To gravest counsels lent the teeming hours, And gave their country all their mighty powers. But times are changed ; a rude, degenerate race Usurp the seats, and shame the sacred place. Here plotting demagogues, with zeal defend The * people's rights,' to gain some private end ; A SATIRE. 17 Here Southern youths, on Folly's surges tost, Their fathers' wisdom eloquently boast ; (So dowerless spinsters proudly number o'er The costly jewels that their grandams wore.) Here would-be TULLYS pompously parade Their tumid tropes for simple ' Buncombe ' made, 4 Full on the chair the chilling torrent shower, And work their word-pumps through the allotted hour. Deluded * Buncombe ! ' while, with honest praise, She notes each grand and patriotic phrase, And, much rejoicing in her hopeful son, Deems all her own the laurels he has won, She little dreams how brother members fled, And left the house as vacant as his head ! Here rural CHATHAMS, eager to attest The ' growing greatness of the mighty West,' To make the plainest proposition clear, Crack PRISCIAN'S head, and Mr. SPEAKER'S ear; Then, closing up in one terrific shout, Pour all their ' wild-cats ' furiously out ! Here lawless boors with ruffian bullies vie, Who last shall give the rude, insulting ' lie/ While ' Order ! order ! ' loud the chairman calls, And echoing ' Order I ' every member bawls ; Till rising high in rancorous debate, And higher still in fierce envenomed hate, 5 Retorted blows the scene of riot crown, And big LYCURGUS knocks the lesser down 1 B 18 Ye honest dames in frequent proverbs named, For finest fish and foulest English famed, Whose matchless tongues, 'tis said, were never heard To speak a flattering or a feeble word, Here all your choice invective ye might urge Our lawless Solons fittingly to scourge ; Here, in congenial company, might rail Till, quite worn out, your creaking voices fail, Unless, indeed, for once compelled to yield In wordy strife, ye vanquished quit the field ! Hail, Social Progress ! each new moon is rife With some new theory of social life, Some matchless scheme ingeniously designed From half their miseries to free mankind ; On human wrongs triumphant war to wage, And bring anew the glorious golden age. * Association ' is the magic word From many a social ' priest afid prophet' heard, 1 Attractive Labor ' is the angel given, To render earth a sublunary Heaven ! * Attractive Labor ! ' ring the changes round, And labor grows attractive in the sound ; And many a youthful mind, where haply lurk Unwelcomed fancies at the name of ' work,' Sees pleasant pastime in its longing view Of ' toil made easy ' and ' attractive * too, And, fancy-rapt, with joyful ardor, turns Delightful grindstones and seductive churns ! 4 Men are not bad,' these social sages preach, 4 Men are not what their actions seem to teach ; A SATIRE. 19 No moral ill is natural or fixed, Men only err by being badly mixed ! ' To them the world a huge plum-pudding seems, Made up of richest viands, fruits, and creams, Which of all choice ingredients partook, And then was ruined by a blundering cook ! Inventive France ! what wonder-working schemes Astound the world whene'er a Frenchman dreams What fine-spun theories, ingenious, new, Sublime, stupendous, everything but true ! One little favor, O ' Imperial France ' I Still teach the world to cook, to dress, to dance ; Let, if thou wilt, thy boots and barbers roam, But keep thy morals and thy creeds at home ! O might the Muse prolong her flowing rhyme, (Too closely cramped by unrelenting Time, Whose dreadful scythe swings heedlessly along, And, missing speeches, clips the thread of song,) How would she strive, in fitting verse, to sing The wondrous Progress of the Printing King ! Bibles and Novels, Treatises and Songs, Lectures on ' Rights,' and Strictures upon Wrongs; Verse in all metres, Travels in all climes, Rhymes without reason, Sonnets without rhymes; 4 Translations from the French,' so vilely done, The wheat escaping leaves the chaff alone ; Memoirs, where dunces sturdily essay To cheat Oblivion of her certain prey ; Critiques, where pedants vauntingly expose Unlicensed' verses, in unlawful prose ; 20 Lampoons, whose authors strive in vain to throw Their headless arrows from a nerveless bow ; Poems by youths, who, crossing Nature's will, Harangue the landscape they were born to till ; Huge tomes of Law, that lead by rugged routes Through ancient dogmas down to modern doubts ; Where Judges oft, with well-affected ease, Give learned reasons for absurd decrees, Or, more ingenious still, contrive to found Some just decision on fallacious ground,' Or blink the point, and, haply, in its place, Moot and decide some hypothetic case ; Smart Epigrams, all sadly out of joint, And pointless, save the ' exclamation point, Which stands in state, with vacant wonder fraught, The pompous tombstone of some pauper thought ; Ingenious systems based on doubtful facts, * Tracts for the Times,' and most untimely tracts ; Polemic Pamphlets, Literary^toys, And Easy Lessons for uneasy boys ; Hebdomadal Gazettes, and Daily News, Gay Magazines, and Quarterly Reviews ; Small portion these, of all the vast array Of darkened leaves that cloud each passing day, And pour then* tide unceasingly along, A gathering, swelling, overwhelming throng ! Cease, O my Muse, nor, indiscreet, prolong To epic length thy unambitious song. Good friends, be gentle to a maiden Muse, Her errors pardon, and her faults excuse. A SATIHE. 21 4 Not uninvited to her task she came, 9 To sue for favor, not to seek for fame. Be this, at least, her just though humble praise : No stale excuses heralded her lays, No singer's trick, conveniently to bring A sudden cough, when importuned to sing; 7 No deprecating phrases, learned by rote/ ' She 'd quite forgot/ or ' never knew a note/ But to her task, with ready zeal, addressed Her earnest care, and aimed to do her best ; Strove to be just in each satiric word, To doubtful wit undoubted truth preferred, To please and profit equally has aimed, Nor been ill-natured even when she blamed. THE PROUD MISS MAC BRIDE: A LEGEND OF GOTHAM. O, TERRIBLY proud was Miss Mac Bride, The very personification of Piide, As she minced along in Fashion's tide, Adown Broadway, on the proper side, When the golden sun was setting ; There was pride in the head she carried so high, Pride in her lip, and pride in her eye, And a world of pride in the very sigh That her stately bosom- was fretting ; A sigh that a pair of elegant feet, Sandalled in satin, should kiss the street, - The very same that the vulgar greet In common leather not over ' neat,' For such is the common booting ; (And Christian tears may well be shed, That even among our gentlemen bred, The glorious day of Morocco is dead, And Day and Martin are raining instead, On a much inferior footing ! ) THE PROUD MISS MAC BRIDE. 23 O, terribly proud was Miss Mac Bride, Proud of her beauty, and proud of her pride, And proud of fifty matters beside That would n't have borne dissection ; Proud of her wit, and proud of her walk, Proud of her teeth, and proud of her talk, Proud of ' knowing cheese from chalk,' On a very slight inspection ! IV. Proud abroad, and proud at home, Proud wherever she chanced to come, When she was glad, and when she was glum ; Proud as the head of a Saracen Over the door of a tippling shop ! Proud as a duchess, proud as a fop, Proud as a boy with a bran-new top,' Proud beyond comparison 1 v. It seems a singular thing to say, But her very senses led her astray Respecting all humility ; In sooth, her dull auricular drum Could find in Humble only a * hum,' And heard no sound of ' gentle ' come, In talking about gentility. n. What Lowly meant she did n't know, For she always avoided ' everything low,' 24 THE PROUD MISS MAC BRIDE. With care the most punctilious, And queerer still, the audible sound Of * super-silly ' she never had found In the adjective supercilious 1 The meaning of Meek she never knew, But imagined the phrase had something to do With ' Moses,' a peddling German Jew, Who, like all hawkers the country through, Was a person of no position ; And it seemed to her exceedingly plain, If the word was really known to pertain To a vulgar German, it was n't germane To a lady of high condition ! Even her graces, not her grace, For that was in the * vocative case/ Chilled with the touch of her icy face, Sat very stiffly upon her ; She never confessed a favor aloud, Like one of the simple, common crowd, But coldly smiled, and faintly bowed, As who should say : * You do me proud, And do yourself an honor 1 ' And yet the pride of Miss Mac Bride, Although it had fifty hobbies to ride, Had really no foundation ; THE PROUD MISS MAC BRIDE. 25 But, like the fabrics that gossips devise, Those single stories that often arise And grow till they reach a four-story size, Was merely a fancy creation 1 x. 'T is a curious fact as ever was known In human nature, but often shown Alike in castle and cottage, That pride, like pigs of a certain breed, Will manage to live and thrive on * feed ' As poor as a pauper's pottage ! XI. That her wit should never have made her vain, Was, like her face, sufficiently plain ; And as to her musical powers, Although she sang until she was hoarse, And issued notes with a Banker's force, They were just such notes as we never indorse For any acquaintance of ours ! Her birth, indeed, was uncommonly high, For Miss Mac Bride first opened her eye Through a sky-light dim, on the light of the sky ; But pride is a curious passion, And in talking about her wealth and worth, She always forgot to mention her birth, To people of rank and fashion ! 2 26 THE PROUD MISS MAC BRIDE. Of all the notable things on earth, The queerest one is pride of birth, Among our * fierce Democratic ' 1 A bridge across a hundred years, Without a prop to save it from sneers, Not even a couple of rotten Peers, A thing for laughter, fleers, and jeers, Is American aristocracy ! English and Irish, French and Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch and Danish, Crossing their veins until they vanish In one conglomeration ! So subtle a tangle of Blood, indeed, No heraldry-Harvey will ever succeed In finding the circulation 1 Depend upon it, my snobbish friend, Your family thread you can't ascend, Without good reason to apprehend You may find it waxed at the farther end By some plebeian vocation ! Or, worse than that, your boasted Line May end in a loop of stronger twine, That plagued some worthy relation I XVI. But Miss Mac Bride hath something beside Her lofty birth to nourish her pride, THE PROUD MISS MAC BRIDE. 27 For rich was the old paternal Mac Bride, According to public rumor ; And he lived ' Up Town,' in a splendid Square, And kept his daughter on dainty fare, And gave her gems that were rich and rare. And the finest rings and things to wear, And feathers enough to plume her 1 An honest mechanic was John Mac Bride, As ever an honest calling plied, Or graced an honest ditty ; For John had worked in his early day, In ' Pots and Pearls,' the legends say, And kept a shop with a rich array Of things in the soap and candle way, In the lower part of the city. XVIII. No rara avis was honest John, (That's the Latin for sable swan,') Though, in one of his fancy flashes, A wicked wag, who meant to deride, Called honest John * Old Phoenix Mac Bride,' * Because he rose from his ashes ! ' XIX. Little by little he grew to be rich, By saving of candle-ends and ' sich,' Till he reached, at last, an opulent niche, No very uncommon affair ; 8 THE PROUD MISS MAC BRIDE. For history quite confirms the law Expressed in the ancient Scottish saw, A MICKLE may come to be May'r ! * Alack ! for many ambitious beaux ! She hung their hopes upon her nose, (The figure is quite Horatian ! f) Until from habit the member grew As queer a thing as ever you knew Turn up to observation 1 A thriving tailor begged her hand, But she gave ' the fellow ' to understand, By a violent manual action, She perfectly scorned the best of his clan, And reckoned the ninth of any man An exceedingly Vulgar- Fraction ! XXII. Another, whose sign was a golden boot, Was mortified with a bootless suit, In a way that was quite appalling ; For though a regular sutor by trade, He was n't a suitor to suit the maid, Who cut him off with a saw, and bade * The cobbler keep to his calling.' * Mickle wi' thrift may chance to be mair. Scotch Proverb, Andrew Mickle, former Mayor of New York. t " Omnia suspendens naso." THE PROUD MISS MAC BRIDE. 29 XXIII. (The Muse must let a secret out, There is n't the faintest shadow of doubt, That folks who oftenest sneer and flout At ' the dirty, low mechanicals,* Are they whose sires, by pounding their knees, Or coiling their legs, or trades like these, Contrived to win their children ease From poverty's galling manacles.) A rich tobacconist comes and sues, And, thinking the lady would scarce refuse A man of his wealth and liberal views, Began, at once, with ' If you choose, And could you really love him ' But the lady spoiled his speech in a huff, With an answer rough and ready enough, To let him know she was up to snuff, And altogether above him 1 A young attorney of winning grace, Was scarce allowed to ' open his face,' Ere Miss Mac Bride had closed his case With true judicial celerity ; For the lawyer was poor, and * seedy ' to boot, And to say the lady discarded his suit, Is merely a double verity. SO THE PROUD MISS MAC BRIDE. XXVI. The last of those who came to court Was a lively beau of the dapper sort, * Without any visible means of support,' A crime by no means flagrant In one who wears an elegant coat, But the very point on which they vote A ragged fellow ' a vagrant/ A courtly fellow was Dapper Jim, Sleek and supple, and tall and trim, And smooth of tongue as neat of limb ; And, maugre his meagre pocket, You 'd say, from the glittering tales he told, That Jim had slept in a cradle of gold, With Fortunatus to rock it I XXVIII. Now Dapper Jim his courtship plied, (I wish the fact could be denied,) With an eye to the purse of the old Mac Bride, And really ' nothing shorter ' ! For he said to himself, in his greedy lust, * Whenever he dies, as die he must, And yields to Heaven his vital trust, He 's very sure to " come down with his dust," In behalf of his only daughter.' And the very magnificent Miss Mac Bride, Half in love and half in pride, THE PROUD MISS MAC BRIDE. 3 1 Quite graciously relented ; And tossing her head, and turning her back, No token of proper pride to lack, To be a Bride without the ' Mac, With much disdain, consented ! Alas ! that people who 've got their box Of cash beneath the best of locks, Secure from all financial shocks, Should stock their fancy with fancy stocks, And madly rush upon Wall-street rocks, Without the least apology ! Alas ! that people whose money affairs Are sound beyond all need of repairs, Should ever tempt the bulls and bears Of Mammon's fierce Zoology ! XXXI. Old John Mac Bride, one fatal day, Became the unresisting prey Of Fortune's undertakers ; And staking his all on a single die, His foundered bark went high and dry Among the brokers and breakers I XXXII. At his trade again in the very shop Where, years before, he let it drop, He follows Tiis ancient calling, Cheerily, too, in poverty's spite, 32 THE PROUD MISS MAC BRIDE. And sleeping quite as sound at night, As when, at Fortune's giddy height, He used to wake with a dizzy fright From a dismal dream of falling. XXXIII. But alas for the haughty Miss Mac Bride ! * T was such a shock to her precious pride ! She could n't recover, although she tried Her jaded spirits to rally; *T was a dreadful change in human affairs From a Place * Up Town,' to a nook ' Up Stairs, From an Avenue down to an Alley ! 'T was little condolence she had, God wot, From her ' troops of friends/ who had n't forgot The airs she used to borrow ; They had civil phrases enough, but yet 'T was plain to see that their ' deepest regret ' Was a different thing from Sorrow 1 XXXV. They owned it could n't have well been worse, To go from a full to an empty purse ; To expect a reversion and get a ' reverse,' Was truly a dismal feature ; But it was n't strange, they whispered, at all; That the Summer of pride should have its Fall, Was quite according to Nature 1 . THE PROUD MISS MAC BRIDE. 33 XXXYI. And one of those chaps who make a pun, As if it were quite legitimate fun To be blazing away at every one, With a regular double-loaded gun, Remarked that moral transgression Always brings retributive stings To candle-makers, as well as kings : And making light of ccrcous things, Was a very wick-ed profession 1 And vulgar people, the saucy churls, Inquired about ' the price of Pearls/ And mocked at her situation ; * She was n't ruined, they ventured to hope, Because she was poor, she need n't mope, Pew people were better off for soap, And that was a consolation ! ' XXXVIII. And to make her cup of woe run over, Her elegant, ardent, plighted lover Was the very first to forsake her ; 'He quite regretted the step, 'twas true,- The lady had pride enough " for two," But that alone would never do To quiet the butcher and baker I' 2* c 34 THE PROUD MISS MAC BRIDE. XXXIX. And now the unhappy Miss Mac Bride, The merest ghost of her early pride, Bewails her lonely position ; Cramped in the very narrowest niche, Above the poor, and below the rich, Was ever a worse condition ? Because you flourish in worldly affairs, Don't be haughty, and put on airs, With insolent pride of station ! Don't be proud, and turn up your nose At poorer people in plainer clo'es, But learn, for the sake of your soul's repose, That wealth 's a bubble, that comes and goes ! And that all Proud Flesh,-A7terever it grows, Is subject to irritation I THE BRIEFLESS BARRISTER. A BALLAD. AN Attorney was taking a turn, In shabby habiliments drest ; His coat it was shockingly worn, And the rust had invested his vest. His breeches had suffered a breach, His linen and worsted were worse ; He had scarce a whole crown in his hat, And not half-a-crown in his purse. And thus as he wandered along, A cheerless and comfortless elf, He sought for relief in a song, Or complainingly talked to himself: * Unfortunate man that I am 1 I 've never a client but grief; The case is, I 've no case at all, And in brief, I 've ne'er had a brief 1 86 THE BRIEFLESS BARRISTER. * I 've waited and waited in vain, Expecting an " opening " to find, Where an honest young lawyer might gain Some reward for toil of his mind. "T is not that I 'm wanting in law, Or lack an intelligent face, That others have cases to plead, While I have to plead for a case. * O, how can a modest young man E'er hope for the smallest progression, The profession's already so full Of lawyers so full of profession!' While thus he was strolling around, His eye accidentally fell On a very deep hole intfie ground, And he sighed to himself, * It is well 1 ' To curb his emotions, he sat On the curbstone the space of a minute, Then cried, Here 's an opening at last I ' And in less than a jiffy was in it ! Next morning twelve citizens came, ('Twas the coroner bade them attend,) To the end that it might be determined How the man had determined his end ! THE BRIEFLESS BARRISTER. 37 * The man was a lawyer, I hear,' Quoth the foreman who sat on the corse. * A lawyer ? Alas ! ' said another, * Undoubtedly died of remorse 1 ' A third said, * He knew the deceased, An attorney well versed in the laws, And as to the cause of his death, 'T was no doubt for the want of a cause.' The jury decided at length, After solemnly weighing the matter, That the lawyer was drownt/ed, because He could not keep his head above water 1* RHYME OF THE RAH,. SINGING through the forests, Rattling over ridges, Shooting under arches, Rumbling over bridges, Whizzing through the mountains, Buzzing o'er the vale, Bless me ! this is pleasant, Riding on the Rail 1 Men of different ' stations * In the eye of Fame Here are very quickly Coming to the same. High and lowly people, Birds of every feather, On a common level Travelling together ! Gentleman in shorts, Looming very tall ; Gentleman at large, Talking very small ; Gentleman in tights, With a loose-ish mien ; Gentleman in gray, Looking rather green. RHYME OF THE RAIL. 39 Gentleman quite old, Asking for the news ; Gentleman m black, In a fit of bluesy Gentleman in claret, Sober as a vicar ; Gentleman in Tweed, Dreadfully in liquor 1 Stranger on the right, Looking very sunny, Obviously reading Something rather funny. Now the smiles are thicker, Wonder what they mean ? Faith, he 's got the KNICKER- BOCKER Magazine 1 Stranger on the left, Closing up his peepers ; Now he snores amain, Like the Seven Sleepers ; At his feet a volume Gives the explanation, How the man grew stupid From ' Association ' 1 Ancient maiden lady Anxiously remarks, That there must be peril 'Mong so many sparks ; 40 RHYME OF THE RAIL. Roguish-looking fellow, Turning to the stranger, Says it 's his opinion She is out of danger I Woman with her baby, Sitting vis-a-vis ; Baby keeps a squalling, Woman looks at me ; Asks about the distance, Says it 's tiresome talking, Noises of the cars Are so very shocking ! Market-woman careful Of the precious casket, Knowing eggs are eggs, Tightly holds her basket ; Feeling that a smash,. If it came, would surely Send her eggs to pot Rather prematurely ! Singing through the forests, Rattling over ridges, Shooting under arches, Rumbling over bridges, Whizzing through the mountains, Buzzing o'er the vale ; Bless me ! this is pleasant, Riding on the Rail 1 THE KAPE OF THE LOCK; OR, CAPTAIN JONES'S MISADVENTURE. To follow the line of Captain JONES Back to the old ancestral bones Were surely an idle endeavor; For all that is known of the family feats Is that his sire, as a paver of streets, Had paved his way in a manner that meets The appellation of clever. n. 'T were pleasant enough more fully to trace The various steps in the Captain's race, If the records of heraldry had 'em ; But History leaps at a single span From the primitive pah* to the pavior-man, From ADAM down to MAC ADAM. in. 'T was rumored indeed, but nobody knows What credit to give to such rumors as those, His grandpapa was a cooper ; 42 THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. But getting fatigued with this roundabout mode Of staving through life, he took to the Road, As a kind of irregular trooper. But soon, although a fellow of pluck, By a singular turn in the wheel of luck, He met with a mortal miscarriage, By means of a cord that was dangling loose, And fell over his head in a dangerous noose That was n't at all like Marriage. A tale invented by foes, no doubt, Which idle people had helped about, Till it went alone, it got so stout ; For as to the truth of the story, I scarcely ought to have named it here, It seems to me so exceedingly clear, The fable is Newgate-ory. VI. And that 's the pith of the pedigree Of Captain JOXES, whose family tree Was a little shrub, 't is plain to see ; But what the topers mention Respecting wine, is true of blood : It ' needs no bush if it 's only good,' Much less a tree of the oldest wood, To warrant the world's attention. THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 43 VII. Now Captain JONES was a five-feet ten, (The height of CHESTERFIELD'S gentlemen,) With a nianly breadth of shoulder ; And Captain JOXES was straight and trim, With nothing about him anywise slim, And had for a leg as perfect a limb As ever astonished beholder 1 With a calf of such a notable size, 'T would surely have taken the highest prize At any fair Fair in creation ; 'T was just the leg for a prince to sport Who wished to stand at a Royal Court, At the head of Foreign Leg-ation 1 And Captain JONES had an elegant foot, 'T was just the thing for his patent boot, And could so prettily shove it, 'T was a genuine pleasure to see it repeat In the public walks the Milonian feat Of bearing the calf above it ! x. But the Captain's prominent personal charm Was neither his foot, nor leg, nor arm, Nor his very distingue air ; Nor was it, although you 're thinking upon 't, The front of his head, but his head and front Of beautiful coal-black hair 1 44 THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. XI. So very bright -was the gloss they had, 'T would have made a rival raving mad To look at his raven curls ; Wherever he went, the Captain's hair Was certain to fix the public stare, And the constant cry was, ' I declare ! ' And ' Did you ever ! ' and ' Just look there 1 * Among the dazzled girls. Now Captain JONES was a master bold Of a merchant-ship some dozen years old, And every name could have easily told, (And never confound the ' hull ' and the ' hold,') Throughout her inventory ; And he had travelled in foreign parts, And learned a number of--foreign arts, And played the deuce with foreign hearts, As the Captain told the story. XIII. He had learned to chatter the French and Spanish, To splutter the Dutch, and mutter the Danish, In a way that sounded oracular ; Had gabbled among the Portuguese, And caught the Tartar, or rather a piece Of * broken China,' it was n't Chinese, Anv more than his own vernacular ! THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 45 XIV. How Captain JONES was wont to shine In the line of ships ! (not Ships of the Line,) How he 'd brag of the water aver his wine, And of woman over the water ! And then, if you credit the Captain's phrase, He was more expert in such queer ways As ' doubling capes ' and ' putting in stays,' Than any milliner's daughter 1 XV. Now the Captain kept in constant pay A single Mate, as a Captain may (In a nautical, not in a naughty way, As 'mates' are sometimes carried) ; But to hear him prose of the squalls that arose In the dead of the night to break his repose, Of white-caps and cradles, and such things as those, And of breezes that ended in regular blows, You 'd have sworn the Captain was married XVI. The Captain's morals were fair enough, Though a sailor's life is rather rough, By dint of the ocean's force ; 'And that one who makes so many, in ships, Should make, upon shore, occasional * trips,' Seems quite a matter of course. And Captain JONES was stiff as a post To the vulgar fry, but among the most 46 THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. Genteel and polished, ruled the roast, As no professional cook could boast That ever you set your eye on ; Indeed, 't was enough to make him vain, For the pretty and proud confessed his reign, And Captain JOXES, in manners and mane, Was deemed a genuine lion. XVIII. And the Captain revelled early and late, At the balls and routs of the rich and great, And seemed the veriest child of fetes, Though merely a minion of pleasure ; And he laughed with the girls in merry sport, And paid the mammas the civilest court, And drank their wine, whatever the sort, By the nautical rule of ' Any port ' You may add the re^st at leisure. XIX. Miss SUSAN BROWN was a dashing girl As ever revolved in the waltz's whirl, Or twinkled a foot in the polka's twirl, By the glare of spermaceti ; And SUSAN'S form was trim and slight, And her beautiful skin, as if in spite Of her dingy name, ,was exceedingly white, And her azure eyes were * sparkling and bright,' And so was her favorite ditty. THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 47 XX. And SUSAN BROWN had a score of names, Like the very voluminous Mr. JAMES (Who got at the Font his strongest claims To be reckoned a Man of Letters) ; But thinking the task will hardly please Scholars who J ve taken the higher degrees, To be set repeating their A, B, C's, I choose to reject such fetters as these, Though merely Nominal fetters. The patronymical name of the maid Was so completely overlaid With a long praenominal cover, That if each additional proper noun Was laid with additional emphasis down, Miss SUSAN was done uncommonly BROWN, The moment her christ'ning was over 1 And SUSAN was versed in modern romance, In the Modes of MURRAY and Modes of France, And had learned to sing and learned to dance, In a style decidedly pretty ; And SUSAN was versed in classical lore, In the works of HORACE, and several more Whose opera now would be voted a bore By the lovers of DONIZETTI. 48 T1IE RAPE OF THE LOCK. XXIII. And SUSAN was rich. Her provident sire Had piled the dollars up higher and higher, By dint of his personal labors, Till he reckoned at last a sufficient amount To be counted, himself, a man of account Among his affluent neighbors. XXIV. By force of careful culture alone, Old BROWN'S estate had rapidly grown A plum for his only daughter ; And, after all the fanciful dreams Of golden fountains and golden streams, The sweat of patient labor seems The true Pactolian water. And while your theorist worries his mind In hopes ' the magical stone ' to find, By some alchemical gammon, Practical people, by regular knocks, Are filling their * pockets full of rocks ' From the golden mountain of Mammon I With charms like these, you may well suppose Miss SUSAN BROWN had plenty of beaux, Breathing nothing but passion ; THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 49 And twenty sought her hand to gain, And twenty sought her hand in vain, Were 'cut/ and didn't 'come again,' In the Ordinary fashion. XXVII. Captain JONES, by the common voice, At length was voted the man of her choice, And she his favorite fair ; It was n't the Captain's manly face, His native sense, nor foreign grace, That took her heart from its proper place And put it into a tenderer case, But his beautiful coal-black hair ! XXVIII. How it is, wliy it is, none can tell, But all philosophers know full well, Though puzzled about the action, That of all the forces under the sun You can hardly find a stronger one Than capillary attraction. The locks of canals are strong as rocks ; And wedlock is strong as a banker's box ; And there 's strength in the locks a Cockney cocks At innocent birds, to give himself knocks ; In the locks of safes, and those safety-locks They call the Permutation ; 3 D 50 THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. But of all the locks that ever were made In Nature's shops, or the shops of trade, The subtlest combination Of beauty and strength is found in those Which grace the heads of belles and beaux In every civilized nation 1 XXX. The gossips whispered it through the town, That ' Captain JONES loved SUSAN BROWN;' But, speaking with due precision, The gossips' tattle was out of joint, For the lady's ' blunt ' was the only point - That dazzled the lover's vision'! And the Captain begged, in his smoothest tones, Miss SUSAN BROWN to be Mistress JONES, Flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones, Till death the union should sever ; For these are the words employed, of course, Though Death is cheated, sometimes, by Divorce, A fact which gives an equivocal force To that beautiful phrase, 'forever!' XXXII. And SUSAN sighed the conventional ' Nay* In such a bewitching, affirmative way, The Captain perceived 't was the feminine * Ay/ And sealed it in such commotion, THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 51 That no * lip-service ' that ever was paid To the ear of a god, or the cheek of a maid, Looked more like real devotion ! XXXIII. And SUSAN'S Mamma made an elegant fete And exhibited all the family plate In honor of SUSAN'S lover ; For now 't was settled, another trip Over the sea in his merchant-ship, And his bachelor-ship was over. There was an Alderman, well to do, Who was fond of talking about vertu, And had, besides, the genuine gout, If one might credit his telling ; And the boast was true beyond a doubt If he had only pronounced it * gout,* According to English spelling ! XXXV. A crockery-merchant of great parade, Always boasting of having made His large estate in the China trade ; Several affluent tanners ; A lawyer, whose most important * case * Was that which kept his books in place ; His wife, a lady of matchless grace, ought her form, and made her face, Who plainly borrowed her manners ; 52 THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. XXXVI A druggist ; an undercut divine ; A banker, who 'd got as rich as a mine * In the cotton trade and sugar line,' Along the Atlantic border ; A doctor, fumbling his golden seals ; And an undertaker close at his heels, Quite in the natural order 1 XXXVII. People of rank, and people of wealth, Plethoric people in delicate health, (Who fast in public, and feast by stealth,) And people slender and hearty, Flocked in so fast, 't was plain to the eye Of any observer standing by, That party-spirit was running high, And this was the popular party 1 To tell what griefs and woes betide The hapless world, from female pride, Were a long and dismal story ; Alas for SUSAN and womankind ! A sudden ambition seized her mind, In the height of her party-glory. XXXIX. To pique a group of laughing girls Who stood admiring the Captain's curls, She formed the resolution THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 53 To get a lock of her lover's hair, In the gaze of the guests assembled there, By some expedient, foul or fair Before the party's conclusion. XL. 4 Only a lock, dear Captain ! no more, " A lock for memory," I implore ! ' But JOXES, the gayest of quizzers, Replied, as he gave his eye a cock, * 'T is a treacherous memory needs a lock,' And dodged the envious scissors. XLI. Alas that SUSAN could n't refrain, In her zeal the precious lock to gain, From laying her hand on the lion's inane I To see the cruel mocking, And hear the short, affected cough, The general titter, and chuckle, and scoff, When the Captain's Patent Wig came off", Was really dreadfully shocking ! Of SUSAN'S swoon, the tale is told, That long before her earthly mould Regained its ghostly tenant, Her luckless, wigless, loveless lover Was on the sea, and ' half-seas-over,' Dreaming that some piratical rover Had carried away his Pennant I A RHYMED EPISTLE TO THE EDITOR OF THE KNICKERBOCKER MAGAZINE. DEAR KNICK : While myself and my spouse Sat tea-ing last evening, and chatting, And, mindful of conjugal vows, Were nicely agreed in combating, It chanced that myself and my wife, ('T was Madam occasioned the pother !) Falling suddenly into a strife, Came near falling out with each other ! In a brisk, miscellaneous chat, Quite in tune with the chime of the tea-things, We were talking of this and of that, Just as each of us happened to see things, When some how or other it chanced, (I don't quite remember the cue,) That as talking and tea-ing advanced, W T e found we were talking of you 1 I think but perhaps I am wrong, Such a subtle old chap is Suggestion, As he forces each topic along By the trick of the ' previous question ' A RHYMED EPISTLE. 55 Some remarks on a bacchanal revel Suggested that horrible elf With the hoof and the horns, and the Devil, Excuse me, suggested yourself I * Ah ! Knick, to be sure ; by the way,' Quoth Madam, ' what sort of a man Do you take him to be ! nay, but stay, And let me guess him out if I can. He 's young, and quite handsome, no doubt ; Rather slender, and not over-tall ; And he loves a snug little turn-out, And turns out " quite a love " at a ball 1* And then she went on to portray Such a very delightful ideal, That a sensible stranger would say It really could n't be real. * And his wife, what a lady must she be ? (KxiCK 's married, that I know, and you know ;) You '11 find her a delicate Hebe, And not your magnificent Juno ! ' Now I am a man, you must learn, Less famous for beauty than strength, And, for aught I could ever discern, Of rather superfluous length. In truth 'tis but seldom one meets Such a Titan in human abodes, And when I stalk over the streets, I 'in a perfect Colossus of roads 1 56 A RHYMED EPISTLE. So I frowned like a tragedy-Roman, For in painting the beautiful elf As the form of your lady, the woman Took care to be drawing herself; While, mark you, the picture she drew So deused con amore and free, That fanciful likeness of you, Was by no means a portrait of me I ' How lucky for ladies/ I hinted, 4 That in our republican land They may prattle, without being stinted, Of matters they don't understand ; I'll show you, dear Madam, that " KXICK "' Is n't dapper nor daintily slim, But a gentleman decently thick, With a manly extension of limb. * And as to his youth talk of flowers Blooming gayly in frosty December ! 1 11 warrant, his juvenile hours Are things he can scarcely remember ! Here, Madam, quite plain to be seen, Is the chap you would choose for a lover And, producing your own Magazine, I pointed elate to the cover 1 ' You see, ma'am, *t is just as I said, His locks are as gray as a rat ; Here, look at the crown of his head, 'T is bald as the crown of my hat I A RHYMED EPISTLE. 57 * Nay, my dear,* interrupted my wife, Who began to be casting about To get the last word in the strife, * 'T is his grandfather's picture, no doubt ! ' THE DOG-DAYS. "Hot! hot ! all piping hot." City Cries. HEAVEN help us all in these terrific days ! The burning sun upon the earth is pelting With his directest, fiercest, hottest rays, And everything is melting ! Fat men, infatuate, fan the stagnant air, In rash essay to cool thejr...inward glowing, While with each stroke, in dolorous despair, They feel the fever growing 1 The lean and lathy find a fate as hard, For, all a-dry, they burn like any tinder Beneath the solar blaze, till withered, charred, And crisped away to cinder! E'en Stojcs now are in the melting mood, And vestal cheeks are most unseemly florid ; The very zone that girts the frigid prude Is now intensely torrid 1 THE DOG-DAYS. 59 The dogs lie lolling in the deepest shade ; The pigs are all a-wallow in the gutters, And not a household creature cat or inaid, But querulously mutters 1 4 'T is dreadful, dreadful hot ! ' exclaims each one Unto his sweating, sweltering, roasting neighbor, Then mops his brow, and sighs, as he had done A quite herculean labor 1 And friends who pass each other in the town Say no good-morrows when they come together, But only mutter, with a dismal frown, 4 What horrid, horrid weather 1 ' While prudent mortals curb with strictest care All vagrant curs, it seems the queerest puzzle The Dog-star rages rabid through the air, Without the slightest muzzle ! But Jove is wise and equal in his sway, Howe'er it seems to clash with human reason, His fiery dogs will soon have had their day, And men shall have a season ! 60 ON A RECENT CLASSIC CONTROVERSY. ON A RECENT CLASSIC CONTROVERSY. AN EPIGRAM. NAY, marvel not to see these scholars fight, In brave disdain of certain scath and scar ; 'Tis but the genuine old Hellenic spite, * When Greek meets Greek, then conies the tug of war T ANOTHER. QUOTH David to Daniel, * Why is it these scholars Abuse one another whenever they speak ? ' Quoth Daniel to David, * It nat'rally follers Folks come to hard words if they meddle with Greek 1* THE GHOST-PLAYER. A BALLAD. TOM GOODWIN was an actor-man, Old Drury's pride and boast In all the light and sprite-ly parts, Especially the Ghost. Now Tom was very fond of drink, Of almost every sort, Comparative and positive, From porter up to port. But grog, like grief, is fatal stuff For any man to sup ; For when it fails to pull him down, It 's sure to blow him up. And so it fared with ghostly Tom, Who day by day was seen A-swelling, till (as lawyers say) He fairly lost his lean. 62 THE GHOST-PLAYER. At length the manager observed He 'd better leave his post, And said, he played the very deuse Whene'er he played the Ghost. 'T was only t' other night he saw A fellow swing his hat, And heard him cry, By all the gods ! The Ghost is getting fat 1 ' T would never do, the case was plain ; His eyes he could n't shut ; Ghosts should n't make the people laugh, And Tom was quite a butt. Tom's actor friends said ne'er a word To cheer his drooping heart ; Though more than one was burning up With zeal to ' take his part.' Tom argued very plausibly ; He said he did n't doubt That Hamlet's father drank and grew, In years, a little stout. And so, 't was natural, he said, And quite a proper plan, To have his spirit represent A portly sort of man. 'T was all in vain : the manager Sai$ he was not in sport, And, like a gen'ral, bade poor Tom Surrender up lusjbrte. ON AN ILL-READ LAWYER. 63 He 'd do perhaps in heavy parts, Might answer for a monk, Or porter to the elephant, To carry round his trunk ; But in the Ghost his day was past, He 'd never do for that ; A Ghost might just as well be dead As plethoric and fat I Alas ! next day poor Tom was found As stifF as any post ; For he had lost his character, And given up the Ghost J ON AN ILL-READ LAWYER. AN EPIGRAM. AN idle attorney besought a brother For ' something to read some novel or other, That was really fresh and new.' * Take Chitty ! ' replied his legal friend, * There is n't a book that I could lend Would prove more " novel " to you ! ' A BENEDICT'S APPEAL TO A BACHELOR " Double ! double ! " Shakespeare* I. DEAR CHARLES, be persuaded to wed, For a sensible fellow like you, It 's high time to think of a bed, And muffins and coffee for two ! So have done with your doubt and delaying, With a soul so adapted to mingle, No wonder the neighbor? are saying Tis singular you should be single ! IT. Don't say that you have n't got time, That business demands your attention, There 's not the least reason nor rhyme In the wisest excuse you can mention. Don't tell me about ' other fish,' Your duty is done when you buy 'em, And you never will relish the dish, Unless you 've a woman to fry 'em 1 A BENEDICT'S APPEAL TO A BACHELOR. 65 Don't listen to querulous stories By desperate damsels related, Who sneer at connubial glories, Because they 've known couples mismated. Such people, if they had their pleasure, Because silly bargains are made, Would deem it a rational measure To lay an embargo on trade 1 You may dream of poetical fame, But your wishes may chance to miscarry, - The best way of sending one's name To posterity, Charles, is to marry 1 And here I am willing to own, After soberly thinking upon it, I 'd very much rather be known For a beautiful son, than a sonnet I v. To Procrastination be deaf, (A homily sent from above,) The scoundrel 's not only ' the thief Of time,' but of beauty and love ! O delay not one moment to win A prize that is truly worth winning, Celibacy, Charles, is a sin, And sadly prolific of sinning ! E 66 A BENEDICT'S APPEAL TO A BACHELOR. VI. Then pray bid your doubting good-by, And dismiss all fantastic alarms, I '11 be sworn you 've a girl in your eye 'T is your duty to have in your arms ! Some trim little maiden of twenty, A beautiful, azure-eyed elf, With virtues and graces in plenty, And no failing but loving yourself I Don't search for ' an angel ' a minute ; For granting you win in the sequel, The deuse, after all, would be in it, With a union so very unequal The angels, it must be confessed, In this world are rather uncommon ; And allow me, dear Charles, to suggest You '11 be better content with a woman I VIII. I could furnish a bushel of reasons For choosing a conjugal mate, It agrees with all climates and seasons, And gives you a ' double estate ' 1 To one's parents 'tis (gratefully) due, Just think what a terrible thing 'T would have been, sir, for me and for you, If ours had forgotten the ring ! A BENEDICT'S APPEAL TO A BACHELOR. 67 IX. Then there 's the economy - clear, By poetical algebra shown, If your wife has a grief or a fear, One half, by the law, is your own ! And as to the joys by division, They 're nearly quadrupled, 'tis said, (Though I never could see the addition Quite plain in the item of bread). x. Remember, I do not pretend There 's anything ' perfect ' about it, But this I '11 aver to the end, Life 's very imperfect without it ! 'T is not that there 's ' poetry ' in it, As, doubtless, there may be to those Endowed with a genius to win it, But I '11 warrant you excellent prose ! Then, Charles, be persuaded to wed, For a sensible fellow like you, It 's high time to think of a bed, And muffins and coffee for two ; So have done with your doubt and delaying, With a soul so adapted to mingle, No wonder the neighbors are saying 'T is singular you should be single ! BOYS. * THE proper study of mankind is man,' The most perplexing one, no doubt, is woman The subtlest study that the mind can scan, Of all deep problems, heavenly or human ! But of all studies in the round of learning, From nature's marvels down to human toys, To minds well fitted for aeate discerning, The very queerest one is that of boys ! - If to ask questions that would puzzle Plato, And all the schoolmen of the Middle Age, If to make precepts worthy of old Cato, Be deemed philosophy, your boy 's a sage ! If the possession of a teeming fancy, (Although, forsooth, the younker does n't know it, Which he can use in rarest necromancy, Be thought poetical, your boy 's a poet ! WOMAN'S WILL. If a strong will and most courageous bearing, If to be cruel as the Roman Nero ; If all that 's chivalrous, and all that 's daring, Can make a hero, then the boy 's a hero ! But changing soon with his increasing stature, The boy is lost in manhood's riper age, And with him goes his former triple nature, No longer Poet, Hero, now, nor Sage ! WOMAN'S WILL. AN EPIGBAM. MEN dying make their wills, but wives Escape a work so sad ; Why should they make what all their lives The gentle dames have had ? THE COLD-WATER MAN. A BALLAD. IT was an honest fisherman, I knew him passing well, And he lived by a little pond, Within a little dell. A grave and quiet man was he, Who loved his hook and rod, So even ran his line of life, His neighbors thought it odd. For science and for books, he said He never had a wish, No school to him was worth a fig, Except a school of fish. He ne'er aspired to rank or wealth, Nor cared about a name, For though much famed for fish was he, He never fished for fame ! THE COLD-WATER MAX. 71 Let others bend their necks at sight Of Fashion's gilded wheels, He ne'er had learned the art to ' bob ' For anything but eels ! A cunning fisherman was he, His angles all were right ; The smallest nibble at his bait Was sure to prove * a bite ' ! All day this fisherman would sit Upon an ancient log, And gaze into the water, like Some sedentary frog ; With all the seeming innocence, And that unconscious look, That other people often wear When they intend to * hook ' 1 To charm the fish he never spoke, Although his voice was fine, He found the most convenient way Was just to drop a line ! And many a gudgeon of the pond, If they could speak to-day, Would own, with grief, this angler had A mighty taking way 1 THE COLD-WATER MAN. Alas! one day this fisherman Had taken too much grog, And being but a landsman, too, He could n't keep the log I 'T was all in vain with might and main He strove to reach the shore ; Down down he went, to feed the fish He 'd baited oft before 1 The jury gave their verdict that 'T was nothing else but gin Had caused the fisherman to be So sadly taken in ; Though one stood out upon a whim, And said the angler's slaughter, To be exact about the fact, Was, clearly, gin-and-wafer / The moral of this mournful tale, To all is plain and clear, That drinking habits bring a man Too often to his bier ; And he who scorns to * take the pledge, And keep the promise fast, May be, in spite of fate, a stiff Cold-water man at last I THE DAGUERROTYPE. 73 ON AN UGLY PERSON SITTING FOB A DAGUERROTYPE. AN EPIGRAM. HERE Nature in her glass the wanton elf Sits gravely making faces at herself; And, while she scans each clumsy feature o'er, Repeats the blunders that she made before ! A COLLEGE REMINISCENCE. ADDRESSED TO THOMAS B. THORPE, ESQ., OF NEW ORLEANS. DEAR TOM, have you forgot the day When, long ago, we used to stray Among the 4 Haddams' '? Where, in the mucky road, a man (The road was built on Adam's plan, And not McAdam's !) Went down down down, one stormy night, And disappeared from human sight, All save his hat, Which raised in sober minds a sense Of some mysterious Providence In sparing that ? I think 't will please you, Tom, to hear The man who in that night of fear Went down terrestrial, Worked out a passage like a miner, And, pricking through somewhere iu China, Came up Celestial ! A COLLEGE REMINISCENCE. 75 Ah ! those were memorable times, And worth embalming in my rhymes, When, at the summons Of chapel bell, we left our sport For lessons most uncommon short, Or shorter commons ! I mind me Tom, you often drew Nice portraits, and exceeding true To your intention ! The most impracticable faces Discovered unsuspected graces, By your invention. On brainless heads the finest bumps (Erected by your pencil-thumps) Were plainly seen ; Your Yankees all were very Greek, Unchosen aunts grew ' choice antique/ And blues turned green 1 The swarthy suddenly were fair, And yellow changed to auburn hair Or sunny flax ; And people very thin and flat, Like Aldermen, grew round and fat On canvas-backs 1 I well remember all your art To make the best of every part, I am certain no man 76 A COLLEGE REMINISCENCE. Could better coax a wrinkle out, Or elevate a lowly snout, Or snub a Roman I Young gentlemen with leaden eyes Stared wildly out on lowering skies, Quite Corsair-fashion ; And greenish orbs got very blue, And linsey-woolsey maidens grew Almost Circassian 1 And many an ancient maiden aunt As lean and lank as John O'Gaunt, Or even lanker, By art transformed and newly drest, Could boast for once as full a chest As any banker 1 Ah ! we were jolly youngsters then, But now we 're sober-sided men, Half through life's journey ; And you 've turned author, Tom, I hear, And I you '11 think it very queer Have turned attorney ! Heaven bless you, Tom, in house and heart 1 (That we should live so far apart Is much a pity,) And may you multiply your name, And have a very * crescent ' fame, Just like your city 1 FAMILY QUARRELS. 77 FAMILY QUARRELS. AN EPIGRAM. * A FOOL,' said Jeanette, * is a creature I hate 1 ' 4 But hating,' quoth John, ' is immoral ; Besides, my dear girl, it 's a terrible fate To be found in a family quarrel 1 ' SONNET TO A CLAM. Dam tacent cJamant. INGLORIOUS FRIEND ! most confident I am Thy life is one of very little ease ; Albeit men mock thee with their similes And prate of being ' happy as a clam ' ! What though thy shell protects thy fragile head From the sharp bailiffs of the briny sea ? Thy valves are, sure, no safety-valves to thee, While rakes are free to desecrate thy bed, And bear thee off, as foemen take their spoil, Far from thy friends and family to roam ; Forced, like a Hessian, from thy native home, To meet destruction in a foreign broil ! Though thou art tender, yet thy humble bard Declares, O clam ! thy case is shocking hard ! A REASONABLE PETITION. You say, dearest girl, you esteem me, And hint of respectful regard, And I 'm certain it would n't beseem me Such an excllent gift to discard. But even the Graces, you'll own, Would lose half their beauty apart, And Esteem, when she stands all alone, Looks most unbecomingly tart. So grant me, dear girl, this petition : If Esteem e'er again should come hither, Just to keep her in cheerful condition, Let Love come in company with her 1 GUNEOPATHY. I SAW a lady yesterday, A regular M. D., Who 'd taken from the Faculty Her medical degree ; And I thought, if ever I was sick, My doctor she should be ! I pity the deluded man Who foolishly consults Another man, in hopes to find Such magical resul|a As when a pretty woman lays Her hand upon his pulse ! I had a strange disorder once, A kind of chronic chill, That all the doctors in the town, With all then- vaunted skill, Could never cure, I 'in very s.ure, With powder nor with pill ; I don't know what they calk-<l it In their pompous terms of Art, GUXEOPATHY. 81 Nor if they thought it mortal In such a vital part, I only know 't was reckoned * Something icy round the heart ' ! A lady came, her presence brought The blood into my ears ! She took my hand and something like A fever now appears ! Great Galen ! I was all aglow, Though I 'd been cold for years 1 Perhaps it is n't every case That 's fairly in her reach, But should I e'er be ill again, I fervently beseech That I may have, for life or death, A lady for my * leech ' I 4* A PHILOSOPHICAL QUERY. TO IF Virtue be measured by what we resist, When against Inclination we strive, You and I have been proved, we may fairly insist, The most virtuous mortals alive ! Now Virtue, we know, is the brightest of pearls, But as Pleasure is hard of evasion, Should we envy, or pity, tlj .stoical churls Who never have known a temptation ? COMIC MISERIES. i. MY dear young friend, whose shining wit Sets all the room ablaze, Don't think yourself 4 a happy dog,' For all your merry ways ; But learn to wear a sober phiz, Be stupid, if you can, It 's such a very serious thing To be a funny man I You 're at an evening party, with A group of pleasant folks, You venture quietly to crack The least of little jokes : A lady does n't catch the point, And begs you to explain, Alas for one who drops a jest And takes it up again 1 You 're talking deep philosophy With very special force, 84 COMIC MISERIES. To edify a clergyman With suitable discourse : You think you Ve got him, when he calls A friend across the way, And begs you '11 say that funny thing You said the other day 1 You drop a pretty jeu-de-mot Into a neighbor's ears, Who likes to give you credit for The clever thing he hears, And so he hawks your jest about, The old, authentic one, Just breaking off the point of it, And leaving out the pun 1 By sudden change inpolitics, Or sadder change in Polly, You lose your love, or loaves, and fall A prey to melancholy, While everybody marvels why Your mirth is under ban, They think your very grief * a joke,' You 're such a funny man 1 You follow up a stylish card That bids you come and dine. COMIC MISERIES. 85 And bring along your freshest wit (To pay for musty wine) ; You 're looking very dismal, when My lady bounces in, And wonders what you 're thinking of, And why you don't begin 1 TIf. You 're telling to a knot of friends A fancy-tale of woes That cloud your matrimonial sky, And banish all repose, A solemn lady overhears The story of your strife, And tells the town the pleasant news : You quarrel with your wife ! VIII. My dear young friend, whose shining wit Sets all the room ablaze, Don't think yourself ' a happy dog/ For all your merry ways ; But learn to wear a sober phiz, Be stupid, if you can, It 's such a very serious thing To be a funny man 1 THE OLD CHAPEL-BELL. A BALLAD.* WITHIN a churchyard's sacred ground, Whose fading tablets tell Where they who built the village church In solemn silence dwell, , Half hidden in the earth, there lies An ancient Chapel-Bell. Broken, decayed, and covered o'er With mouldering leaves and rust ; Its very name and date concealed Beneath a cankering crust ; Forgotten like its early friends, Who sleep in neighboring dust. * This ballad is a paraphrase of a beautiful prose tale written by Mrs. ALICE B. NEAL,and published anonymously, several years ago, as a translation ' from the German.' The story is so exceed- ingly Germanesque in its style and spirit, that the best scholars in the country did not suspect its American origin, until the fact was recently disclosed by the gifted authoress. THE OLD CHAPEL-BELL. 87 Yet it was once a trusty Bell, Of most sonorous lung, And many a joyous wedding-peal, And many a knell had rung, Ere Time had cracked its brazen sides, And broke its iron tongue. And many a youthful heart had danced, In merry Christmas-time, To hear its pleasant roundelay, Sung out in ringing rhyme ; And many a worldly thought been checked To list its Sabbath chime. A youth a bright and happy boy, One sultry summer's day, Aweary of his bat and ball, Chanced hitherward to stray, To read a little book he had, And rest him from his play. * A soft and shady spot is this 1 ' The rosy youngster cried, And sat him down, beneath a tree, That ancient Bell beside ; (But, hidden in the tangled grass, The Bell he ne'er espied.) Anon, a mist fell on his book, The letters seemed to stir 88 THE OLD CHAPEL-BELL. And though, full oft, his flagging sight The boy essayed to spur, The mazy page was quickly lost Beneath a cloudy blur. And while he marvelled much at this, And wondered how it came, He felt a languor creeping o'er His young and weary frame, And heard a voice, a gentle voice, That plainly spoke his name. That gentle voice that named his name Entranced him like a spell, Upon his ear so very near And suddenly it fell, Yet soft and musical, as 't were The whisper of a belL * Since last I spoke,' the Voice began, 4 Seems many a dreary year 1 (Albeit, 't is only since thy birth I 've lain neglected here !) Pray list, while I rehearse a tale Behooves thee much to hear. Once, from yon ivied tower, I watched The villagers, around, And gave to all their joys and griefs A sympathetic sound, But most are sleeping, now, within This consecrated ground. THE OLD CHAPEL-BELL. 89 * I used to ring my merriest peal To hail the blushing bride ; I sadly tolled for men cut down In strength and manly pride ; And solemnly, not mournfully, When little children died. 4 But, chief, my duty was to bid The villagers repair, On each returning Sabbath morn Unto the House of Prayer, And in his own appointed place The Saviour's mercy share. * Ah 1 well I mind me of a child, / A gleesome, happy maid, Who came, with constant step, to church, In comely garb arrayed, And knelt her down full solemnly, And penitently prayed. * And oft, when church was done, I marked That little maiden near This pleasant spot, with book in hand, As you are sitting here, She read the Story of the Cross, And wept with grief sincere. 1 Years rolled away, and I beheld The child to woman grown ; 90 THE OLD CHAPEL-BELL. Her cheek was fairer, and her eye With brighter lustre shone ; But childhood's truth and innocence Were still the maiden's own. * I never rang a merrier peal Than when, a joyous bride, She stood beneath the sacred porch, A noble youth beside, And plighted him her maiden troth, In maiden love and pride. * I never tolled a deeper knell, Than when, in after years, They laid her in the churchyard here, Where this low mound appears (The very grave, my boy, that you Are watering now with tears !) * It is tfiy mother ! gentle boy, That claims this tale of mine, Thou art a flower whose fatal birth Destroyed the parent vine I A precious flower art thou, my child, TWO LIVES WERE GIVEN FOR THIXE ! * One was thy sainted mother's, when She gave thee mortal birth ; And one thy Saviour's, when in death He shook the solid earth ; Go ! boy, and live as may befit Thy life's exceeding worth 1 ' THE OLD CHAPEL-BELL 91 The boy awoke, as from a dream, And, thoughtful, looked around, But nothing saw, save at his feet His mother's lowly mound, And by its side that ancient Bell, Half hidden in the ground ! THE LADY A BALLAD. SHE 'LL soon be here, the Lady Ann/ The children cried in glee ; * She always comes at four o'clock, And now it 's striking three.* At stroke of four the lady came, A lady passing fair ; . . And she sat and gazed adown the road, With a long and eager stare. * The mail 1 the mail ! * the idlers cried, At sight of a coach-and-four ; * The mail ! the mail 1 ' and at the word, The coach was at the door. Up sprang in haste the Lady Ann, And marked with anxious eye The travellers, who, one by one, Were slowly passing by. THE LADY ANN. 4 Alack ! alack ! ' the lady cried, * He surely named to-day ; He '11 come to-morrow, then,' she sighed, And, turning, strolled away. * 'T is passing odd, upon my word,' The landlord now began ; * A strange romance ! that woman, Sirs, Is called the Lady Ann. * She dwells hard by upon the hill, The widow of Sir John, Who died abroad, come August next, Just twenty years agone. A hearty neighbor, Sirs, was he, A bold, true-hearted man ; And a fonder pair were seldom seen Than he and Lady Ann. * They scarce had been a twelvemonth wed, When ill betide the day ! Sir JOHN was called to go in haste Some hundred miles away. * Ne'er lovers in the fairy tales A truer love could boast ; And many were the gentle words That came and went by post. 94 THE LADY ANN. ' A- month or more had passed away, When by the post came down The joyous news that such a day Sir John would be in town. * Full gleesome was the Lady Ann To read the welcome word, And promptly at the hour she came, To meet her wedded lord. * Alas ! alas ! he came not back I There only came instead A mournful message by the post, That good Sir John was dead ! * One piercing shriek, and Lady Ann Had swooned upon the floor : Good Sirs, it was a fearj&il grief That gentle lady bore 1 * We raised her up ; her ebbing life Began again to dawn ; She muttered wildly to herself, 'T was plain her wits were gone. A strange forgetfulness came o er Her sad, bewildered mind. And to the grief that drove her mad Her memory was blind ! THE LADY ANN. 95 ' Ah ! since that hour she little wots Full twenty years are fled ! She little wots, poor Lady Ann ! Her wedded lord is dead. * But each returning day she deems The day he fixed to come ; And ever at the wonted hour She 's here to greet him home. 1 And when the coach is at the door, She marks with eager eye The travellers, as one by one They 're slowly passing by. * " Alack ! " she cries, in plaintive tone, " He surely named to-day ! Pie '11 come to-morrow, then," she sighs, And, turning, strolls away.' GIRLHOOD. WITH rosy cheeks, and merry-dancing curls, And eyes of tender light, O, very beautiful are little girls, And goodly to the sight 1 Here comes a group to seek my lonely bower, Ere waning Autumn dies : How like the dew-drops ojn^a drooping flower, Are smiles from gentle eyes I What beaming gladness lights each fairy face The while the elves advance, Now speeding swiftly in a gleesome race, Now whirling in a dance 1 What heavenly pleasure o'er the spirit rolls, When all the air along Floats the sweet music of untainted souls, In bright, unsullied song 1 GIRLHOOD. 9 7 The sacred nymphs that guard this sylvan ground May sport unseen with these, And joy to hear their ringing laugh resound Among the clustering trees ! With rosy cheeks, and merry-dancing curls, And eyes of tender light, O, very beautiful are little girls. And goodly to the s A SONNET. NAY, weep not, dearest, though the child be dead He lives again in Heaven's unclouded life, With other angels that have early fled From these dark scenes of sorrow, sin, and strife Nay, weep not, dearest, though thy yearning love Would fondly keep for earth its fairest flowers, And e'en deny to brighter realms above The few that deck this dreary world of ours : Though much it seems a wonder and a woe That one so loved should be so early lost, And hallowed tears may unforbidden flow To mourn the blossom that we cherished most, Yet all is well ; GOD'S good design I see, That where our treasure is, our hearts may be 1 MY BOYHOOD. An me ! Ihose joyous days are gone I I little dreamt, till they were flown, How fleeting were the hours ! For lest he break the pleasing spell, Time bears for youth a muffled bell, And hides his face in flowers ! Ah ! well I mind me of the days, Still bright in memory's flattering rays, When all was fan- and new ; When knaves were only found in books, And friends were known by friendly looks, And love was always true 1 While yet of sin I scarcely dreamed, And everything was what it seemed, And all too bright for choice ; When fays were wont to guard my sleep, And Crusoe still could make me weep, And Santa Claus, rejoice 1 When Heaven was pictured to my thought, (In spite of all my mother taught Of happiness serene,) 100 MY BOYHOOD. A theatre of boyish plays, One glorious round of holidays, Without a school between ! Ah me ! those joyous days are gone ; I little dreamt, till they were flown, How fleeting were the hours ! For, lest he break the pleasing spell, Time bears for youth a muffled bell, And hides his face in flowers ! THE TIMES. A POEM READ BEFORE THE BOSTON MERCANTILE LI BRARY ASSOCIATION, NOVEMBER 14, 1849. THE Muses once, so sacred myths declare, (See classic Keightly, Cruzer, or Lempriere,) On cleft Parnassus held a lofty seat, Where, in the quiet of their calm retreat, With sweet accord they spent the rosy hours, And wove bright garlands of perennial flowers ; Nine blooming sisters, each with separate aim, Yet all rejoicing in the common fame, Alone attentive to their high behests, No jealous cares disturbed their tender breasts, For Phoebus, watchful of the sacred Nine, Warned off intruders with a magic sign ! You Ve seen the like in Lowell mills, where scores, In gold or ochre, guard the inner doors ; A frequent sight in any factory town, Where idle cit, or curious country clown, Reads, at a glance, in letters large and clear, The startling caution, ' No admittance here ! ' What amorous bard, the hidden Nine to view, First scaled the wall, or forced a passage through, 102 THE TIMES. What ' gay Lothario ' found at length a way To win the maids and lead them all astray, Is yet unknown : this only can be told, Some curst intruder broke Apollo's fold, And all-remorseless for the grave abuse, In Phoebus' spite let all the Muses loose ! Far from their old Parnassian groves to roam, To grace, instead, some airy garret-home, (Where, free from bailiffs, poetasters rhyme, And, thankless, waste their tapers and their time, While through the night they fondly toil for naught, Angling in inkstands for some gudgeon-thought). Nor this the worst that sprang from such a cause. Released at once from chaste Diana's laws, All moral canons eager now to waive, Save only those that wanton Nature gave. The Nine are grown a thousand ! and the Earth Hails every morning yet another birth ! What hinders then, when every youth may choose. As Fancy bids, a musket or a Muse, And throw his lead among his fellow-men, From the dark muzzle of a gun or pen ; When blooming school-girls, who absurdly think That naught but drapery can be spoiled with ink, Ply ceaseless quills, that, true to early use, Keep the old habit of the pristine goose, While each, a special Sappho in her teens, Shines forth a goddess in the magazines; When waning spinsters, happy to rehearse Then* maiden griefs in doubly grievous verse, THE TIMES. 103 Write doleful ditties, or distressful strains, To wicked rivals, or unfaithful swains, Or serenade, at night's bewitching noon, The mythic man whose home is in the moon ; When pattern wives no thrifty arts possess, Save that of weaving fustian for the Press, Write Lyrics, heedless of their scorching buns, Dress up their Sonnets, but neglect their sons, Make dainty doughnuts from Parnassian wheat, And fancy-stockings for poetic feet, While husbands those who love their coffee hot, And like no * fire ' that does n't boil the pot Wish old Apollo, just to plague his life, Had, for his own, a literary wife ! What hinders then that I, a sober elf, Who, like the others, keep a Muse myself, Should venture here, as kind occasion lends A fitting tune to please these urgent friends, To waive at once my modest Muse's doubt, And, jockey-like, to trot the lady out V An honest creature, I am bound to say, Who does her duty in a roguish way ; A laughing jade, of not ungentle mould, Although, in sooth, she 's something apt to scold, And, like some worthy people you have seen, Who 're always talking sharper than they mean, A genuine Sphinx as ever poet sung, With much good-nature and a shrewish tongue ! Yet, like your neighbor, be it understood, She never censures but for public good, And like her, too, would feel herself unsexed If voted angry when she 's only vexed I 104 THE TIMES. Don't let me rouse unreasonable fears, While I, like Brutus, ask you for your ears ; Bear as you can the transient twinge of pain, In half an hour you '11 have them back again. We 're a vast people that 's beyond a doubt And nothing loath to let the secret out ! Vain were his labors who should now begin To stop our growth, or fence the country in ! Let the bold sceptic who denies our worth Just hear it proved on any ' Glorious Fourth,' When patriot tongues the thrilling tale rehearse In grand orations, or resounding verse ; When poor John Bull beholds his navies sink Before the blast, in swelling floods of ink, And vents his wrath till all around is blue, To see his armies yearly flogged anew ; While honest Dutchmen, round the speaker's stand, Forget, for once, their dearer father-land, And thrifty Caledonians -fefess the fate That gives them freedom at so cheap a rate, And a clear right to celebrate the day, And not a baubee for the boon to pay ; And Gallia's children prudently relieve Their bursting bosoms, with as loud a ' vive ' For ' L'Amerique,' as when their voices swell With equal glory for * la bagatelle ; ' And ardent sons of Erin's blessed Isle Grow patriotic in the Celtic style, And, all for friendship, bruise each other's eyes, As when Saint Patrick claims the sacrifice ; THE TIMES. 105 Wliile thronging Yankees, all intent to hear, As if the speaker were an auctioneer, Swell with the theme, till every mother's son Feels all his country's magnitude his own ! You '11 hear about that sturdy little flock Who landed once on Plymouth's barren rock, Daring the dangers of the angry main, For civil freedom and for godly gain ; An honest, frugal, hardy, dauntless band, Who sought a refuge in this Western land, Where (if their own quaint language I may use That carried back the first Colonial news) * Where all the saints may worship as they wish, And catch abundance of the finest fish ! ' You '11 hear, amazed, the hardships they endured, To what untold privations were inured, What wondrous feats of stout, herculean toil, Ere they subdued the savage and the soil, And drave, at last, the intruding heathen out, Till Witches, Quakers, all were put to rout ! Here grant the Muse one moment to explain, Lest you accuse her of a mocking strain. I love the Puritan : and from my youth W r as taught to admire his valor and his truth. The veriest caviller must acknowledge still His honest purpose, and his manly will. I own I reverence that peculiar race Who valued steeples less than Christian grace, Preferred a hut where frost and freedom reigned, To sumptuous halls at freedom's cost obtained, 5* 106 THE TIMES. And, proudly scorning all that royal knaves, For bartered conscience, sold to cringing slaves, Gave up their homes for rights respected more Than all the allurements of their native shore, In stranger lands their tattered flag unfurled, And taught this doctrine to a startled world : * Mitres and thrones are man-created things, We own no master, save the King of kings ! ' 'T is little marvel that their honored name Bears, as it must, some maculas of shame ; 'T is only pity that they e'er forgot The golden lessons their experience taught ; Thought ' Toleration ' due to ' saints alone, And ' Rights of Conscience ' only meant their own Enforcing laws, concocted to their need, On all nonjurors to the ruling creed, Till Baptists groaned beneath their iron heel, And Quakers quaked with unaccustomed zeal I And when I hear, as oft the listener may In song and sermon on a festal day, Their virtues lauded to the wondering skies, As none were e'er so great, or good, or wise, I straight bethink me of the Irish wit, (A people famed for many a ready hit,) Who, sitting once, and rather ill at ease, To hear, in prose, such huge hyperboles, Gave for a toast, to chide the fulsome tone, Old Plymouth Rock, the Yankee Blarney-stone I THE TIMES. 107 But to resume, as other preachers say, Led by their twentieth episode astray, And thus recall their pristine theme anew, Lost in the mazes of the shifting view, But to resume : these hardy pioneers Grow, in the flight of scarce a hundred years, Till, where a few weak colonies were seen, Thrive in their strength ' the glorious Old Thirteen ; And these, anon, released from British rule, Swarm like the pupils of a parish school ; And still they flourish at a wondrous rate, Towns follow towns, and state succeeds to state, Until, at last, among its crimson bars, Our country's banner, crowded full of stars, O'er Freedom's sons in happy triumph waves', Some twenty millions, not to count the slaves ! We 're fond of Missions, and rejoice to lend Our ready aid the Gospel light to send To chase the gloom that clouds the Pagan's soul, And haply make his broken spirit whole ; To take the wanderer led by sin astray, And win his footsteps to the better way. No cavilling voice at schemes like this I raise, All this is well, and to the nation's praise. Still let the work with growing force proceed, That kindly answers to the Heathen's need. But O that some brave proselyte would come And preach good morals to the folks at home 1 O that the next Australian whom they get Safe in the meshes of the Gospel net, 108 THE TIMES. Straight to our country may be kindly brought, With all the Christian doctrine he has got, That he may teach it, uncorrupt, and clear Of all perversion, to our Heathen here ! Accursed War, and deadly lust of Gold, These and their horrors let his eyes behold, Now, in the moral summer of the days, Here, in the focus of the Gospel blaze, How would he beg the doctors to explain, And solve the puzzle ere it turned his brain ! And when their best excuses he had heard, How would his breast with honest zeal be stirred To teach our graduates in the Christian school The simple lessons of the Golden Rule ! And how, the while he spoke with pleasure true, As one unfolding something good and new, How would the wings of his amazement soar To find their ears had heard it all before ! O murderous War ! how4ong shall History choose Thee for the favorite topic of her Muse ? As if the real business of mankind, The noblest purpose of the immortal mind, Were shown in him who has the greatest skill In that old mystery, the art to kill ! And he adorned with most heroic grace, Who deals the largest slaughter to the race ! A neighboring people rich in landed spoils, But weak with ignorance and domestic broils ; A haughty nation, full of pride for what Their fathers were, although themselves are not: THE TIMES, 109 A people fond of pageants and parade, Replete at once with gas and gasconade, "With all the vapor of the Spanish sire, Without a flicker of Castilian fire, A race like this O tell it not in Gath ! Excites our avarice and provokes our wrath, . And so we loose the fiendish dogs of war, Ajid ply our stripes to gain another star ! Tell not, ye Rabbies of the Whiggish creed, Who trim your doctrines to your party's need, And let your lips with fluent phrases move To censure measures which your acts approve, -- Tell not, except to credulous marines, How you abhor our recent warlike scenes, And don't again repeat that precious joke Which gives the odium all to Colonel Polk, For he may find, who probes the matter well, At least a dozen Colonels in the shell ! Pray just review the leaders of the bands, And, as you pass them, let them raise their hands ; Count well the blades that glitter in the sun, And mark their gallant bearers, one by one, For every Whig whose swprd your eye may catch, You '11 scarcely find a ' Loco-foco ' match ! We 're all alike, no thinking man defines The people's temper by their party lines. With bright exceptions, few and far between, Like spots of verdure in a winter scene, From Rio Grande to Penobscot's flood, The whole vast nation loves the smell of blood ! 110 THE TIMES. But wars cost money ; and though fond of wars, We worship Mammon quite as much as Mars, And so consent the battle to forego, And wait till Interest justifies the blow. Meantime, though Mars upon the shelf is laid, We yet can summon Draco to our aid. The cockpit 's vulgar ; and the pleasant game Of baiting bears is reckoned much the same ; * The manly Ring ' is held improper, too ; The Duel 's wicked, and will never do ; ' T is plain to see as any comet's tail, That war 's immoral on so small a scale ! But Draco 's grave, decorous, and discreet, And gives diversions in a mode so neat, * The most fastidious ' in the showman phrase Can't be offended with his bloody ways. For, like the doctors, though he cut and bleed, He shows a broad diploma for the deed ! As boys expend their zob'logic rage On annual tigers in a traTelling cage, So, by the strictest pathologic rule, A monthly hanging keeps the nation cool ! The public right to guard the common weal From thief and ruffian, naught but maniac zeal Will e'er deny, while every worthy cause Bests in the proper sanction of the laws. 'Bnt when will men the Christian lesson learn, That 'tis not theirs to throttle or to burn Their brother sinner to his mortal hurt, Only because they deem it his desert ? THE TIMES. Ill If no stern need, with loud imperious call, Demand the forfeit, be it great or small, Let not your heart usurp the sacred throne Of Him who said that vengeance was his own 1 In meek submission drop the uplifted rod, And leave the sinner to the sinner's God In vain we boast the freedom Nature gave : Alas ! the Ethiop 's not the only slave ! When from their chains shall Saxon minds be freed, The slaves to lust, to party, and to creed ? Slaves to their Clique, who favor or oppose, As crafty leaders pull the party-nose ; While the ' dear country/ as the reader learns, 8 Is saved or ruined in quadrennial turns ! Slaves to the Mode, who pinch the aching waist, And mend God's image to the Gallic taste ; Who sell their comfort for a narrow boot, Nor heed the ' corn-laws ' of the suffering foot ! Slaves to the ruling Sentiment, whose choice Is but the echo of the public voice, While their own thoughts the wretches fear to speak,' Not Sundays only, but throughout the week ! Slaves to Antiquity, who put their trust In mouldy dogmas, mummies, moth, and rust ; Who buy old nothings at the "highest cost, And deem no art worth having till it 's lost ! Slaves to their Sect, who deem all heavenly light Through one small taper cheers the moral night, 112 THE TIMES. Which, should it fail to throw its radiant spark, Would leave the hapless nations in the dark 1 Slaves to Consistency and prudent fears, As if mistakes grew sacred with their years ! Fearful of change, and much ashamed to show They 're wiser now than twenty years ago, Because, forsooth, 't would make the matter plain They once were wrong, and may be so again 1 Slaves to Ambition and the lust of fame, Who sell their substance for a shadowy name, And barter happy years for one brief hour Of courtly dalliance with the harlot, Power ! Bond slaves to Avarice, who perversely soil Their willing hands with hard, unceasing toil, For no reward except the menial strife, As knaves turn tread-mills in a convict life ! But lest the Muse should give her hearers pain By overstraining her herbfc strain, A metre strong and well contrived, in sooth, To bear full measures of satiric truth, But rather grave, and something apt to tire Those ears perverse that love an easy lyre, She '11 drop the proud heroic for a while For a new topic and a nimbler style, And, just for change, endeavor to unfold The shining treasures of the Land of Gold I THE TIMES. 113 EL DORADO. Hurrah for the land where the moor and the moun- tain Are sparkling with treasures no language hath told, Where the wave of the river and spray of the foun- tain Are bright with the glitter of genuine gold ! Who cares for the pleasures and duties of home, And all the refinements that grow in its bowers ? To the happy Dorado away we will roam, 'T will be time to ' refine ' when the metal is ours ! n. Hurrah for the country where Mercury and Mam- mon Are the rulers enthroned in the Capitol-seat ; Where Order is chaos, and Justice is gammon, And yet there *s no Bacon to read or to eat ! Let Famine stalk gaunt and ungainly around, So thin that his features you scarce can behold, Who 'd live upon bread at an ounce for a pound ? Or exchange for potatoes his carats of gold ? in. Hurrah for the country where Ceres and Hymen Are driven abashed from the bountiful soil, And Music 's unheard, save the musical chiming Of pickaxe and pan in the clatter of toil. H 114 THE TIMES. Who cares for your dull academical lore ? Or would seek for a single philosopher's stone, When out of the heaps of auriferous ore He can fill up his pockets with ' rocks ' of his own ? Hurrah for the country where Plutus is chief, And where, for a wonder especially odd, His worshippers freely avow then- belief, And are never ashamed to acknowledge their god! Where the currency 's ruled by a natural law, And Biddies and Barings are voted no thanks, Where, in spite of the heavy, perpetual draw, There 's always abundance of gold in the Banks 1 If a brother," seduced by our precious estate, And mad with the frenzy that lucre inspires, {Should hit us, some day, en the back of the pate, With a heartier thump than affection requires, And our bodies be hid in the glittering dust, What matters the incident ? why should we care ? To die very rich is the national lust, To be 4 buried in gold ' is the popular prayer I Then away with all doubting and fanciful ills, Away with impressions that duty would print, The Pactolian drops that affection distils Can never be coined into drops of the mint ! THE TIMES. 115 So hurrah for the land where the moor and tin, mountain Are sparkling with treasures no tongue can un fold, Where the wave of the river and spray of the fouu tain Are bright with the glitter of genuine gold 1 Let others, dazzled by the shining ore, Delve in the dirt to gather golden store. Let others, patient of the menial toil And daily suffering, seek the precious spoil ; While most shall struggle through the weary years With naught of Midas save his ample ears ! No hero I, in such a cause to brave Hunger and pain, the robber and the grave. J '11 work, instead, exempt from hate and harm, The fruitful * placers ' of my mountain-farm, Where the bright ploughshare opens richest veins, From whence shall issue countless golden grains, Which in the fulness of the year shall come, In bounteous sheaves, to bless my harvest-home 1 But, haply, good may come of mining yet : 'T will help to pay the nation's foreign debt ; 'T will further liberal arts ; plate rings and pins, Gild books and coaches, mirrors, signs, and sins ; 'T will cheapen pens and pencils, and perchance May give us honest dealing for Finance, (That magic art, unknown to darker times When fraud and falsehood were reputed crimes, 116 THE TIMES. Whose curious laws with nice precision teach How whole estates are made from parts of speech ; How lying rags for honest coin shall pass, And foreign gold be paid in native brass !) 'T will save, perhaps, each deep-indebted State From all temptation to ' repudiate,' Till Time restore our precious credit lost, And hush the wail of Peter Plymley's^host! 10 But lest, O Muse, thy weary friends complain Thou lov'st o'ermuch the harsh, satiric strain, Perversely pleased with hateful themes alone, And ever singing in a scolding tone, E'en change the note, and dedicate thy lays For one brief moment to discerning praise. While drones and dreaming optimists protest, 4 The worst is well, and all is for the best ; ' And sturdy croakers chant the counter song, That ' man grows worse, and everything is wrong ; Truth, as of old, still loves a golden mean, And shuns extremes to walk erect between ! The world improves; with slow, unequal pace, ' The Good Time 's coming ' to our hapless race. The general tide beneath the refluent surge Rolls on, resistless, to its destined verge ! Unfriendly hills no longer interpose u As stubborn walls to geographic foes, Nor envious streams run only to divide The hearts of brethren ranged on either side. Promethean Science, with untiring eye Searching the mysteries of the earth and sky ; THE TIMES. 117 And cunning Art, with strong and plastic hand To work the marvels Science may command ; And broad-winged Commerce, swift to carry o'er Earth's countless blessings to her farthest shore, These, and no German nor Genevan sage, These are the great reformers of the age ! See Art, exultant in her stately car, On Nature's Titans wage triumphant war ! While e'en the Lightnings by her wondrous skill Are tamed for heralds of her sovereign will ! Old Ocean's breast a new invader feels, And heaves in vain to clog her iron wheels ; In vain the Forests marshal all their force, And Mountains rise to stay her onward course ; From out her path each bold opposer hurled, She throws her girdle round a captive world ! I 've kept my promise. Of a prosy song Men want but little, nor that little long ; Yet even dulness may afford relief On some occasions, if it 's only brief; As transient cloudlets soothe the aching sight, Blind with the dazzle of untempered light ! 'Tis something that my Pegasus, though slow, Don't stand curvetting when he 's bid to go ; And, clear at least of one egregious fault, Knows like a Major when and where to halt ! If in his flight he ventured not to soar Where Helios' son, too rashly, went before, (A pregnant hint for feeble bards who dare The awful heights beyond their native air,) 118 THE TIMES. T was no dull spirit held the nag in check, But only mercy for his rider's neck, Whom, were he lost among the fogs that lie Between the empyrean and the nether sky, And headlong hurled to some Boeotian deep, No pitying nymphs had gathered round to weep ! * CARMEN UETUM: Recited, after dinner, before the Alumni of Middlebury College, at their Semi-centennial Celebration, August 22, 1850. A RIGHT loving welcome, my true-hearted Brothers, Who have come out to visit the kindest of mothers ; You may think as you will, but there is n't a doubt Alma Mater rejoices, and knows you are out ! Rejoices to see you in gratitude here, Returning to honor her fiftieth year. And while the good lady is so overcome With maternal emotion, she 's stricken quite dumb, (A thing, I must own, that 's enough to perplex A shallow observer, who thinks that the sex, Whatever may be their internal revealings, Can never be pained with unspeakable feelings,) Indulge me, dear Brothers, nor think me ill-bred, If I venture a moment to speak in her stead. I, who, though the humblest and homeliest one, Feel the natural pride of a dutiful son, And esteem it to-day the profoundest of joys, That, not less than yourselves, I am one of the boys I First as to her health, which, I'm sorry to say, Has been better, no doubt, than she finds it to-day ; 120 CARMEN L.ETUM. Yet when you reflect she's been somewhat neg- lected, She 's really as well as could well be expected ; And, spite of ill-treatment and premature fears, Is a hearty old lady, for one of her years. Indeed, I must tell you a bit of a tale, To show you she 's feeling remarkably hale ; How she turned up her nose, but a short time ago, At a rather good-looking importunate beau, And how she refused, with a princess-like carriage * A very respectable offer of marriage.' * You see, my dear Brothers, a neighboring College, Who values himself on the depth of his knowledge, With a prayer for her love, and eye to her land Walked up to the lady and offered his hand. For a minute or so she was all in a flutter, And had not a word she could audibly utter ; For she felt in her bosom, beyond all concealing, A kind of a sort of a -widow-like feeling ! But recovering soon from the delicate shock, She held up her head like an old-fashioned clock, And, with proper composure, went on and defined, In suitable phrases, the state of her mind ; Said she would n't mind changing her single con- dition, Could she fairly expect to improve her position ; * Allusion is had, in this and subsequent lines, to an unsuc- cessful attempt to unite Middlebury College with the University of Vermont. The affair is here treated with the license of a din- ner poem, and with the partiality permitted to the occasion. CARMEN L^ETUM. 121 And thus, by some words of equivocal scope, Gave her lover decided 'permission to hope/ It were idle to talk of the billing and cooing The amorous gentleman used in his wooing ; Or how she replied to his pressing advances, His oscular touches and ocular glances ; 'T is enough that his courtship, by all that is known, Was quite the old story, and much like your own ! Thus the matter went on, till the lady found out, One very fine day, what the rogue was about, That all that he wanted was merely the power By marital license to pocket her dower, And then to discard her in sorrow and shame, Bereaved of her home and her name and her fame. In deep indignation she turned on her heel, With such withering scorn as a lady might feel For a knave, who, in stealing her miniature case, Should take the gold setting, and leave her the face ! But soon growing calm as the breast of the deep, When the breezes are hushed that the waters may sleep, She sat in her chair, like a dignified elf, And thus, while I listened, she talked to herself: ' Nay, 't was idle to think of so foolish a plan As a match with this pert University-man, For I have n't a chick but would redden with shame At the very idea of my losing my name ; And would feel that no sorrow so heavy could come To his mother, as losing her excellent home. 122 CARMEN L.ETUM. T is true I am weak, but my children are strong, And won't see me suffer privation or wrong ; So, away with the dream of connubial joys, I '11 stick to the homestead, and look to the boys ! ' How joyous, my friends, is the cordial greeting Which gladdens the heart at a family meeting ; When brothers assemble at Friendship's old shrine. To look at the present, and. talk of ' Lang Syne ' 1 Ah ! well I remember the halcyon years, Too earnest for laughter, too pleasant for tears, When life was a boon in yon classical court, Though lessons were long, and though commons were short ! Ah ! well I remember those excellent men, Professors and tutors, who reigned o'er us then ; Who guided our feet over Science's bogs, And led us quite safe through Philosophy's fogs. Ah ! well I remember the President's * face, As he sat at the lecture with dignified grace, And neatly unfolded the mystical themes Of various deep metaphysical schemes, How he brightened the path of his studious flock, As he gave them a key to that wonderful Locke ; How he taught us to feel it was fatal indeed With too much reliance to lean upon Reid ; That Stewart was sounder, but wrong at the last, From following his master a little too fast, Then closed the discourse in a scholarly tone, With a clear and intelligent creed of his own. * Joshua Bates. D. D. CARMEN L.ETUM. 123 That the man had his faults it were safe to infer, Though I really don't recollect what they were, I barely remember this one little truth, When his case was dbcussed by the critical youth, The Seniors and Freshmen were sure to divide, And the former were all on the President's side ! And well I remember another, whose praise Were a suitable theme for more elegant lays ; But even in numbers ungainly and rough, I must mention the name of our glorious HOUGH ! Who does not remember ? for who can forget, Till Memory's star shall forever have set, How he sat in his place unaffected and bold, And taught us more truths than the lesson had told ? Gave a lift to 4 Old NOL,' for the love of the right, And a slap at the Stuarts, with cordial spite ; And, quite in the teeth of conventional rules, Hurled his adjectives down upon tyrants and fools ? But, chief, he excelled in his proper vocation Of giving the classics a classic translation ; In Latin and Greek he was almost oracular, And, what 's more to his praise, understood the ver- nacular. O, 't was pleasant to hear him make English of Greek, Till you felt that no tongue was inherently weak ; While Horace in Latin seemed quite understated, And rejoiced like old Enoch in being translated ! And others there were but the hour would fail, To bring them all up in historic detail ; 124 CARMEN L.ETUM. And yet I would give, ere the moment has fled, A sigh for the absent, a tear for the dead. There 's not one of them all, where'er he may rove In the shadows of earth, or the glories above, In the home of his birth, or in lands far away, But comes back to be kindly remembered to-day 1 One little word more, and my duty is done ; A health to our Mother, from each mother's son ! Unfading in beauty, increasing in strength, May she flourish in health through the century'i length ! And next when her children come round her tx boast, May Esto perpetua then be the toast ! THE DEVIL OF NAMES. A LEGEND. AT an old-fashioned inn, with a pendulous sign, Once graced with the head of the king of the kine, But innocent now of the slightest ' design,' Save calling low people to spurious wine, While the villagers, drinking and playing ' all fours, And cracking small jokes, with vociferous roars, Were talking of horses, and hunting, and scores Of similar topics a bar-room adores, But which rigid morality greatly deplores, Till as they grew high in their bacchanal revels, They fell to discoursing of witches and devils, A neat single rap, Just the ghost of a tap, That would scarcely have wakened a flea from his nap, Not at all in its sound like your ' Rochester Knock- ing/ (Where asses in herds are diurnally flocking,) But twice as mysterious, and vastly more shocking, Was heard at the door by the people within, Who stopped in a moment their clamorous din, 126 THE DEVIL OF NAMES. And ceased in a trice from their jokes and their gin When who should appear But an odd-looking stranger somewhat ' in the sere, (He seemed at the least in his sixtieth year,) And he limped in a manner exceedingly queer, Wore breeches uncommonly wide in the rear, And his nose was turned up with a comical sneer, And he had in his eye a most villanous leer, Quite enough to make any one tremble with fear I Whence he came, And what was his name, And what his purpose in venturing out, And whether his lameness was ' gammon ' or gout, Or merely fatigue from strolling about, Were questions involved in a great deal of doubt, When, taking a chair, With a sociable air, Like that which your ' Uncle ' 's accustomed to wear, Or a broker determined to sell you a share In his splended ' New England Gold-mining ' affair, He opened his mouth and went on to declare That he was a devil ! The devil you are ! ' Cried one of the guests assembled there, With a sudden start, and a frightened stare ! * Nay, don't be alarmed,' the stranger exclaims, * At the name of the devil, I'm the Devil of Names I You '11 wonder why Such a devil as I, Who ought, you would say, to be devilish shy, Should venture in here with never a doubt, And let the best of his secrets out ; THE DEVIL OF NAMES. 127 But mind you, my boys, It's one of the joys Of the cunningest woman and craftiest man, To run as quickly as ever they can, And put a confidant under ban Not to publish their favorite plan ! And even the de'il Will sometimes feel A little of that remarkable zeal, And (when it 's safe) delights to tell The very deepest arcana of well ; Besides, my favor this company wins, For I value next to capital sins Those out-and-outers who revel in inns I So, not to delay, I 'm going to say, In the very fullest and frankest way, All about my honors and claims, Projects and plans, and objects and aims, And why I 'm called " The Devil of Names 1 " I cheat by false graces, And duplicate faces, And treacherous praises, And by hiding bad things under plausible phrases* I '11 give you a sample, By way of example : Here 's a bottle before me, will suit to a T For a nice illustration : this liquor, d' ye see, Is the water of death, though topers agree To think it, and drink it, as pure " eau de vie;" I know what it is, that 's sufficient for me I 128 THE DEVIL OF NAMES. For the blackest of sins, and crimes, and shames, I find soft words and innocent names. The Hells devoted to Satan's games I christen * Saloons " and " Halls," and then, ' By another contrivance of mine again, They 're only haunted by " sporting men," - A phrase which many a gamester begs, In spite of the saw that " eggs is eggs," To whiten his nigritudinous legs 1 * To debauchees I graciously grant The favor to be " a little gallant," And soften vicious vagrancy down, By civilly speaking of " men about town ; " There 's cheating and lying In selling and buying, And all sorts of frauds and dishonest exactions, I 've brought to the smallest of moral infractions, Merely by naming them " business transactions ! " There 's swindling, now,~is vastly more fine As " Banking, " a lucky invention of mine, Worth ten in the old diabolical line ! 1 In lesser matters it's all the same, I gain the thing by yielding the name ; It 's really quite the broadest of jokes, But, on my honor, there 's plenty of folks So uncommonly fond of verbal cloaks, They can't enjoy the dinners they eat, Court tlie " muse of the twinkling feet," Laugh or sing, or do anything meet THE DKVJL OF NAMES. 129 For Christian people, without a cheat To make their happiness quite complete ! The Boston saints Are fond of these feints ; A theatre rouses the loudest complaints, Till it's thoroughly purged from pestilent taints, By the charm of a name and a pious Te Deum, Yet they patronize actors, and handsomely fee 'em ! Keep (shade of " the Howards ! ") a gay " Athe- naeum," And have, above all, a harmless " Museum," Where folks who love plays may religiously see 'em ! * But leaving a trifle which cost me more trouble By far than the worth of so flimsy a bubble, I come to a matter which really claims The studious care of the Devil of Names. There 's " Charity " now ' But the lecture was done, Like old Goody Morey's, when scarcely begun ; The devil's discourse by its serious teaching Had set 'em a-snoring, like regular preaching ! One look of disdain on the sleepers he threw, As in bitter contempt of the slumbering crew, And the devil had vanished without more ado, A trick, I suspect, that he seldom plays you ! PHAETHON; OR, THE AMATEUR COACHMiN. DAN PHAETHON so the histories run Was a jolly young chap, and a son of the SUN, Or rather of PHCEBUS ; but as to his mother, Genealogists make a deuse of a pother, Some going for one, and some for another ! For myself, I must say, as a careful explorer, This roaring young blade was the son of AURORA ! Now old Father PHCEBUS, ere railways begun To elevate funds and depreciate fun, Drove a very fast coach by the name of' THE SUN ; Running, they say, Trips every day, (On Sundays and all, in a heathenish way,) All lighted up with a famous array Of lanterns that shone with a brilliant display, And dashing along like a gentleman's shay,' With never a fare, and nothing to pay ! Now PHAETHON begged of his doting old father To grant him a favor, and this the rather, PHAETHON. 131 Since some one had hinted, the youth to annoy, That he was n't by any means PH<EBUS'S boy ! Intending, the rascally son of a gun, To darken the brow of the son of the SUN ! * By the terrible Styx ! ' said the angry sire, While his eyes flashed volumes of fury and fire, * To prove your reviler an infamous liar, I swear I will grant you whate'er you desire ! ' * Then by my head,' The youngster said, * I '11 mount the coach when the horses are fed ! For there 's nothing I 'd choose, as I 'm alive, Like a seat on the box, and a dashing drive ! ' ' Nay, PHAETHON, don't, I beg you won't, Just stop a moment and think upon 't ! ' 4 You 're quite too young,' continued the sage, * To tend a coach at your tender age ! Besides, you see, Twill really be Your first appearance on any stage 1 Desist, my child, The cattle are wild, And when their mettle is thoroughly " riled,** Depend upon 't the coach '11 be " spiled," They 're not the fellows to draw it mild ! Desist, I say, You '11 rue the day, TO mind and don't be foolish, PHA ! ' But the youth was proud, And swore aloud, 132 PHAETHON. 'T was just the thing to astonish the crowd, He 'd have the horses and would n't be cowed ! In vain the boy was cautioned at large, He called for the chargers, unheeding the charge, And vowed that any young fellow of force Could manage a dozen coursers, of course 1 Now PHOEBUS felt exceedingly sorry He had given his word in such a hurry, But having sworn by the Styx, no doubt He was in for it now, and could n't back out. So calling PHAETHON up in a trice, He gave the youth a bit of advice : * " Parce stimulis, utere loris ! " (A " stage direction," of which the core is, Don't use the whip, they 're ticklish things, But, whatever you do, hold on to the strings !) Remember the rule of the Jehu-tribe is, " Medio tutissimus ibis" (As the Judge remarked to a rowdy Scotchman, "VYho was going to quod Between two watchmen !) So mind your eye, and spare your goad, Be shy of the stones, and keep in the road ! ' Now PHAETHON, perched in the coachman's place, Drove off the steeds at a furious pace, Fast as coursers running a race, Or bounding along in a steeple-chase ! Of whip and shout there was no lack, 4 Crack whack Whack crack,' Resounded along the horses' back ! PIIAETHON 1 . 133 Frightened beneath the stinging lash, Cutting their flanks in many a gash, On on they sped as swift as a flash, Through thick and thin away they dash, (Such rapid driving is always rash !) When all at once, with a dreadful crash, The whole ' establishment ' went to smash ! And PHAETHON, he, As all agree, Off the coach was suddenly hurled, Into a puddle, and out of the world ! MORAL. Don't rashly take to dangerous courses, Nor set it down in your table of forces, That any one man equals any four horses Don't swear by the Styx !. It's one of OLD NICK'S Diabolical tricks To get people into a regular ' fix/ \nd hold 'em there as fast as bricks I PYRAMUS AND THISBE. THIS tragical tale, which, they say, is a true one, Is old, but the manner is wholly a new one. One Ovid, a writer of some reputation, Has told it before in a tedious narration ; In a style, to be sure, of remarkable fulness, But which nobody reads on account of its dulness. Young PETER PYRAMUS I call him Peter, Not for the sake of the rhyme or metre, But merely to make the name completer For PETER lived in the elden times, And in one of the worst of Pagan climes That flourish now in classical fame, Long before Either noble or boor Had such a thing as a Christian name Young PETER then was a nice young beau As any young lady would wish to know ; In years, I ween, He was rather green, That is to say, he was just eighteen, . A trifle too short, and a shaving too lean, PYRAMUS AND THISBE. 135 But * a nice young man ' as ever was seen, And fit to dance with a May-day queen 1 Now PETER loved a beautiful girl As ever insnared the heart of an earl In the magical trap of an auburn curl, A little Miss THISBE who lived next door, (They slept in fact on the very same floor, With a wall between them, and nothing more, Those double dwellings were common of yore,) And they loved each other, the legends say, In that very beautiful, bountiful way, That every young maid, And every young blade, Are wont to do before they grow staid, And learn to love by the laws of trade. But alack-a-day for the girl and boy, A little impediment checked their joy, And gave them, a while, the deepest annoy. For some good reason, which history cloaks, The match did n't happen to please the old folks 1 So THISBE'S father and PETER'S mother Began the young couple to worry and bother, And tried their innocent passions to smother By keeping the lovers from seeing each other 1 But who ever heard Of a marriage deterred, Or even deferred, By any contrivance so very absurd As scolding the boy, and caging his bird ? 136 PYRAMUS AND THISBE. Now PETER, who was n't discouraged at all By obstacles such as the timid appall, Contrived to discover a hole in the wall, Which was n't so thick But removing a brick Made a passage though rather provokingl y small Through this little chink the lover could greet her, And secrecy made their courting the sweeter, While PETER kissed THISBE, and THISBE kissed PETER, For kisses, like folks with diminutive souls, Will manage to creep through the smallest of holes 'T was here that the lovers, intent upon love, Laid a nice little plot To meet at a spot Near a mulberry-tree in a neighboring grove ; For the plan was all laid, By the youth ah'd the maid, (Whose hearts, it would seem, were uncommonly bold ones,) To run off and get married in spite of the old ones. In the shadows of evening, as still as a mouse, The beautiful maiden slipt out of the house, The mulberry-tree impatient to find, While PETER, the vigilant matrons to blind, Strolled leisurely out some minutes behind. PYRAMUS AND THISBE;. 137 While waiting alone by the trysting tree, A terrible lion As e'er you set eye on, Came roaring along quite horrid to see, And caused the young maiden in terror to flee, (A lion 's a creature whose regular trade is Blood and l a terrible thing among ladies,') And losing her veil as she ran from the wood, The monster bedabbled it over with blood. Now PETER arriving, and seeing the veil All covered o'er, And reeking with gore, Turned all of a sudden exceedingly pale, And sat himself down to weep and to wail, For, soon as he saw the garment, poor PETER Made up his mind in very short metre, That THISBE was dead, and the lion had eat her 1 So breathing a prayer, He determined to share The fate of his darling, * the loved and the lost,' And fell on his dagger, and gave up the ghost ! Now THISBE returning, and viewing her beau, Lying dead by the veil (which she happened to know), She guessed, in a moment, the cause of his erring, And seizing the knife Which had taken his life, In less than a jiffy was dead as a herring ! 138 PYRAMUS AND THISBE. Young gentlemen ! pray recollect, if you please, Not to make assignations near mulberry-trees ; Should your mistress be missing, it shows a weak head To be stabbing yourself till you know she is dead. Young ladies ! you should n't go strolling about When your anxious mammas don't know you are out, And remember that accidents often befall From kissing young fellows through holes in the wall! POLYPHEMUS AND ULYSSES. A VERY remarkable history this is Of one POLYPHEMUS and MR. ULYSSES ; The latter a hero accomplished and bold, The former a knave and a fright to behold, A horrid big giant who lived in a den, And dined every day on a couple of men, Ate a woman for breakfast, and (dreadful to see !) Had a nice little baby served up with his tea ! Indeed, if there 's truth in the sprightly narration Of HOMER, a poet of some reputation, Or VIRGIL, a writer but little inferior, And in some things, perhaps, the other's superior, POLYPHEMUS was truly a terrible creature, In manners and morals, in form and in feature ; For law and religion he cared not a copper, And, in short, led a life that was very improper : What made him a very remarkable guy, Like the late MR. THOMPSON, he 'd only one eye ; But that was a whopper, a terrible one, * As large ( VIRGIL says) as the disk of the sun ! ' A brilliant, but rather extravagant figure, Which means, I suppose, that his eye was much bigger 140 POLYPHEMUS AND ULYSSES. Than yours, or even the orb of your sly Old bachelor-friend who 's * a wife in his eye.' ULYSSES, the hero I mentioned before, Was shipwrecked, one day, on the pestilent shore Where the CYCLOPS resided, along with their chief, POLYPHEMUS, the terrible man-eating thief, Whose manners they copied, and laws they obeyed, While driving their horrible cannibal trade. With many expressions of civil regret That ULYSSES had got so unpleasantly wet, With many expressions of pleasure profound That all had escaped being thoroughly drowned, The rascal declared he was ' fond of the brave,' And invited the strangers all home to his cave. Here the cannibal king, with as little remorse As an omnibus feels for tlTe* death of a horse, Seized, crushed, and devoured a brace of the Greeks, As a Welshman would swallow a couple of leeks, Or a Frenchman, supplied with his usual prog, Would punish the hams of a favorite frog ! Dashed and smashed against the stones, He broke their bodies and cracked their bones, Minding no more their moans and groans, Than the grinder heeds his organ's tones I With purple gore the pavement swims, While the giant crashes their crackling limbs, POLYPHEMUS AXD ULYSSES. 141 And poor ULYSSES trembles with fright At the horrid sound, and the horrid sight, Trembles lest the monster grim Should make his ' nuts and raisins ' of him ! And, really, since The man was a Prince, It 's not very odd that his Highness should wince, (Especially after such very strong hints,) At the cannibal's manner, as rather more free Than his Highness at court was accustomed to see ! But the crafty Greek, to the tyrant's hurt, (Though he did n't deserve so fine a dessert,) Took a dozen of wine from his leather trunk, And plied the giant until he was drunk ! Drunker than any one you or / know, Who buys his ' Rhenish ' with ready rhino, Exceedingly drunk, ' sepultus vino I ' Gazing a moment upon the sleeper, ULYSSES cried, ' Let 's spoil his peeper ! 'T will put him, my boys, in a pretty trim, If we can manage to douse his glim ! ' So, taking a spar that was lying in sight, They poked it into his ' forward light,' And gouged away with furious spite, Ramming and jamming with all their might I In vain the giant began to roar, And even swore That he never before 142 POLYPHEMUS AND ULYSSES. Had met, in his life, such a terrible bore : They only plied the auger the more And mocked his grief with the bantering cry, Don't talk of pain, it 's all in yow eye ! ' Until, alas for the wretched CYCLOPS ! He gives a groan, and out his eye pops ! Leaving the -knave, one need n't be told, As blind as a puppy of three days old. The rest of the tale I can't tell now, Except that ULYSSES got out of the row, With the rest of his crew it 's no matter how ; While old POLYPHEMUS, until he was dead, Which was n't till many years after 't is said, Had a grief in his heart and a hole in his head 1 Don't use strong drink, pray let me advise, It 's bad for the stomach, "and ruins the eyes ; Don't impose upon sailors with land-lubber tricks, Or you '11 catch it some day like a thousand of bricks 1 ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE. SIR ORPHEUS, whom the poets have sung In every metre and every tongue, Was, you may remember, a famous musician, At least for a youth in his pagan condition, For historians tell he played on his shell From morning till night, so remarkably well That his music created a regular spell On trees and stones in forest and dell ! What sort of an instrument his could be Is really more than is known to me, For none of the books have told, d' ye see ! It 's very certain those heathen ' swells ' Knew nothing at all of oyster-shells, And it 's clear Sir Orpheus never could own a Shell like those they make in Cremona ; But whatever it was, to ' move the stones ' It must have shelled out some powerful tones, And entitled the player to rank in my rhyme As the very Vieuxtemps of the very old time I But alas for the joys of this mutable life I Sir Orpheus lost his beautiful wife 144 ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE. Eurydice who vanished one day From Earth, in a very unpleasant way ! It chanced, as near as I can determine, Through one of those vertebrated vermin That lie in the grass so prettily curled, Waiting to ' snake ' you out of the world ! And the poets tell she went to well A place where Greeks and Romans dwell After they burst their mortal shell ; A region that in the deepest shade is, And known by the classical name of Hades, A different place from the terrible furnace Of Tartarus, down below Avernus. Now, having a heart uncommonly stout, Sir Orpheus did n't go whining about, Nor marry another, as you would, no doubt, But made up his mind to fiddle her out ! But near the gate he had to wait, For there in state old Cerberus sate, A three-headed dog, as cruel as Fate, Guarding the entrance early and late ; A beast so sagacious, and very voracious. So uncommonly sharp and extremely rapacious, That it really may be doubted whether He 'd have his match, should a common tether Unite three aldermen's heads together ! But Orpheus, not in the least afraid, Tuned up his shell, and quickly essayed What could be done with a serenade. ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE. 145 In short, so charming an air he played, He quite succeeded in overreaching The cunning cur, by musical teaching, And put him to sleep as fast as preaching I And now our musical champion^ Orpheus, Having given the janitor over to Morpheus, Went groping around among the ladies Who throng the dismal halls of Hades, Calling aloud To the shady crowd, In a voice as shrill as a martial fife, * <9, tell me where in hell is my wife ! ' (A natural question, 't is very plain, Although it may sound a little profane.) * Eurydice ! Eu-ryd-i-ce I ' He cried as loud as loud could be (A singular sound, and funny withal, In a place where nobody rides at all !) * Eurydice ! Eurydice 1 O, come, my dear, along with me ! ' And then he played so remarkably fine, That it really might be called divine, For who can show, On earth or below, Such wonderful feats in the musical line ? E'en Tantalus ceased from trying to sip The cup that flies from his arid lip ; Ixion, too, the magic could feel, And, for a moment, blocked his wheel ; 7 j 146 ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE. Poor Sisyphus, doomed to tumble and toss The notable ' stone that gathers no moss,' Let o his burden, and turned to hear The charming sounds that ravished his ear ; And even the Furies those terrible shrews Whom no one before could ever amuse Those strong-bodied ladies with strong-minded views Whom even the devil would doubtless refuse, Were his majesty only permitted to choose Each felt for a moment her nature desert her, And wept like a girl o'er the * Sorrows of Werter And still Sir Orpheus chanted his song, Sweet and clear and strong and long, * Eurydice 1 Eurydice 1 * He cried as loud as loud could be ; And Echo, taking up the word, Kept it up till the lady heard, And came with joy to meet her lord. And he led her along thelhfernal route, Until he had got her almost out, When, suddenly turning his head about, (To take a peep at his wife, no doubt,) He gave a groan, For the lady was gone, And had left him standing there all alone ! For by an oath the gods had bound Sir Orpheus not to look around Till he was clear of the sacred ground, If he 'd have Eurydice safe and sound, For the moment he did an act so rash His wife would vanish as quick as a flash I ORPI1EU8 AND EURYDICE. 147 Young women ! beware, for goodness* sake, Of every sort of ' sarpent snake ; ' Remember the rogue is apt to deceive, And played the deuse with grandmother Eve ! Young men ! it 's a critical thing to go Exactly right with a lady in tow ; But when you are in the proper track, Just go ahead, and never look back 1 THE MONET-KING, AND OTHEK POEMS. 1859. To MRS. GEORGE P. MARSH: A Lady endowed with the best Gifts of Nature and Culture, and adorned with all Wo- manly Graces, this volume is inscribed by her Friend, THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. ABOUT ten years ago, at the instance of my friend, James T. Fields, Esq., and with much misgiving, I ventured on the publication of a vol- ume of poems. For the favor it has found with the public, as evinced in a demand for sixteen editions of the book, and with the critics, as shown in many kind and scholarly reviews, I take this occasion to express my grateful acknowl- edgments. Of the little which I have written since the first publication of that volume, the greater part will be found in this. In the arrangement of my materials, I have put " The Money-King " in front, simply on account of its length ; as, in mili- tary usage, the tallest soldier is commonly placed at the head of the file. For the two episodes which interrupt the thread of this otherwise consecutive performance, I must plead the authority of greater names, ancient and modern. The poem entitled " The Way of the World," is little more than a paraphrase of a passage in a prose story lately published in Frazer's Magazine ; and the plot of the Chinese Tale is mainly borrowed from an extreme- ly clever English book, entitled " The Porcelain Tower." The rest of the pieces, for aught I can say, are as original as the verses of other men who have the misfortune to write at this rather late 154 PREFACE. period in the history of letters ; but if (as may pos- sibly happen) any expressions which I have sup- posed to be my own should be found in the works of earlier writers, I can only answer, with the hearty indignation of old DON AT us : " Pereant isti qui ante nostra dixerunt .' " 3. G. S. THE MONEY-KING. A POEM DELIVERED BEFORE THE PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY OF YALE COLLEGE, 1854. As landsmen, sitting in luxurious ease, Talk of the dangers of the stormy seas ; As fireside travellers, with portentous mien, Tell tales of countries they have never seen ; As parlor-soldiers, graced with fancy-scars, Rehearse their bravery in imagined wars ; As arrant dunces have been known to sit In grave discourse of wisdom and of wit; As paupers, gathered in congenial flocks, Babble of banks, insurances, and stocks ; As each is oft'nest eloquent of what He hates or covets, but possesses not ; As cowards talk of pluck ; misers, of waste ; Scoundrels, of honor ; country clowns, of taste ; I sing of MONEY 1 no ignoble theme, But loftier far than poetasters dream, Whose fancies, soaring to their native moon, Rise like a bubble or a gay balloon, Whose orb aspiring takes a heavenward flight, Just in proportion as it 's thin and light 1 156 THE MONEY-KING. Kings must have Poets. From the earliest times, Monarchs have loved celebrity in rhymes ; From good King Robert, who, in Petrarch's days, Taught to mankind the proper use of bays, And, singling out the prince of Sonneteers, Twined wreaths of laurel 'round his blushing ears ; Down to the Queen, who, to her chosen bard, In annual token of her kind regard, Sends not alone the old poetic greens, But, like a woman and the best of queens, Adds to the leaves, to keep them fresh and fine, The wholesome moisture of a pipe of wine ! So may her minstrel, crowned with royal bays, Alternate praise her pipe and pipe her praise ! E'en let him chant his smooth, euphonious lays : A loftier theme my humbler Muse essays ; A mightier monarch be it hers to sing, And claim her laurel from the Money-King ! Great was King AlfredY and if history state His actions truly, good as well as great. Great was the Norman ; he whose martial hordes Taught law and order to the Saxon lords, With gentler thoughts their rugged minds imbued. And raised the nation whom he first subdued. Great was King Bess ! I see the critic smile, As though the Muse mistook her proper style ; But to her purpose she will stoutly cling, The royal maid was ' every inch a King ' ! Great was Napoleon, and I would that fate Might prove his namesake-nephew half as great ; ' I THE MONEY-KING. 157 Meanwhile this hint I venture to advance : What France admires is good enough for France ! Great princes were they all ; but greater far Than English King, or mighty Russian Czar, Or Pope of Rome, or haughty Queen of Spain, Baron of Germany, or Royal Dane, Or Gallic Emperor, or Persian Khan, Or any other merely mortal man, Is the great monarch that my Muse would sing, That mighty potentate, the Money-King ! His kingdom vast extends o'er every land, And nations bow before his high command ; The weakest tremble, and his power obey, The strongest honor, and confess his sway. He rules the Rulers 1 e'en the tyrant Czar Asks his permission ere he goes to war ; The Turk, submissive to his royal might, By his consent has gracious leave to fight ; Whilst e'en Britannia makes her humblest bow Before her Barings, not her Barons now, Or on the Rothschild suppliantly calls, (Her affluent ' uncle ' with the golden balls,) Begs of the Jew that he will kindly spare Enough to put her trident in repair, And pawns her diamonds, while she humbly craves Leave of the Money-King once more to ' rule the waves ' ! He wears no crown upon his royal head, iBut many millions in his purse, instead; He keeps no halls of state ; but holds his court In dingy rooms where greed and thrift resort ; 1 ~ > THE MONEY-KING. In iron chests his wondrous wealth he hoards ; Banks are his parlors ; brokers are his lords, Bonds, bills, and mortgages, his favorite books, Gold is his food, and coiners are his cooks ; Ledgers his records ; stock-reports his news ; Merchants his yeomen, and his bondsmen Jews ; Kings are his subjects, gamblers are his knaves, Spendthrifts his fools, and misers are his slaves 1 The good, the bad, his golden favor prize, The high, the low, the simple, and the wise, The young, the old, the stately, and the gay, All bow obedient to his royal sway 1 See where, afar, the bright Pacific shore Gleams in the sun with sands of shining ore, His last, great empire rises to the view, And shames the wealth of India and Peru ! Here, throned within his gorgeous " golden gate," He wields his sceptre o'er the rising State ; Surveys his conquest with a joyful eye, Nor for a greater heaves a single sigh 1 Here, quite beyond the classic poet's dream, Pactolus runs in every winding stream ; The mountain cliffs the glittering ore enfold, And every reed that rustles whispers, * gold 1 ' If to his sceptre some dishonor clings, Why should we marvel ? 't is the fate of Kings ! Their power too oft perverted by abuse, Their manners cruel, or their morals loose, The best at times have wandered far astray From simple Virtue's unseductive way ; THE MONEY-KING}. 159 And few, of all, at once could make pretence To royal robes and rustic innocence ! He builds the house where Christian people pray, And rears a bagnio just across the way ; Pays to the priest his stinted annual fee ; Rewards the lawyer for his venal plea ; Sends an apostle to the heathen's aid ; And cheats the Choctaws, for the good of trade ; Lifts by her heels an Ellsler to renown, Or, bribing ' Jenny,' brings an angel down ! He builds the Theatres, and gambling Halls, Lloyds and A 1 macks, St. Peter's and St. Paul's ; Sin's gay retreats, and Fashion's gilded rooms, Hotels and Factories, Palaces and Tombs ; Bids Commerce spread her wings to every gale ; Bends to the breeze the pirate's bloody sail ; Helps Science seek new worlds among the stars ; Profanes our own with mercenary wars ; The friend of wrong, the equal friend of right, Oft may we bless and oft deplore his might, As buoyant hope or darkening fears prevail, And good or evil turns the moral scale. All fitting honor I would fain accord, Whene'er he builds a temple to the Lord ; But much I grieve he often spends his pelf, As it were raised in honor of himself; Or, what were worse, and more profanely odd, A place to worship some Egyptian god ! I wish his favorite architects were graced With sounder judgment, and a Christian taste. 160 THE MONEY-KING. Immortal Wren ! what fierce, convulsive shocks Would jar thy bones within their leaden box, Couldst thou but look across the briny spray, And see some churches of the present day ! The lofty dome of consecrated bricks, Where all the 4 orders ' in disorder mix, To form a temple whose incongruous frame Confounds design and puts the Arts to shame I Where 4 styles ' discordant on the vision jar, Where Greek and Roman are again at war, And, as of old, the unrelenting Goth Comes down at last and overwhelms them both I Once on a time I heard a parson say, (Talking of churches in a sprightly way,) That there was more Religion in the walls Of towering ' Trinity,* or grand ' St. Paul's,' Than one could find, upon the strictest search, In half the saints within the Christian Church 1 A layman sitting at the parson's side To this new dogma thus at once replied : * If, as you say, Religion has her home In the mere walls that form the sacred dome, It seems to me the very plainest case, To climb the steeple were a growth in grace ; And he to whom the pious strength were given To reach the highest were the nearest Heaven I I thought the answer just ; and yet 't is clear A solemn aspect, grand and yet severe, Becomes the house of God. 'T is hard to say Who from the proper mark are most astray, THE MONEY-KING. 161 They who erect, for holy Christian rites, A gay Pagoda with its tinsel lights, Or they who offer to the God of Love A gorgeous Temple of the pagan Jove I Immortal Homer and Tassoni sing What vast results from trivial causes spring ; How naughty Helen by her stolen joy Brought woe and ruin to unhappy Troy ; How, for a bucket, rash Bologna; sold More blood and tears than twenty such could hold Thy power, O Money, shows results as strange As aught revealed in History's widest range ; Thy smallest coin of shining silver shows More potent magic than a conjurer knows I In olden times, if classic poets say The simple truth, as poets do to-day, When Charon's boat conveyed a spirit o'er The Lethean water to the Hadean shore, The fare was just a penny, not too great, The moderate, regular, Stygian statute rate. Now, for a shilling, he will cross the stream, (His paddles whirling to the force of steam !) And bring, obedient to some wizard power, Back to the Earth more spirits in an hour, Than Brooklyn's famous ferry could convey, Or thine, Hoboken, in the longest day ! Time was when men bereaved of vital breath Were calm and silent in the realms of Death ; When mortals dead and decently inurned Were heard no more ; no traveller returned. K 1G2 THE MONEY-KING. Who once had crossed the dark Plutonian strand, To whisper secrets of the spirit-land Save when perchance some sad, unquiet soul Among the tombs might wander on parole, A well-bred ghost, at night's bewitching noon, Returned to catch some glimpses of the moon, Wrapt in a mantle of unearthly white, (The only 'rapping of an ancient sprite !) Stalked round in silence till the break of day, Then from the Earth passed unperceived away I Now all is changed : the musty maxim fails, And dead men do repeat the queerest tales ! Alas, that here, as in the books, we see The travellers clash, the doctors disagree ! Alas, that all, the further they explore, For all their search are but confused the more ! Ye great departed ! men of mighty mark Bacon and Newton, Adams, Adam Clarke, Edwards and Whitefield, Franklin, Robert Hall, Calhoun, Clay, Channing^ Daniel Webster all Ye great quit-tenants of this earthly ball, If in your new abodes ye cannot rest, But must return, O, grant us this request : Come with a noble and celestial air, To prove your title to the names ye bear ; Give some clear token of your heavenly birth ; Write as good English as ye wrote on Earth ! Show not to all, in ranting prose and verse, The spirit's progress is from bad to worse ; And, what were once superfluous to advise, Don't tell, I beg you, such egregious lies ! THE MONEY-KING. 163 Or if perchance your agents are to blame, Don't let them trifle with your honest fame ; Let chairs and tables rest, and 4 rap ' instead, Ay, ' knock ' your slippery ' Mediums ' on the head ! What direful woes the hapless man attend, Who in the means see life's supremest end ; The wretched miser, money's sordid slave, His only joy to gather and to save. For this he wakes at morning's early light, Toils through the day, and ponders in the night ; For this, to swell his heap of tarnished gold, Sweats in the sun, and shivers in the cold, And suffers more from hunger every day Than the starved beggar whom he spurns away. Death comes erewhile to end his worldly strife ; With all his saving he must lose his life ! Perchance the Doctor might protract his breath, And stay the dreadful messenger of death ; But none is there to comfort or advise ; 'T would cost a dollar ! so the miser dies. Sad is the sight when Money's power controls In wedlock's chains the fate of human souls. From mine to mint, curst is the coin that parts In helpless grief two loving human hearts ; Or joins in discord, jealousy, and hate, A sordid suitor to a loathing mate ! I waive the case, the barren case, of those Who have no hearts to cherish or to lose ; Whose wedded state is but a bargain made In due accordance with the laws r>f trade : 1G4 THE MONEY-KING. When the prim parson joins their willing hands, To marry City lots to Western lands, Or in connubial ecstasy to mix Cash and ' collateral,' ten-per-cents with six, And in soft dalliance securely locks Impassioned dollars with enamored stocks, Laugh if you will, and who can well refrain ? But waste no tears, nor pangs of pitying pain ; Hearts such as these may play the queerest pranks, But never break except with breaking banks 1 Yet, let me hint, a thousand maxims prove Plutus may be the truest friend to Love. 4 Love in a cottage* cosily may dwell, But much prefers to have it furnished well ! A parlor ample, and a kitchen snug, A handsome carpet, an embroidered rug, A well-stored pantry, and a tidy maid, A blazing hearth, a cooling window-shade, Though merely mortal, money-purchased things, Have wondrous power to clip Love's errant wings ! * Love in a cottage,' is n't just the same, When wind and water strive to quench his flame ; Too oft it breeds the sharpest "discontent, That puzzling question, ' how to pay the rent ; ' A smoky chimney may alone suffice To dim the radiance of the fondest eyes ; A northern blast, beyond the slightest doubt, May fairly blow the torch of Hymen out ; And I have heard a worthy matron hold, (As one who knew the truth of what she told,) THE MONEY-KING. 165 Love once was drowned, though reckoned water- proof, , By the mere dripping of a leaky roof! Full many a wise philosopher has tried Mankind in fitting orders to divide ; And by their forms, their fashions, and their face, To group, assort, and classify the race. One would distinguish people by their books ; , Another, quaintly, solely by their cooks ; And one, who graced the philosophic bench, Found these three classes, ' women, men, and French ! ' The best remains, of all that I have known, A broad distinction, brilliant, and my own, Of all mankind, I classify the lot : Those who have Money, and those who have not I Think'st thou the line a poef s fiction ? then Go look abroad upon the ways of men ! Go ask the banker, with his golden seals ; Go ask the borrower, cringing at his heels ; Go ask the maid who, emulous of woe, Discards the worthier for the wealthier beau ; Go ask the Parson, when a higher prize Points with the salary where his duty lies ; Go ask the Lawyer, who, in legal smoke, Stands, like a stoker, redolent of " Coke," And swings his arms to emphasize a plea Made doubly ardent by a golden fee ; Go ask the Doctor, who has kindly sped Old Croesus, dying on a damask bed, 1G6 THE MOSEY-KIXG. While his poor neighbor wonderful to tell Was left to Nature, suffered, and got well ! Go ask the belle, in high patrician pride, Who spurns the maiden nurtured at her side, Her youth's loved playmate at the village-school, Ere changing fortune taught the rigid rule Which marks the loftier from the lowlier lot, , Those who have money from those who have not 1 Of all the ills that owe their baneful rise To wealth p'ergrown, the most despotic vice Is Circean Luxury ; prolific dame Of mental impotence, and moral shame, And all the cankering evils that debase The human form, and dwarf the human race. See yon strange figure, and a moment scan That slenderest sample of the genus man 1 Mark, as he ambles, those precarious pegs Which by their motion must be deemed his legs I He has a head, one may be sure of that By just observing that he wears a hat ; That he has arms is logically plain From his wide coat-sleeves and his pendant cane ; A tongue as well, the inference is fair, Since, on occasion, he can lisp* and swear. You ask his use ? that 's not so very clear, Unless to spend five thousand pounds a year In modish vices which his soul adores, Drink, dress, and gaming, horses, hounds, and scores Of other follies which I can't rehearse, Dear to himself and dearer to his purse. THE MONEY-KING. 167 No product he of Fortune's fickle dice : The due result of Luxury and Vice, Three generations have sufficed to bring That narrow-chested, pale, enervate thing Down from a man, for, marvel as you will, His huge great-grandsire fought on Bunker-PIill 1 Bore, without gloves, a musket through the war ; Came back adorned with many a noble scar ; Labored and prospered at a thriving rate, And, dying, left his heir a snug estate, Which grew apace upon his busy hands, Stocks, ships, and factories, tenements and lands, All here at last the money and the race The latter ending in that foolish face ; The former wandering, far beyond his aim, Back to the rough plebeians whence it came ! Enough of censure ; let my humble lays Employ one moment in congenial praise. Let other pens with pious ardor paint The selfish virtues of the cloistered saint ; In lettered marble let the stranger read Of him who, dying, did a worthy deed, And left to charity the cherished store Which, to his sorrow, he could hoard no more. I venerate the nobler man who gives His generous dollars while the donor lives ; Gives with a heart as liberal as the palms That to the needy spread his honored alms ; Gives with a head whose yet unclouded light To worthiest objects points the giver's sight ; 168 TUT: MONEY-KING. Gives with a hand still potent to enforce His well-aimed bounty, and direct its course ; Such is the giver who must stand confest In giving glorious, and supremely blest ! One such as this the captious world could find In noble Perkins, angel of the blind ; One such as this in princely Lawrence shone, Ere heavenly kindred claimed him for their own ! To me the boon may gracious Heaven assign, No cringing suppliant at Mammon's shrine, Nor slave of Poverty, with joy to share The happy mean expressed in Agur's prayer : A house (my own) to keep me safe and warm, A shade in sunshine, and a shield in storm ; A generous board, and fitting raiment, clear Of debts and duns throughout the circling year ; Silver and gold, in moderate store, that I May purchase joys that only these can buy ; Some gems of art, a culture!! mind to please, Books, pictures, statues, literary ease. That ' Time is Money ' prudent Franklin shows In rhyming couplets, and sententious prose. O, had he taught the world, in prose and rhyme, The higher truth that Money may be Time ! And showed the people, in his pleasant ways, The art of coining dollars into days ! Days for improvement, days for social life, Days for your God, your children, and your wife ; Some days for pleasure, and an hour to spend In genial converse with an honest friend. THE MOXEY-KIXG. 169 Such days be mine ! and grant me, Heaven, but this, With blooming health, man's highest earthly bliss, And I will read, without a sigh or frown, The startling news that stocks are going down ; Hear without envy that a stranger hoards Or spends more treasure than a mint affords ; See my next neighbor pluck a golden plum, Calm and content within my cottage-home ; Take for myself what honest thrift may bring, And for his kindness, bless the Money-King 1 I'M GROWING OLD. M~s days pass pleasantly away ; My nights are blest with sweetest sleep ; I feel no symptoms of decay ; I have no cause to mourn nor weep ; My foes are impotent and shy ; My friends are neither false nor cold, And yet, of late, I often sigh, I 'm growing old 1 My growing talk of olden times, My growing thirst for early news My growing apathy to rhymes, My growing love of easy shoes, My growing hate of crowds and noise, My growing fear of taking cold, All whisper, in the plainest voice, I 'm growing old ! I 'm growing fonder of my staff; I 'm growing dimmer in the eyes ; I 'm growing fainter in my laugh ; I 'm growing deeper in my sighs ; I 'M GROWING OLD. 1 71 I 'in growing careless of my dress ; I 'm growing frugal of my gold ; I 'm growing wise ; I 'ni growing yes I 'm growing old ! I see it in my changing taste ; I see it in my changing hair ; I see it in my growing waist ; I see it in my growing heir ; A thousand signs proclaim the truth, As plain as truth was ever told, That, even in my vaunted youth, I 'm growing old ! Ah me ! my very laurels breathe The tale in my reluctant ears, And every boon the Hours bequeath But makes me debtor to the Years ! E'en Flattery's honeyed words declare The secret she would fain withhold, And tells ine in ' How young you are ! ' I 'm growing old 1 Thanks for the years ! whose rapid flight My sombre Muse too sadly sings ; Thanks for the gleams of golden light That tint the darkness of then* wings ; The light that beams from out the sky, Those Heavenly mansions to unfold Where all are blest, and none may sijrh, 4 1 'm growing old ! ' SPES EST VAXES. THERE is a saying of the ancient sages: No noble human thought, However buried in the dust of ages, Can ever come to naught. With kindred faith, that knows no base dejection, Beyond the sages' scope I see, afar, the final resurrection Of every glorious hope. I soe, as parcel of a new creation, The beatific hour When every bud of lofty aspiration Shall blossom into flower. We are riot mocked ; it was not in derision God made our spirits free ; The poet's dreams are but the dim prevision Of blessings that shall be, When they who lovingly have hoped and trusted, Despite some transient fears, Shall see Life's jarring elements adjusted, And rounded into spheres ! THE WAY OF THE WORLD. i. A YOUTH would marry a maiden, For fair and fond was she ; But she was rich, and he was poor, And so it might not be. A lady never could wear Her mother held it firm A gown that came of an India plant, Instead of an India worm! And so the cruel word was spoken ; And so it was two hearts were broken. ii. A youth would marry a maiden, For fair and fond was she ; But he was high and she was low, And so it might not be. A man who had worn a spur. In ancient battle won, Had sent it down with great re.nou-n, To goad his future son I And so the cruel word was spoken ; And so it was two hearts were broken. 174 THE WAY OF THE WORLD. A youth would marry a maiden, For fair and fond was she ; But their sires disputed about the Mass, And so it might not be. A couple of wicked Kings, Three hundred years agone, Had played at a royal game of chess, And the church had been a pawn I - And so the cruel word was spoken ; And so it was two hearts were broken. THE HEAD AND THE HEART. THE head is stately, calm, and wise, And bears a princely part ; And down below in secret lies The warm, impulsive heart. The lordly head that sits above, The heart that beats below, Their several office plainly prove, Their true relation show. The head erect, serene, and cool, Endowed with Reason's art, Was set aloft to guide and rule The throbbing, wayward heart. And from the head, as from the higher, Comes every glorious thought; And in the heart's transforming fire All noble deeds are wrought. Yet each is best when both unite To make the man complete ; What were the heat without the light ? The light, without the heat ? MY CASTLE IN SPAIN. THERE 'a a castle in Spain, very charming to see, Though built without money or toil ; Of this handsome estate I am owner in fee, And paramount lord of the soil ; And oft as I may I 'm accustomed to go And live, like a king, in my Spanish Chateau ! There 's a dame most be witchingly rounded and ripe, Whose wishes are never absurd ; Who does n't object to my smoking a pipe, Nor insist on the ultimate word ; In short, she 's the pink of perfection, you know ; And she lives, like a queen, in my Spanish Chateau ! I 've a family too ; the delightfulest girls, And a bevy of beautiful boys ;. All quite the reverse of those juvenile churls Whose pleasure is mischief and noise ; No modern Cornelia might venture to show Such jewels as those in my Spanish Chateau ! MY CASTLE IN SPAIN. 177 ! have servants who seek their contentment in mine, And always mind what they are at ; Who never embezzle the sugar and wine, And slander the innocent cat ; Neither saucy, nor careless, nor stupidly slow, Are the servants who wait in my Spanish Chateau ! I have pleasant companions ; most affable folk ; And each with the heart of a brother ; Keen wits, who enjoy an antagonist's joke ; And beauties who 're fon'd of each other ; Such people, indeed, as you never may know, Unless you should come to my Spanish Chateau ! I have friends, whose commission for wearing the name In kindness unfailing is shown ; "Who pay to another the duty they claim, And deem his successes their own ; Who joy in his gladness, and weep at his woe ; You '11 find them (where else ?) in my Spanish Chateau ! si sic semper ! ' I oftentimes say, (Though 't is idle, I know, to complain,) To think that again I must force me away From my beautiful castle in Spain ! Ah ! would that my stars had determined it so J might live the year round in my Spanish Cha- teau! 8* L A REFLECTIVE RETROSPECT. 'T is twenty years, and something more, Since, all athirst for useful knowledge, I took some draughts of classic lore, Drawn very mild, at rd College ; Yet I remember all that one Could wish to hold in recollection ; The boys, the joys, the noise, the fun ; But not a single Conic Section. I recollect those harsh affairs, The morning bells that'gave us panics, I recollect the formal prayers, That seemed like lessons in Mechanics ; I recollect the drowsy way In which the students listened to them, As clearly, in my wig, to-day, As when, a boy, I slumbered through them. I recollect the tutors all As freshly now, if I may say so, As any chapter I recall In Homer or Ovidius Naso. A REFLECTIVE RETROSPECT. 179 I recollect, extremely well, ' Old Hugh,' the mildest of fanatics; I well remember Matthew Bell, But very faintly, Mathematics. 1 recollect the prizes paid For lessons fathomed to the bottom ; (Alas that pencil-marks should fade !) I recollect the chaps who got 'em, The light equestrians who soared O'er every passage reckoned stony ; And took the chalks, but never scored A single honor to the pony 1 Ah me ! what changes Time has wrought, And how predictions have miscarried ! A few have reached the goal they sought, And some are dead, and some are married 1 And some in city journals war ; And some as politicians bicker ; And some are pleading at the bar For jury-verdicts, or for liquor 1 And some on Trade and Commerce wait ; And some in schools with dunces battle ; And some the Gospel propagate ; And some the choicest breeds of cattle ; And some are living at their ease ; And some were wrecked in ' the revulsion ;' Some serve the State for handsome fees, And one, I hear, upon compulsion ! 180 A REFLECTIVE RETROSPECT. LAMOXT, who, in his college days, Thought e'en a cross a moral scandal, Has left his Puritanic ways, And worships now with bell and candle ; And MANN, who mourned the negro's fate, And held the slave as most unlucky, Now holds him, at the market rate, On a plantation in Kentucky ! TOM KNOX who swore in such a tone It fairly might be doubted whether It really was himself alone, Or Knox and Erebus together Has grown a very altered man, And, changing oaths for mild entreaty, Now recommends the Christian plan To savages in Otaheite ! Alas for young ambition's vow ! How envious Fate may' overthrow it ! Poor HARVEY is in Congress now, Who struggled long to be a poet ; SMITH carves (quite well) memorial stones, Who tried in vain to make the law go ; HALL deals in hides ; and " Pious Jones " Is dealing faro in Chicago ! And, sadder still, the brilliant HAYS, Once honest, manly, and ambitious, Has taken latterly to ways Extremely profligate and vicious ; A REFLECTIVE RETROSPECT. 181 By slow degrees I can't tell how He 's reached at last the very groundsel, And in New York he figures now, A member of the Common Council 1 4 DO YOU THINK HE IS MARRIED? MADAM, you are very pressing, And I can't decline the task ; With the slightest gift of guessing, You would scarcely need to ask 1 Don't you see a hint of marriage In his sober-sided face ? In his rather careless carriage, And extremely rapid pace V If he 's not committed treason, Or some wicked action done, Can you see the faintest reason Why a bachelor should run ? Why should he be in a flurry ? But a loving wife to greet Is a circumstance to hurry The most dignified of feet 1 When afar the man has spied her, If the grateful, happy elf Does not haste to be beside her, He must be beside himself! DO YOU THINK HE IS MAKlilED V * 183 It is but a trifle, maybe, But observe his practised tone, When he calms your stormy baby, Just as if it were his own ! Do you think a certain meekness You have mentioned in his looks, Is a chronic optic weakness That has come of reading books ? Did you ever see his vision Peering underneath a hood, Save enough for recognition, As a civil person should 1 Could a Capuchin be colder When he glances, as he must, At a finely-rounded shoulder, Or a proudly-swelling bust ? Madam ! think of every feature, Then deny it, if you can, He 's a fond, connubial creature, And a very married man ! EARLY RISING. ' GOD bless the man who first invented sleep ! ' So Sancho Panza said, and so say I : And bless him, also, that he did n't keep His great discovery to himself; nor try To make it as the lucky fellow might A close monopoly by patent-right ! Yes bless the man who first invented sleep, (I really can't avoid the iteration ;) But blast the man, with curses loud and deep, Whate'er the rascal's name, or age, or station, Who first invented, and went round advising, That artificial cut-off Early Rising ! 4 Rise with the lark, and with the lark to bed,' Observes some solemn, sentimental owl ; Maxims like these are very cheaply said ; But, ere you make yourself a fool or fowl, Pray just inquire about his rise and fall, And whether larks have any beds at all I * The time for honest folks to be a-bed ' Is in the morning, if I reason right ; And he who cannot keep his precious head Upon his pillow till it 's fairlv light, EARLY RISING. 185 And so enjoy his forty morning winks, Is up to knavery ; or else he drinks ! Thomson, who sung about the Seasons,' said It was a glorious thing to rise in season ; But then he said it lying in his bed, At ten o'clock A. M., the very reason He wrote so charmingly. The simple fact is, His preaching was n't sanctioned by his practice. 'T is, doubtless, well to be sometimes awake, Awake to duty, and awake to truth, But when, alas ! a nice review we take Of our best deeds and days, we find, in sooth, The hours that leave the slightest cause to weep Are those we passed in childhood or asleep 1 'T is beautiful to leave the world awhile -For the soft visions of the gentle night ; And free, at last, from mortal care or guile, To live as only in the angels' sight, In sleep's sweet realm so cosily shut in, Where, at the worst, we only dream of sin ! So let us sleep, and give the Maker praise. I like the lad who, when his father thought To clip his morning nap by hackneyed phrase Of vagrant worm by early songster caught, Cried, * Served him right ! it 's not at all surpris- ing; The worm was punished, sir, for early rising ! ' IDEAL AND REAL. SOME years ago, when I was young, And Mrs. Jones was Miss Delancy ; When wedlock's canopy was hung With curtains from the loom of fancy ; I used to paint my future life With most poetical precision, :My special wonder of a wife ; My happy days ; my nights Elysian. I saw a lady, rather small, (A Juxo was my strict abhorrence,) With flaxen hair, contrived to fall In careless ringlets, a la Lawrence ; A blonde complexion ; eyes that drew From autumn clouds their azure brightness; The foot of Venus ; arms whose hue Was perfect in its milky whiteness I I saw a party, quite select, There might have been- a baker's dozen; A parson, of the ruling sect ; A bridcmaid, and a city cousin ; IDEAL AND REAL. 187 A formal speech to me and mine, (Its meaning I could scarce discover ;) A taste of cake ; a sip of wine ; Some kissing and the scene was over ! I saw a baby one no more ; A cherub pictured, rather faintly, Beside a pallid dame who wore A countenance extremely saintly. I saw, but nothing could I hear, Except the softest prattle, maybe, The merest breath upon the ear, So quiet was that blessed baby ! I see a woman, rather tall, And yet, I own, a comely lady ; Complexion such as I must call (To be exact) a little shady ; A hand not handsome, yet confessed A generous one for love or pity ; A nimble foot, and neatly dressed In No. 5 extremely pretty 1 I see a group of boys and girls Assembled round the knee paternal ; With ruddy cheeks and tangled curls, And manners not at all supernal. 188 IDEAL AND REAL. And one has reached a manly size ; And one aspires to woman's stature ; And one is quite a recent prize, And all abound in human nature ! The boys are hard to keep in trim ; The girls are often rather trying ; And baby like the cherubim Seems very fond of steady crying ! And yet the precious little one, His mother's dear, despotic master, Is worth a thousand babies done In Parian or in alabaster 1 And oft that" stately dame and I, When laughing o'er our early dreaming, And marking, as the years go by, How idle was our youthful scheming, Confess the wiser Power that knew How Duty every joy enhances, And gave us blessings rich and true, And better far than all our fancies ! HOW THE MONEY GOES. How goes the Money ? Well, I 'm sure it is n't hard to tell ; It goes for rent, and water-rates, For bread and butter, coal and grates, Hats, caps, and carpets, hoops and hose, - And that 's the way the Money goes ! How goes the Money ? Nay, Don't everybody know the way ? It goes for bonnets, coats, and capes, Silks, satins, muslins, velvets, crapes, Shawls, ribbons, furs, and furbelows, And that 's the way the Money goes ! How goes the Money ? Sure, I wish the ways were, something fewer; It goes for wages, taxes, debts ; It goes for presents, goes for bets, For paint, pommade, and eau de nw, - And that 's the way the Money goes ! How goes the Money ? Now, I 've scarce begun to mention how ; 190 HOW THE MONEY GOES. It goes for laces, feathers, rings, Toys, dolls and other baby- things, Whips, whistles, candies, bells, and bows, And that 's the way the Money goes 1 How goes the Money ? Come, I know it does n't go for rum ; . It goes for schools and Sabbath chimes, It goes for charity sometimes ; For missions, and such things as those, And that 's the way the Money goes ! How goes the Money ? There ! I 'm out of patience, I declare ; It goes for plays, and diamond-pins, For public alms, and private sins, For hollow shams, and silly shows, And that 's the way the Money goes 1 TALE OF A DOG. IN TWO PARTS. PART FIRST. * CURSE on all curs ! ' I heard a cynic cry ; A wider malediction than he thought, For what 's a cynic V Had he cast his eye Within his dictionary, he had caught This much of learning, the untutored elf, That he, unwittingly, had cursed himself ! II. ' Beware of dogs/ the great Apostle writes ; A rather brief and sharp philippic sent To the Philippians. The paragraph invites Some little question as to its intent, Among the best expositors ; but then I find they all agree that " dogs " meant men ! Beware of men ! a moralist might say, And women too ; 't were but a prudent hint, Well worth observing in a general way, But having surely no conclusion in 't, (As saucy satirists are wont to rail,) All men are faithless, and all women frail. 32 TALE OF A DOG. IV. And so of dogs 't were wrong to dogmatize Without discrimination or degree ; For one may see, with half a pair of eyes, That they have characters as well as we : I hate the rascal who can walk the street Caning all canines he may chance to meet. I had a dog that was not all a dog, For in his nature there was something human ; Wisely he looked as any pedagogue ; Loved funerals and weddings, like a woman ; With this (still human) weakness, I confess, Of always judging people by their dress. VI. He hated beggars, it was very clear, And oft was seen to drive them from the door ; But that was education-;* for a year, Ere yet his puppyhood was fairly o'er, He lived with a Philanthropist, and caught His practices ; the precepts he forgot ! vir. Which was a pity ; yet the dog, I grant, Led, on the whole, a very wortlr life. To teach you industry, * Go to the ant,' (I mean the insect, not your uncle's wife ;) But though the counsel sounds a little rude Go to the dogs, for love and gratitude. TALE OF A DOG. 193 PART SECOND. VIII. ' Throw physic to the dogs,' the poet cries ; A downright insult to the canine race ; There 's not a puppy but is far too wise To put a pill or powder in his face. Perhaps the poet merely meant to say, That physic, thrown to dogs, is thrown away, IX. Which (as the parson said about the dice) Is the best throw that any man can choose ; Take, if you 're ailing, medical advice, Minus the medicine which, of course, refuse. Drugging, no doubt, occasioned Homoeopathy, And all the dripping horrors of Hydropathy. x. At all events, 't is fitting to remark, Dogs spurn at drugs ; their daily bark and whine Are not at all the musty wine and bark The doctors give to patients in decline ; And yet a dog who felt a fracture's smart Once thanked a kind chirurgeon for his art. XI. I Ve heard a story, and believe it true, About a dog that chanced to break his leg ; His master set it and the member grew Once more a sound and serviceable peg ; And how d' ye think the happy dog exprest The grateful feelings of his glowing breast ? 9 M 194 TALE OF A DOG. 'T was not in words ; the customary pay Of human debtors for a friendly act ; For dogs their thoughts can neither sing nor say E'en in " dog-latin," which (a curious fact) Is spoken only as a classic grace By grave Professors of the human race 1 No, 't was in deed ; the very briefest tail Declared his deep emotions at his cure ; Short, but significant ; one could not fail, From the mere wagging of his cynosure (* Surgens e puppi '), and his ears agog, To see the fellow was a grateful dog 1 One day still mindful of his late disaster He wandered off the village to explore ; And brought another dog unto his master, Lame of a leg, as he had been before ; As who should say, ' You see ! the dog is lame : You doctored me, pray, doctor him the same ! ' So runs the story, and you have it cheap, Dog-cheap, as doubtless such a tale should be ; The moral, surely, is n't hard to reap : Be prompt to listen unto mercy's plea ; The good you get, diffuse ; it will not hurt you E'en from a dog to learn a Christian virtue 1 LITTLE JERRY, THE MILLER. A BALLAD. BENEATH the hill you may see the mill Of wasting wood and crumbling stone ; The wheel is dripping and clattering still, But JERRY, the miller, is dead and gone. Year after year, early and late, Alike in summer and winter weather, He pecked the stones and calked the gate, And mill and miller grew old together. 4 Little Jerry 1 ' 't was all the same, They loved him well who called him so ; And whether he 'd ever another name, Nobody ever seemed to know. 'T was * Little Jerry, come grind my rye ; ' And * Little Jerry, come grind my wheat ; ' And ' Little Jerry ' was still the cry, From matron bold and maiden sweet. 196 LITTLE JERRY, THE MILLER. 'T was * Little Jerry ' on every tongue, And so the simple truth was told ; For Jerry was little when he was young, And Jerry was little when he was old. But what in size he chanced to lack, That Jerry made up in being strong ; I 've seen a sack upon his back As thick as the miller, and quite as long. Always busy, and always merry, Always doing his very best, A notable wag was Little Jerry, "Who uttered well his standing jest How Jerry lived is known to fame, But how he died there 's none may know ; One autumn day the rumor came, * The brook and Jerry are very low/ And then 't was whispered, mournfully, The leech had come, and he was dead ; And all the neighbors flocked to see ; * Poor Little Jerry ! ' was all they said. They laid him in his earthy bed, His miller's coat his only shroud ; " Dust to dust," the parson said, And all the people wept aloud. LITTLE JERRY, THE MILLER. 197 For he had shunned the deadly sin, And not a grain of over-toll Had ever dropped into his bin, To weigh upon his parting soul. Beneath the hill there stands the mill, Of wasting wood and crumbling stone ; The wheel is dripping and clattering still, But JERRY, the miller, is dead and gone. HOW CYRUS LAID THE CABLE. A BALLAD. COME, listen all unto my song ; It is no silly fable ; 'T is all about the mighty cord They call the Atlantic Cable. Bold Cyrus Field he said, says he, 1 have a pretty notion That I can run a telegraph Across the Atlantic" Ocean. Then all the people laughed, and said, They 'd like to see him do it ; He might get half-seas-over, but He never could go through it ; To carry out his foolish plan He never would be able ; He might as well go hang himself With his Atlantic Cable 1 HOW CYRUS LAID THE CABLE. 199 But Cyrus was a valiant man, A fellow of decision ; And heeded not their mocking words, Their laughter and derision. Twice did his bravest efforts fail, And yet his mind was stable ; He wa'n't the man to break his heart Because he broke his cable. * Once more, my gallant boys ! ' he cried ; * Three times ! you know the fable, (I '11 make it thirty' muttered he, But I will lay the cable ! ') Once more they tried, hurrah 1 hurrah 1 What means this great commotion ? rhe Lord be praised ! the cable 's laid Across the Atlantic Ocean I Loud ring the bells for, flashing through Six hundred leagues of water, Old Mother England's benison Salutes her eldest daughter 1 O'er all the land the tidings speed, And soon, in every nation, They '11 hear about the cable with Profoundest admiration ! 200 HOW CYRUS LAID THE CABLE. Now long live James, and long live Vic, And long live gallant Cyrus ; And may his courage, faith, and zeal With emulation fire us ; And may we honor evermore The manly, bold, and stable ; And tell our sons, to make them brave, How Cyrus laid the cable 1 THE JOLLY MABJNEK. A BALLAD. IT was a jolly mariner As ever hove a log ; He wore his trousers wide and free, And always ate his prog, And blessed his eyes, in sailor-wise, And never shirked his grog. Up spoke this jolly mariner, Whilst walking up and down : 4 The briny sea has pickled me, And done me very brown ; But here I goes, in these here clo'es, A-cruising in the town 1.' The first of all the curious things That chanced his eye to meet, As this undaunted mariner Went sailing up the street, Was, tripping with a little cane, A dandy all complete 1 8* 202 THE JOLLY MARINER. He stopped, that jolly mariner, And eyed the stranger well : * What that may be/ he said, says he * Is more than I can tell ; But ne'er before, on sea or shore, Was such a heavy swell 1 * He met a lady hi her hoops, And thus she heard him hail: * Now blow me tight ! but there 's a sight To manage in a gale ! J never saw so small a craft With such a spread o' sail ! * Observe the craft before and aft, She 'd make a pretty prize ! ' And then in that improper way He spoke about his eyes, That mariners are wont to use In anger or surprise. He saw a plumber on a roof, Who made a mighty din : 4 Shipmate, ahoy ! ' the rover cried, It makes a sailor grin To see you copper-bottoming Your upper decks with tin 1 ' He met a yellow-bearded man, And asked about the way ; But not a word could he make out Of what the chap would say, THE JOLLY MARINER. 203 Unless lie meant to call him names, By screaming, ' Nix furstay ! ' Up spoke this jolly mariner, And to the man said he, ' I have n't sailed these thirty years Upon the stormy sea, To bear the shame of such a name As I have heard from thee ! * So take thou that I ' and laid him flat ; But soon the man arose, And beat the jolly mariner Across his jolly nose, Till he was fain, from very pain, To yield him to the blows. 'T was then this jolly mariner, A wretched jolly tar, Wished he was in a jolly-boat Upon the sea afar, Or riding fast, before the blast, Upon a single spar I 'T was then this jolly mariner Returned unto his ship, And told unto the wondering crew The story of his trip, With many oaths and curses, too, Upon his wicked lip 1 204 THE JOLLY MARINER. As hoping so this mariner In fearful words harangued His timbers might be shivered, and His le'ward scuppers danged, (A double curse, and vastly worse Than being shot or hanged !) If ever he and here again A dreadful oath he swore If ever he, except at sea, Spoke any stranger more, Or like a son of something went A-cruising on the shore I YE TAILYOR-MAN. A CONTEMPLATIVE BALLAD. BIGHT jollie is ye tailyor-man, As annie man may be ; And all ye daye upon ye benche He worketh merrilie. And oft ye while in pleasante wise He coileth up his lymbes, He singeth songs ye like whereof Are not in Watts his hymns. And yet he toileth all ye while His merrie catches rolle ; As true unto ye needle as Ye needle to ye pole. What cares ye valiant tailyor-man For all ye cowarde feares ? Against ye scissors of ye Fates He pointes his mightie sheares. He heedeth not ye anciente jests That witlesse sinners use ; What feareth ye bolde tailyor-man Ye hissinge of a goose ? 206 YE TAILYOR-MAN. He pulleth at ye busie tkreade, To feede his lovinge wife And eke his childe ; for unto them It is ye threade of life. He cutteth well ye riche man's coate, And with unseemlie pride He sees ye little waistcoate in Ye cabbage bye his side. Meanwhile ye tailyor-man his wife, To labor nothinge loth, Sits bye with readie hande to baste Ye urchin and ye cloth. Full happie is ye tailyor-man, Yet is he often tried, Lest he, from fullnesse of ye dimes, Wax wanton in his pride. Full happie is ye tailyor-man, And yet he hath a foe, A cunninge enemie that none So well as tailyors knowe. It is ye slipperie customer Who goes his wicked wayes, And weares ye tailyor-man his coate, But never, never payes ! TOWN AND COUNTRY. AN ECLOGUE. CLOVERTOP. I 'VE thought, my Cousin, it *s extremely queer That you, who love to spend your August here, Don't bring, at once, your wife and children down, And quit, for good t the noisy, dusty town. SHILLINGSLDE. Ah ! simple swain, this sort of life may do For such a verdant Clovertop as you, Content to vegetate in summer air, And hibernate in winter like a bear I CLOVERTOP. Here we have butter pure as virgin gold, And milk from cows that can a tail unfold With bovine pride ; and new-laid eggs, whose praise Is sung by pullets with their morning lays ; Trout from the brook ; good water from the well ; And other blessings more than I can tell 1 208 TOWX AND COUNTRY. 8HILLINGSIDE. TJiere, simple rustic, we have nightly plays, And operatic music, charming ways Of spending time and money, lots of fun ; The Central Park whene'er they get it done ; Barnum's Museum, full of things erratic, Terrene, amphibious, airy, and aquatic 1 CLOVERTOP. Here we have rosy, radiant, romping girls, . With lips of rubies, and with teeth of pearls ; I dare not mention half their witching charms ; But, ah 1 the roundness of their milky arms, And, oh ! what polished shoulders they display, Bending o'er tubs upon a washing-day 1 SHILLINGSIDE. There we have ladies most superbly made (By fine artistes, who understand their trade), Who dance the German,-flirt a graceful fan, And speak such French as no Parisian can ; Who sing much louder than your country thrushes, And wear (thank Phalon!) far more brilliant Blushes ! CLOVERTOP. Here, boastful Shilling, we have flowery walks, Where you may stroll, and hold delightful talks, (No saucy placard frowning as you pass, * Ten dollars' fine for walking on the grass ! ') Dim-lighted groves, where love's delicious words ; Are breathed to music of melodious birds. TOWN AND COUNTRY. 209 SHILLINGSIDE. There, silly Clover, dashing belles we meet, Sweeping with silken robes the dusty street ; May gaze into their faces as they pass, Beneath the rays of dimly-burning gas, Or, standing at a crossing when it rains, May see some pretty ankles for our pains. TLOVERTOP. Here you may angle for the speckled trout, Play him awhile, with gentle hand, about, Then, like a sportsman, pull the fellow out I SHILLINGSIDE. There, too, is fishing quite as good, I ween, Where careless, gaping gudgeons oft are seen, Rich as yon pasture, and almost as green 1 CLOVERTOP. Here you may see the meadow's grassy plain, Ripe, luscious fruits, and shocks of golden grain ; And view, luxuriant in a hundred fields, The gorgeous wealth that bounteous Nature yields I SHILLINGSIDE. There you may see Trade's wondrous strength and pride, Where merchant-navies throng on every side, And view, collected in Columbia's mart, Alike the wealth of Nature and of Art ! 210 TOWN AND COUNTRY. CLOVERTOP. Cease, clamorous cit I I love these quiet nooks, Where one may sleep, or dawdle over books, Or, if he wish of gentle love to dream, May sit and muse by yonder babbling stream 8HILLING8IDE. Dry up your babbling stream ! my Clovertop You 're getting garrulous ; it 's time to stop. I love the city, and the city's smoke ; The smell of gas ; the dust of coal and coke ; The sound of bells ; the tramp of hurrying feet ; The sight of pigs and Paphians in the street ; The jostling crowd ; the never-ceasing noise Of rattling coaches, and vociferous boys ; The cry of * Fire ! ' and the exciting scene Of heroes running with their mad * mersheen ; ' Nay, now I think that I could even stand The direful din of Barnum^brazen band, So much I long to see the town again 1 Good-bye ! I 'm going by the evening train ! Don't fail to call whene'er you come to town, We '11 do the city, boy, and do it brown ; I 've really had a pleasant visit here, And mean to come again another year. MY FAMILIAR. Ecce iterum Crispinus ! AGAIN I hear that creaking step ! He 'a rapping at the door 1 Too well I know the boding sound That ushers in a bore. I do not tremble when I meet The stoutest of my foes, But Heaven defend me from the friend Who comes but never goes 1 He drops into my easy-chair, And asks about the news ; He peers into my manuscript, And gives his candid views ; He tells me where he likes the line, And where he 's forced to grieve ; He takes the strangest liberties, But never takes his leave 1 212 MY FAMILIAR. He reads my daily paper through Before I 've seen a word ; He scans the lyric (that I wrote) And thinks it quite absurd ; He calmly smokes my last cigar, And coolly asks for more ; He opens everything he sees Except the entry door ! He talks about his fragile health, And tells me of the pains He suffers from a score of ills Of which he ne'er complains ; And how he struggled once with death To keep the fiend at bay ; On themes like those away he goes But never goes away ! He tells me of the carping words Some shallow critic wrote ; And every precious paragraph Familiarly can quote ; He thinks the writer did me wrong ; He 'd like to run him through ! He says a thousand pleasant things But never says 4 Adieu 1 ' MY FAMILIAR. 213 VI. Whene'er he comes that dreadful man Disguise it as I may, I know that, like an Autumn rain, He '11 last throughout the day. In vain I speak of urgent tasks ; In vain I scowl and pout ; A frown is no extinguisher, It does not put him out I I mean to take the knocker off, Put crape upon the door, Or hint to John that I am gone To stay a month or more. I do not tremble when I meet The stoutest of my foes, But Heaven defend me from the friend Who never, never goes 1 HOW THE LAWYERS GOT A PATRON SAINT. A LEGEND OF BRETAGNE. A LAWYER of Brittany, once on a time, When business was flagging at home, Was sent as a legate to Italy's clime, To confer with the Father at Rome. And what was the message the minister brought ? To the Pope he preferred a complaint That each other profession a Patron had got, While the Lawyers had never a Saint ! * Very true," said his Heliness, smiling to find An attorney so civil and pleasant, * But my very last Saint is already assigned, And I can't make a new one at present. To choose from the Bar it were fittest, I think ; Perhaps you Ve a man in your eye ; ' And his Holiness here gave a mischievous wink To a Cardinal sitting near by. But the lawyer replied, in a lawyer-like way, " I know what is modest, I hope ; I did n't come hither, allow me to say, To nroffer advice to the Pone 1" HOW THE LAWYERS, ETC- 215 ' Very well,' said his Holiness, * then we will do The best that may fairly be done ; It don't seem exactly the thing, it is true, That the Law should be Saint-less alone. * To treat your profession as well as I can, And leave you no cause of complaint, I propose, as the only quite feasible plan, To give you a second-hand Saint * To the neighboring church you will presently go, And this is the plan I advise : First, say a few aves a hundred or so Then, carefully bandage your eyes ; ' Then (saying more aves) go groping around, And, touching one object alone, The Saint you are seeking will quickly be found, For the first that you touch is your own.' The lawyer did as his Holiness said, Without an omission or flaw ; Then, taking the bandages off from his head, What do you think he saw ? There was St. Michael (figured in paint) Subduing the Father of Evil ; And the lawyer, exclaiming * Be thou our Saint 1 ' Was touching the form of the DEVIL 1 THE KING AND THE COTTAGER. A PERSIAN LEGEND. I. PRAY list unto a legend The ancient poets tell ; T is of a mighty monarch In Persia once did dwell ; A mighty queer old monarch Who ruled his kingdom welL ' I must build another palace/ Observed this mighty King ; * For this is getting shabby Along the southern wing ; And, really, for a monarch, It is n't quite the thing. in. * So I will have a new one, Although I greatly fear, To build it just to suit me, Will cost me rather dear ; And I '11 choose, God wot, another spot, Much finer than this here/ THE KING AND THE COTTAGER. 217 So he travelled o'er his kingdom A proper site to find, Where he might build a palace Exactly to his mind, All with a pleasant prospect Before it, and behind. Not long with this endeavor The King had travelled round, Ere, to his royal pleasure, A charming spot he found ; But an ancient widow's cabin Was standing on the ground. VI. ' Ah, here,' exclaimed the monarch, 4 Is just the proper spot, If this woman would allow me To remove her little cot." But the beldam answered plainly, She had rather he would not 1 VII. * Within this lonely cottage, Great Monarch, I was born ; And only from this cottage By Death will I be torn : So spare it, in your justice, Or spoil it in your scorn I ' 10 218 THE KING AND THE COTTAGER. Then all the courtiers mocked her, With cruel words and jeers : 4 *T is plain her royal master She neither loves nor fears ; We would knock her ugly hovel About her ugly ears ! IX. 4 When ever was a subject Who might the King withstand ? Or deem his spoken pleasure As less than his command ? Of course he '11 rout the beldam, And confiscate her land 1 ' But, to their deep amazement, His Majesty replied : 4 Good woman, never heed them, The King is on your side : Your cottage is your castle, And here you shall abide. 4 To raze it in a moment, The power is mine, I grant ; My absolute dominion A hundred poets chant ; For being Khan of Persia, There 's nothing that I can'/ / THE KING AND THE COTTAGER. 219 XII. ('T was in this pleasant fashion The mighty monarch spoke ; For kings have merry fancies Like other mortal folk : And none so high and mighty But loves his little joke.) * But power is scarcely worthy Of honor or applause, That in its domination Contemns the widow's cause, Or perpetrates injustice By trampling on the laws. XIV. * That I have wronged the meanest No honest tongue may say : So bide you in your cottage, Good woman, while you may ; What *s yours by deed and purchase No man may take away. XV. And I will build beside it, For though your cot may be In such a lordly presence No fitting thing to see, If it honor not my castle, It will surely honor me 1 220 THE KING AND THE COTTAGER. XVI. 4 For so my loyal people, Who gaze upon the sight, Shall know that in oppression I do not take delight ; Nor hold a king's convenience Before a subject's right 1 " Now from his spoken purpose The King departed not ; He built the royal dwelling Upon the chosen spot, And there they stood together, The palace and the cot I xvni. Sure such unseemly neighbors Were never seen before ; * His Majesty is doting,' His silly courtiers swore ; But all true loyal subjects, They loved the King the more. XIX. Long, long he ruled his kingdom In honor and renown ; But danger ever threatens The head that wears a crown, And Fortune, tired of smiling, For once put on a frown. THE EIXG AND THE COTTAGER. 221 XX. For ever secret Envy Attends a high estate ; And ever lurking Malice Pursues the good and great ; And ever base Ambition Will end in deadly Hate ! And so two wicked courtiers, Who long had strove in vain, By craft and evil counsels, To mar the monarch's reign, Contrived a scheme infernal Whereby he should be slain I XXII. But as all deeds of darkness Are wont to leave a clew Before the glaring sunlight To bring the knaves to view, That sin may be rewarded, And Satan get his due, XXIII. To plan their wicked treason, They sought a lonely spot Behind the royal palace, Hard by the widow's cot, Who heard then' machinations, And straight revealed the plot 1 222 THE KING AND THE COTTAGER. * I see/ exclaimed the Persian, 1 The just are wise alone ; Who spares the rights of others May chance to guard his own ; The widow's humble cottage Has propped a monarch's throne i LOVE AND LUCRE. AN ALLEGORY. LOVE and LUCRE met one day, In chill November weather, And so, to while the time away, They held discourse together. LOVE at first was rather shy, As thinking there was danger In venturing so very nigh The haughty-looking stranger. But LUCRE managed to employ Behavior so potential, That, in a trice, the bashful boy Grew bold and confidential. * I hear,' quoth LUCRE, bowing low, * With all your hearts and honey, You sometimes suffer is it so ? For lack of mortal money.' 224 LOVE AND LUCRE. LOVE owned that he was poor in aught Except in golden fancies, And ne'er as yet had given a thought To mending his finances ; * Besides, I 've heard ' so LOVE went on, The other's hint improving * That gold, however sought or won, Is not a friend to loving.' * An arrant lie I as you shall see, Full long ago invented, By knaves who know not you nor me, To tickle the demented.' And LUCRE waved his wand, and lo I By magical expansion, LOVE saw his little hovel grow Into a stately mansion 1 And where, before, he used to sup Untended in his cottage, And grumble o'er the earthen cup That held his meagre pottage, Now, smoking viands crown his board, Aud many a flowing chalice ; His larder was with plenty stored, And beauty filled the palace 1 LOVE AND LUCRE. 225 And LOVE, though rather lean at first, And tinged with melancholy, On generous wines and puddings nursed, Grew very stout and jolly 1 Yet, mindful of his early friend, He never turns detractor, But prays that blessings may attend Ilis worthy benefactor ; And when his friends are gay above Their evening whist or eucre, And drink a brimming health to LOVE, He drinks * success to LUCRE 1 ' 10* DEATH AM) CUPID. AN ALLEGORY. AH ! who but oft hath marvelled why The gods who rule above Should e'er permit the young to die, The old to fall in love 1 Ah 1 why should hapless human kind Be punished out of season ? Pray listen, and perhaps you 11 find My rhyme may give the reason. DEATH, strolling out one Summer's day, Met CUPID, with his sparrows ; And, bantering in a merry way, Proposed a change of arrows ! ' Agreed ! ' quoth CUPID, I foresee The queerest game of errors ; For you the King of Hearts will be 1 And I '11 be King of Terrors 1 ' DEATH AND CUPID. 227 And so 't was done ; alas the day That multiplied their arts 1 Each from the other bore away A portion of his darts ! And that explains the reason why, Despite the gods above, The young are often doomed to die ; The old to fall in love ! THE FAMILY MAN. I ONCE was a jolly young beau, And knew how to pick up a fan, But I 've done with all that, you must .know, For now I 'm a family man 1 When a partner I ventured to take, The ladies all favored the plan ; They vowed I was certain to make * Such an excellent family man ! ' If I travel by land or by water, I have charge of some Susan or Ann ; Mrs. Brown is so sure that her daughter Is safe with a family man ! The trunks and the bandboxes round 'em With something like horror I scan, But though I may mutter, 4 Confound 'em 1 ' I smile like a family man 1 THE FAMILY MAN. 229 I once was as gay as a templar, But levity 's now under ban ; Young people must have an exemplar, And I am a family man 1 The club-men I meet in the city All treat me as well as they can ; And only exclaim, * What a pity Poor Tom is a family man 1 ' I own I am getting quite pensive ; Ten children, from David to Dan, Is a family rather extensive ; But then I 'm a family man 1 NE CKEDE COLOKI: OK, TRUST NOT TO APPEARANCES. THE musty old maxim is wise, Although with antiquity hoary ; What ah excellent homily lies In the motto, * Ne crede colori 1 ' A blustering minion of Mars Is vaunting his battles so gory; You see some equivocal scars, And mutter, Ne crede colori I A fellow solicits your tin By telling a runaway story ; You look at his ebony skin, And think of, Ne crede colori ! You gaze upon beauty that vies With the rose and the lily in glory, But certain * inscrutable dyes ' Remind you, Ne crede colori ' NE CREDE COLORI. 231 There 's possibly health In the flush That rivals the red of Aurora ; But brandy-and-water can blush, And whisper, Ne crede colori! My story is presently done, Like the ballad of good Mother Morey; But all imposition to shun, Kemember, Ne crede colori! CLARA TO CLOE. AN EPISTLE FROM A CITY LADY TO A COUNTRY COUSIfl. DEAR CLOE : I 'm deeply your debtor, (Though the mail was uncommonly slow,) For the very agreeable letter You wrote me a fortnight ago. I know you are eagerly waiting For all that I promised to write, But my pen is unequal to stating One half that my heart would indite. The weather is terribly torrid ; And writing 's a serious task ; The new style of bonnet is horrid ; And so is the new-fashioned basque ; The former but language would fail Were its epithets doubly as strong The latter is worn with a tail Very ugly and tediously long 1 And then as to crinoline Gracious ! If you only could see Cousin Ruth The pictures, for once, are veracious, And editors utter the truth ! CLARA TO CLOE. 233 I know you will think it a pity ; And every one makes such a sneer of it ; But there is n't a saint in the city Whose skirts are entirely clear of it 1 And then what a fortune of stuff To cover the skeleton over ! Charles says the idea is enough To frighten a sensible lover ; And, pretending that we are to blame For every financial declension, Swears husbands must soon do the same, If wives have another " extension 1 " The town is exceedingly dull, And so is the latest new farce ; The parks are uncommonly full, But beaux are deplorably scarce ; They 're gone to the * Springs f and the ' Falls,' To exhibit their greyhounds and graces, And recruit at, what Frederick calls The Brandy-and- Watering Places 1 Since my former epistle, which carried The news of that curious plot ; Of Miss S. who ran off and was married ; Of Miss B. who ran off and was not, There is n't a whisper of scandal To keep gentle ladies in humor, And Gossip, the pleasant old vandal, Is dying for want of a rumor 1 CLARA. 234 CLARA TO CLOE. P. S. But was n't it funny ? Mrs. Jones, at a party last week, (The lady so proud of her money, Of whom you have oft heard me speak,) Appeared so delightfully stupid, When she spoke, through the squeak of her phthisic. Of the statue of Psyche and Cupid As the statute of Cuppid and Physic I ' C. CLOE TO CLARA. A SARATOGA LETTER. DEAR CLARA : I wish you were here : The prettiest spot upon earth 1 With everything charming, my dear, Beaux, badinage, music, and mirth I Such rows of magnificent trees, Overhanging such beautiful walks, Where lovers may stroll, if they please, And indulge in the sweetest of talks 1 We go every morning, like geese, To drink at the favorite Spring ; Six tumblers of water apiece, Is simply the regular thing ; For such is its wonderful virtue, Though rather unpleasant at first, No quantity ever can hurt you, Unless you should happen to burst 1 And then, what a gossiping sight ! What talk about William and Harry; How Julia was spending last night ; And why Miss Morton should marry 1 236 CLOK TO CLARA. Dear Clara, I Ve happened to see Full many a tea-table slaughter ; But, really, scandal with tea Is nothing to scandal with water ! Apropos of the Spring have you heard The quiz of a gentleman here On a pompous M. C. who averred That the name was remarkably queer ? * The Spring, to keep it from failing, With wood is encompassed about, And derives, from its permanent railing, The title of " Congress," no doubt 1 ' 'T is pleasant to guess at the reason The genuine motive which brings Such all-sorts of folks, in the season, To stop a few days at the Springs. Some come to partake of the waters, (The sensible, old-faShloned elves,) Some come to dispose of their daughters, And some to dispose of themselves I Some come to exhibit their faces To new and admiring beholders ; Some come to exhibit their graces, And some to exhibit their shoulders ; Some come to make people stare At the elegant dresses they 've got ; Some to show what a lady may wear, And some what a lady should not ! CLOE TO CLARA. 237 Some come to squander their treasure And some their funds to improve ; And some for mere love of pleasure, And some for the pleasure of love ; And some to escape from the old, And some to see what is new ; But most it is plain to be told Come here because other folks do ! And that, I suppose, is the reason Why / am enjoying, to-day, What 's called * the height of the season In rather the loftiest way. Good by for now I must stop To Charley's command I resign, So I 'm his for the regular hop, But ever most tenderly thine, CLOE. WISHING. OF all amusements for the mind, From logic down to fishing, There is n't one that you can find So very cheap as ' wishing.' A very choice diversion too, If we but rightly use it, And not, as we are apt to do, Pervert it, and abuse it. I wish a common wish indeed My purse were s<5inewhat fatter, That I might cheer the child of need, And not my pride to flatter ; That I might make Oppression reel, As only gold can make it, And break the Tyrant's rod of steel, As only gold can break it. I wish that Sympathy and Love, And every human passion, That has its origin above, Would come and keep in fashion ; 239 That Scorn, and Jealousy, and Hate. And every base emotion, Were buried fifty fathom deep Beneath the waves of Ocean 1 I wish that friends were always true, And motives always pure ; I wish the good were not so few, I wish the bad were fewer ; I wish that parsons ne'er forgot To heed their pious teaching ; I wish that practising was not So different from preaching ! I wish that modest worth might be Appraised with truth and candor ; I wish that innocence were free From treachery and slander ; I wish that men their vows would mind ; That women ne'er were rovers ; I wish that wives were always kind, And husbands always lovers 1 I wish in fine that Joy and Mirth, And every good Ideal, May come ere while, throughout the earth, To be the glorious Real ; Till God shall every creature bless With his supremest blessing, And Hope be lost in Happiness, And Wishing in Possessing ! RICHARD OF GLOSTER. A TRAVESTIE. PERHAPS, my dear boy, you may never have heard Of that wicked old monarch, KING RICHARD THE THIRD, Whose actions were often extremely absurd ; And who led such a sad life, Such a wanton and mad life ; Indeed, I may say, such a wretchedly bad life, I suppose I am perfectly safe in declaring, There was ne'er such a monster of infamous daring : In all sorts of crime he was wholly unsparing ; In pride and ambition was quite beyond bearing ; And had a bad habit of cursing and swearing. I must own, my dear boy, I have more than sus- pected The King's education was rather neglected ; And that at your school with any two * Dicks ' Whom your excellent teacher diurnally pricks In his neat little tables, in order to fix Each pupil's progression with numeral nicks, Master RICHARD Y. GLOSTKR would often have heard His standing recorded as, ' Richard the third ! ' RICHARD OF GLOSTER. 211 But whatever of learning his Majesty had, 'T is clear the King's English was shockingly bad. At the slightest pretence Of disloyal offence, His anger exceeded all reason or sense ; And, having no need to foster or nurse it, he Would open his wrath, then, as if to disperse it, he Would scatter his curses like College degrees ; And, quite at his ease, Conferred his ' d-d's.' As plenty and cheap as a young University ! And yet Richard's tongue was remarkable smooth ; Could utter a lie quite as easy as truth ; (Another bad habit he got in his youth ;) And had, on occasion, a powerful battery Of plausible phrases and eloquent flattery, Which gave him, my boy, in that barbarous day, (Things are different now, I am happy to say,) Over feminine hearts a most perilous sway. The women, in spite of an odious hump Which he wore on his back, all thought him a trump : And just when he 'd played them the scurviest trick, They 'd swear in their hearts that this crooked old stick, This treacherous, dangerous, dissolute Dick, For honor and virtue beat Cato all hollow ; And in figure and face was another Apollo ! He murdered their brothers, And fathers and mothers : 11 p 242 RICHARD OF GLOSTER. And, worse than all that, he slaughtered by dozens His own royal uncles and nephews and cousins ; And then, in the cunningest sort of orations, In smooth conversations, And flattering ovations, Made love to the principal female relations ! 'Twas very improper, my boy, you must know, For the son of a King to behave himself so ; And you '11 scarcely believe what the chronicles show Of his wonderful wooings, And infamous doings ; But here 's an exploit that he certainly did do Killed his own cousin NED, As he slept in his bed, And married, next day, the disconsolate widow 1 I don't understand how such ogres arise, But beginning, perhaps, with things little in size, Such as torturing beetles and bluebottle-flies, Or scattering snuff in a "pOodle-dog's eyes, King Richard had grown so wantonly cruel, He minded a murder no more than a duel ; He 'd indulge, on the slightest pretence or occasion,! In his favorite amusement of Decapitation, Until ' Off with his head ! ' It is credibly said, From his Majesty's mouth came as easy and pat j As from an old constable, ' Off with his hat ! ' One really shivers, And fairly quivers, RICHARD OF GLOSTER. 243 To think of the treatment of Grey, and Rivers, And Hastings, and Vaughn, and other good livers, All suddenly sent, at the tap of a drum, From the Kingdom of England to Kingdom-Come I Of Buckingham doomed to a tragical end For being the tyrant's particular friend ; Of Clarence who died, it is mournful to think, Of wine that he was n't permitted to drink ! And the beautiful babies of royal blood, Two little White Roses both nipt in the bud ! And silly Queen Anne .what sorrow it cost her (And served her right !) for daring to^bster The impudent suit of this Richard of Gloster ; Who, instead of conferring a royal gratuity, A dower, or even a decent Anne-uity, Just gave her a portion of something or other That made her as quiet as Pharaoh's mother ! Ah, Richard ! you 're going it quite too fast ; Your doom is slow, but it 's coming at last ; Your bloody crown Will topple down, And you '11 be done uncommonly brown ! Your foes are thick, My daring Dick, And RICHMOND, a prince and a regular brick, Is after you now with a very sharp stick ! On Bosworth field the armies to-night Are pitching their tents in each other's sight ; And to-morrow ! to-morrow I they 're going to fight ! 244 RICHARD OF GLOSTER. And now King Richard lias gone to bed ; But e'en in his sleep He cannot keep The past or the future out of his head. In his deep remorse, Each mangled corse Of all he had slam, or, what was worse, Their ghosts, came up in terrible force, And greeted his ear with unpleasant discourse, Until, with a scream, He woke from his dream, And shouted aloud for ' another horse ! ' Perhaps you may think, my little dear, King Richard's request was rather queer ; But I'll presently make it exceedingly clear: THE ROYAL SLEEPER WAS OVERFED. I mean to say that, against his habit, He 'd eaten Welsh-rabbit With very bad whisky on 'going to bed. I 've had the Night-Mare with horrible force, And much prefer a different horse ! But see ! the murky night is gone ! The Morn is up, and the Fight is on ! The Knights are engaging, the warfare is waging, On the right on the left, the battle is raging ; King Richard is down ! Will he save his crown ? There 's a crack in it now ! he 's beginning to bleed ! Aha 1 King Richard has lost his steed ! RICHARt) OF GLOSTER. 245 (At a moment like this 't is a terrible need !) He shouts aloud with thundering force, And offers a very high price for a horse, But it 's all in vain the battle is done The day is lost ! and the day is won ! And RICHMOND is King ! and RICHARD'S a corse I MORAL. Remember, my boy, that moral enormities Are apt to attend corporeal deformities. Whatever you have, or whatever you lack, Beware of getting a crook in your back; And, while you 're about it, I 'd very much rather You 'd grow tall and superb, i. e. copy your father 1 Don't learn to be cruel, pray let me advise, By torturing beetles and bluebottle-flies, Or scattering snuff in a poodle-dog's eyes. If you ever should marry, remember to wed A handsome, plump, modest, sweet-spoken, well- bred, And sensible maiden of twenty instead Of a widow whose husband is recently dead ! If you 'd shun in your naps those horrible Incubi, Beware what you eat, and be careful what drink you buy ; Or else you may see, in your sleep's perturbations Some old and uncommonly ugly relations, Who '11 be very apt to disturb your nutations By unpleasant allusions, and rude observations I HO-HO OF THE GOLDEN BELT. ONE OF THE "NINE STORIES OF CHINA," VERSIFIED AND DIVERSIFIED. A BEAUTIFUL maiden was little MiN-NE, Eldest daughter of wise WANG-RE ; Her skin had the color of saffron tea, And her nose was flat as flat could be ; And never were seen such beautiful eyes, Two almond-kernels in shape and size, Set in a couple of slanting gashes, And not in the least disfigured by lashes ; And then such feet 1 You M scarcely meet In the longest ,walk through the grandest street, (And you might go seeking From Nanking to Peeking,) A pair so remarkably small and neat ! Two little stumps, Mere pedal lumps, Thnt toddle along with the funniest thumps, In China, you know, are reckoned trumps. HO-HO OF THE GOLDEN BELT. 247 The rank of the owner they instantly show forth, By the classical rule, ' expede' and so forth. It seeins a trifle, to make such a boast of it ; But how they will dress it, And bandage and press it,' By making the least, to make the most of it ! As you may suppose, She had plenty of beaux Bowing around her beautiful toes, Praising her feet, and eyes, and nose, In rapturous verse and elegant prose ! She had lots of lovers, old and young ; There was lofty LONG, and babbling LUNG, Opulent TIN, and eloquent TUNG, Musical SING, and, the rest among, Great ILvNG-Yu and Yu-BE-HuNG. But though they smiled and smirked and bowed, None could please her of all the crowd ; LUNG and TUNG she thought too loud ; Opulent TIN was much too proud ; Lofty LONG was quite too tall ; Musical SING sung very small ; And, most remarkable freak of all, Of great HANG-YU the lady made game, And YU-BE-HUNG she mocked the same, By echoing back his ugly name I But the hardest heart is doomed to melt ; Love is a passion that will be felt ; 248 IIO-'IO OF THE GOLDEN BELT. And just wlieii scandal was making free To hint ' what a pretty old maid she 'd be ' Little MIN-NE, (Who but she?) Married Ho-Ho of the Golden Belt! A man, I must own, of bad reputation, And low in purse, though high in station A sort of Imperial poor-relation Who ranked as the Emperor's second cousin, Multiplied by a hundred dozen ; And, to mark the love the Emperor felt, Had a pension clear Of three pounds a-year, And the honor of wearing a Golden Belt ! And gallant Ho-Ho Could really show A handsome face, as faces go In the Flowery Land where, you must know, The finest pinks of beauty grow. He 'd the very widest kincT of jaws, And his nails were like an eagle's claws, And though it may seem a wondrous tail (Truth is mighty and will prevail !) He 'd a queue as long as the deepest cause Under the Emperor's chancery laws ! Yet how he managed to win MiN-Ns, The men declared they could n't see ; But all the ladies, over their tea, In this one point were known to agree : Four gifts were sent to aid his plea : nO-HO OF THE GOLDEX BELT. 249 A smoking-pipe with a golden clog, A box of tea and a poodle dog, And a painted heart that was all a-flame, And bore, in blood, the lover's name. Ah ! how could presents pretty as these A delicate lady fail to please ? She smoked the pipe with the golden clog, And drank the tea, and ate the dog, And kept the heart, and that 's the way The match was made, the gossips say. I can't describe the wedding day, Which fell in the lovely month of May ; Nor stop to tell of the Honey-Moon, And how it vanished all too soon ; Alas ! that I the truth must speak, And say, that in the fourteenth week, Soon as the wedding-guests were gone, And their wedding-suits began to doff, MiN-NE was weeping and ' taking on,' For he had been trying to * take her off! f Six wives before he had sent to Heaven, And being partial to number ' Seven,' He wished to add his latest pet, Just, perhaps, to make up the set. Mayhap the rascal found a cause Of discontent in a certain clause In the Emperor's very liberal laws, Which gives, when a Golden Belt is wed, Six hundred pounds to furnish the bed ; 11* 250 HO-HO OF THE GOLDEX BELT. And if, in turn, he many a score, With every wife six hundred more. First he tried to murder Mix-NE With a special cup of poisoned tea ; But the lady, smelling a mortal foe, Cried < Ho-Ho! I 'in very fond of mild Souchong, But you my love you make it too strong ! ' At last Ho-Ho, the treacherous man, Contrived the most infernal plan Invented since the world began : He went and got him a savage dog, Who 'd eat a woman as soon as a frog, Kept him a day without any prog, Then shut him up in an iron bin, Slipped the bolt, and locked him in ; Then giving the key To poor MiN-Ns^ Said, ' Love, there 's something you must n't see In the chest beneath the orange-tree.' * * # * # Poor, mangled MiN-NE ! with her latest breath, She told her father the cause of her death ; And so it reached the Emperor's ear, And his Highness said, ' It is very clear, Ho-Ho has committed a murder here ! ' And he doomed Ho-Ho to end his life By the terrible dog that killed his wife ; HO-HO OF THE GOLDEN BELT. 251 But in mercy (let his praise be sung !) His thirteen brothers were merely hung, And his slaves bambooed, in the mildest way, For a calendar month, three times a day ; And that 's the way that JUSTICE dealt With wicked Ho-Ho of the Golden Belt ! TOM BROWN'S DAY IN GOTHAM. Qui mores hominum mvltorum vidit et URBEM. I 'LI, tell you a story of THOMAS BROWN 1 don't mean the poet of Shropshire town ; Nor the Scotch Professor of wide renown ; But ' Honest Tom Brown ; ' so called, no doubt, Because with the same Identical name, A good many fellows werejroving about Of whom the sheriff might prudently swear That ' honest ' with them, was a non-est affair 1 Now Tom was a Yankee of wealth and worth, Who lived and throve by tilling the Earth ; For Tom had wrought As a farmer ought, Who, doomed to toil by original sinning, Began like Adam at the beginning. J le ploughed, he harrowed, and he sowed ; He dnlled, he planted, and he hoed ; He dug and delved, and reaped and mowed. TOM BROWN'S DAY IN GOTHAM. 25 (I wish I could but I can't tell now Whether he used a subsoil-plough ; Or whether, in sooth, he had ever seen A regular reaping and raking machine.) He took most pains With the nobler grains Of higher value, and finer tissues Which, possibly, one Inclined to a pun, Would call like Harper his * cereal issues ! ' With wheat his lands were all a-blaze ; 'T was amazing to look at his fields of maize ; And there were places That showed rye-faces As pleasant to see as so many Graces. And as for Hops, His annual crops, (So very extensive that, on my soul, They fairly reached from pole to pole !) Would beat the guess of any old fogie, Or the longest season at Saratoga ! Whatever seed did most abound, In the grand result that Autumn found, It was his plan, Though a moderate man, To be early running it into the ground ; That is to say, In another way : Whether the seed was barley or hay, Large or little, or green or gray, Provided only it promised to ' pay,' 254 TOM BROWN'S DAY IN GOTHAM. He never chose to labor in vain By stupidly going against the grain, But hastened away, without stay or stop, And carefully put it into his crop. And he raised tomatoes A.nd lots of potatoes, More sorts, in sooth, than I could tell ; Turnips, that always turned up well ; Celery, all that he could sell ; Grapes by the bushel, sour and sweet ; Beets, that certainly could n't be beat ; Cabbage like some sartorial mound ; Vines, that fairly cw-cumbered the ground ; Some pumpkins more than he could house, and Ten thousand pears ; (that 's twenty thousand !) Fruit of all kinds and propagations, Baldwins, Pippins, and Carnations, And apples of other appellations. To sum it all up in the briefest space, As you may suppose, Brown flourished apace, Just because he proceeded, I venture to say, In the nuHa-retrorsum-vestigi-ous way ; That is if you 're not University -bred He took Crocket's advice about going ahead. At all the State Fairs he held a fair station, Raised horses and cows and his own reputation ; Made butter and money ; took a Justice's niche ; Grew wheat, wool, and hemp ' T corn, cattle, and rich! But who would be always a country-clown ? And so Tom Brown Sat himself down TOM BKOWN'S DAY IN GOTHAM. 255 And, knitting his brow in a studious frown, He said, says he : It 's plain to see, And I think Mrs. B. will be apt to agree, (If she don't, it 's much the same to ine,) v That I, TOM BROWN, Should go to town ! But then, says he, what town shall it be ? Boston-town is consid'rably nearer, And York is farther, and so will be dearer, But then, of course, the sights will be queerer ; Besides, I 'm told, you 're surely a lost 'un, If you once get astray in the streets of Boston. York is right-angled ; And Boston, right-tangled ; And both, I've no doubt, are uncommon new- fangled. Ah ! the * SMITHS,' I remember, belong to York, ('T was ten years ago I sold them my pork,) Good, honest traders I 'd like to know them And so 't is settled I '11 go to Gotham ! And so Tom Brown Sat himself down, With many a smile and never a frown, And rode, by rail, to that notable town Which I really think well worthy of mention As being America's greatest invention ! Indeed, I '11 be bound that if Nature and Art, (Though the former, being older, has gotten the start,) 256 TOM BROWN'S DAY IN GOTIIAM. In some new Crystal Palace of suitable size Should show their chefs-d'oeuvre, and contend for the prize, The latter would prove, when it came to the scratch, Whate'er you may think, no contemptible match ; For should old Mrs. Nature endeavor to stagger her By presenting, at last, her majestic Niagara ; Miss Art would produce an equivalent work In her great, overwhelming, unfinished NEW YORK ! And now Mr. Brown Was fairly in town, In that part of the city they used to call ' down,' Not far from the spot of ancient renown As being the scene Of the Bowling Green, A fountain that looked like a huge tureen Piled up with rocks, and a squirt between ; But the ' Bowling ' now has gone where they tally ' The Fall of the Ten,' in a- neighboring alley ; And as to the ' Green ' why, that you will find Whenever you see the ' invisible ' kind ! And he stopped at an Inn that 's known very well, * Delmonico's ' once now ' Stevens-Hotel ' ; (And, to venture a pun which I think rather witty, There 's no better Inn in this Inn-famous city !) And Mr. Brown Strolled up town, And I 'm going to write his travels clown ; But if you suppose Tom Brown will disclose TOM BROWN'S DAY IN GOTHAM. 257 The usual sins and follies of those Who leave rural regions to see city-shows t You could n't well make A greater mistake ; For Brown was a man of excellent sense ; Could see very well through a hole in a fence, And was honest and plain, without sham or pre- tence ; Of sharp, city-learning he could n't have boasted, But he was n't the chap to be easily roasted. And here let me say, In a very dogmatic, oracular way, (And I'll prove it, before I have done with my lay,) Not only that honesty 's likely to * pay/ But that one must be, as a general rule, At least half a knave to be wholly a fool ! Of pocketbook-dropping, Tom never had heard, (Or at least if he had, he 'd forgotten the word,) And now when, at length, the occasion occurred, For that sort of chaff he was n't the bird. The gentleman argued with eloquent force, And begged him to pocket the money, of course ; But Brown, without thinking at all what he said, Popped out the first thing that entered his head, (Which chanced to be wondrously fitting and true,) * No no my dear Sir I '11 be burnt if I do ! ' Two lively young fellows, of elegant mien, Amused him awhile with a pretty machine An ivory ball, which he never had seen. Q 2.38 TOM BROWN'S DAY IN GOTHAM. But though the unsuspecting stranger In the * patent safe ' saw uo patent danger, He easily dodged the nefarious net, Because ' he was n't accustomed to bet.' Ah ! here, I wot, Is exactly the spot To make a small fortune as easy as not ! That man with the watch what lungs he has got ! It 's ' Going the best of that elegant lot To close a concern, at a desperate rate, The jeweller ruined as certain as fate ! A capital watch ! you may see by the weight Worth one hundred dollars as easy as eight Or half of that sum to melt down into plate (Brown does n't know 'Peter' from Peter the Great) But then I can't dwell, I 'm ordered to sell, And mus'n't stand weeping just look at the shell 1 I warrant the ticker to operate well Nine dollars I it 's hard to be selling it under A couple of fifties it 's cruel, by Thunder ! Ten dollars ! I 'm offered the man who secures j This splended ten dollars ! say twelve, and it 's yours ! ' ' Don't want it ' quoth Brown ' I don't wish to buy; Fifty dollars, I 'm sure, one could n't call high But to see the man ruined I Dear Sir, I declare Between two or three bidders, it does n't seem fair ; TOM BROWN 3 DAY IN GOTHAM. 259 To knock it off now were surely a sin ; Just wait, my dear Sir, till the people come in ! Allow me to say, you disgrace your position As Sheriff consid'ring the debtor's condition To sell such a watch without more competition ! ' And here Mr. Brown Gave a very black frown, Stepped leisurely out, and walked farther up town. To see him stray along Broadway In the afternoon of a summer's day, And note what he chanced to see and say ; . And what people he meets In the narrower streets, Were a pregnant theme for a longer lay. - How he marvelled at those geological chaps Who go poking about in crannies and gaps, Those curious people in tattered breeches, The rag-wearing, rag-picking sons of ditches, Who find in the very nastiest niches A ' decent living,' and sometimes riches ; How he thought city prices exceedingly queer, The 'busses too cheap, and the hacks too dear ; How he stuck in the mud, and got lost in the ques- tion A problem too hard for his mental digestion Why in cleaning the city, the city employs Such a very small corps of such very small boys ; How he judges by dress, and accordingly makes, By mixing up classes, the drollest mistakes. How as if simple vanity ever were vicious, Or women of merit could be meretricious, 260 TOM BROWN'S DAY IX GOTHAM. He imagines the dashing Fifth- Avenue daines The same as the girls with unspeakable names ! An exceedingly natural blunder in sooth, But, I 'm happy to say, very far from the truth ; For e'en at the worst, whate'er you suppose, The one sort of ladies can choose their beaux, While, as to the other but every one knows What if 't were a secret I would n't disclose. And Mr. Brown Returned from town, With a bran new hat, and a muslin gown, And he told the tale, when the sun was down, How he spent his eagles, and saved his crown ; How he showed his pluck by resisting the claim Of an impudent fellow who asked his name ; But paid as a gentleman ever is willing At the old Park-Gate, the regular shilling 1 POST-PRANDIAL VERSES. RECITED AT THE FESTIVAL OP THE PSI UPSILON FRATERNITY, IN BOSTON, JULY 21, 1863. DEAR Brothers, who sit at this bountiful board, With excellent viands so lavishly stored, That, in newspaper phrase, 't would undoubtedly groan, If groaning were but a convival tone, Which it is n't and therefore, by sympathy led, The table, no doubt, is rejoicing instead. Dear Brothers, I rise, and it won't be surprising If you find me, like bread, all the better for rising, I rise to express my exceeding delight In our cordial reunion this glorious night I Success to * PSI UPSILON ! ' Beautiful name ! To the eye and the ear it is pleasant the same ; Many thanks to old Cadmus who made us his debtors, By inventing, one day, those capital letters 262 POST-PRANDIAL VERSES. Which still, from the heart, we shall know how to speak When we 've fairly forgotten the rest of our Greek 1 To be open and honest in all that you do ; To every high trust to be faithful and true ; In aught that concerns morality's scheme, To be more ambitious to be than to seem ; To cultivate honor as higher in worth Than favor of fortune, or genius, or birth ; By every endeavor to render your lives As spotless and fair as your possible wives ; To treat with respect all the innocent rules That keep us at peace with society's fools ; But to face every canon that e'er was designed To batter a town or beleaguer a mind, Ere you yield to the Moloch that Fashion has reared One jot of your freedom, or hah* of your beard, All this, and much more, I might venture to teach, Had I only a 4 call ' and^ar * license to preach ' But since I have not, to my modesty true, I '11 lay it all by as a layman should do And drop a few lines, tipt with Momus's flies, To angle for shiners that lurk in your eyes ! May you ne'er get in love or in debt with a doubt As to whether or no you will ever get out ; May you ne'er have a mistress who plays the coquette, Or a neighbor who blows on a cracked clarionet ; May you learn the first use of a lock on your door, And ne'er, like Adonis, be killed by a bore ; POST-PRANDIAL VERSES. 263 Shun canting and canters with resolute force, (A ' canter ' is shocking, except in a horse ;) At jovial parties mind what you are at, Beware of your head and take care of your hat, Lest you find that a favorite son of your mother Has a brick in the one and an ache in the other ; May you never, I pray, to worry your life, Have a weak-minded friend, or a strong-minded wife; A tailor distrustful, or partner suspicious ; A dog that is rabid, or nag that is vicious ; Above all the chief blessing the gods can im- part May you keep a clear head and a generous heart ; Remember 't is blessed to give and forgive ; Live chiefly to love, and love while you live ; And dying, when life's little journey is done, May your last, fondest sigh, be Psi UPSILON 1 LINES ON MY THIKTY-NINTH BIRTHDAY. An me ! the moments will not stay ! Another year has rolled away ; And June (the second) scores the line That tells me I am Thirty-nine ! As thus I haste the mile-stones by, I mark the numbers with a sigh ; And yet 't is idle to repine I Ve come so soon to Thirty-nine ! O, few that roam tliis world of ours, To feel its thorns ancl pluck its flowers, Have trod a brighter path than mine From blithe thirteen to Thirty-nine 1 Health, home, and friends, (life's solid part.) A merry laugh, a fresh, young heart, Poetic dreams, and love divine Have I not these at Thirty-nine ? O Time ! forego thy wonted spite, And lay thy future lashes light, And, trust me, I will not repine At twice the count of Thirty-nine 1 SOXNET TO . THINE is an ever-changing beauty ; now With that proud look, so lofty yet serene In its high majesty, thou seem'st a queen, With all her diamonds blazing on her brow ! Anon I see, as gentler thoughts arise And mould thy features hi their sweet control, The pure, white ray that lights a maiden's soul, And struggles outward through her drooping eyes ; Anon they flash ; and now a golden light Bursts o'er thy beauty, like the Orient's glow. Bathing thy shoulders' and thy bosom's snow, And all the woman beams upon my sight I I kneel unto the queen, like knight of yore ; The maid I love ; the woman I adore 1 12 THE COCKNEY. IT was in my foreign travel, At a famous Flemish inn, That I met a stoutish person With a very ruddy skin ; And his hair was something sandy, And was done in knotty curls, And was parted in the middle, In the manner of a girl's. He was clad in checkered trousers, And his coat was of "a sort To suggest a scanty pattern, It was bobbed so very short ; And his cap was very little, Such as soldiers often use ; And he wore a pair of gaiters, And extremely heavy shoes. I addressed the man in English, And he answered in the same, Though he spoke it in a fashion That I thought a little lame ; THE COCKXEY. 267 For the aspirate was missing Where the letter should have been, But where'er it was n't wanted, He was sure to put it in ! When I spoke with admiration Of St. Peter's mighty dome, He remarked : * 'T is really nothing To the sights we 'ave at 'ome 1 ' And declared upon his honor, Though, of course, 't was very queer. That he doubted if the Romans ' 'Ad the Aart of making beer 1 When I named the Colosseum, He observed, ' 'T is very fair ; I mean, ye know, it would be, If they 'd put it in repair; But what progress or ^improvement Can those curst .fiTitalians 'ope While they 're Aunder the dominion Of that blasted muff, the Pope ? ' Then we talked of other countries, And he said that he had heard That #americans spoke .Hmglish, But he deemed it quite ^absurd ; Yet he felt the deepest ^interest In the missionary work, And would like to know if Georgia Was in Boston or New York ! 268 THE COCKNEY. When I left the man-in-gaiters, He was grumbling, o'er his gin, At the charges of the hostess Of that famous Flemish inn ; And he looked a very Briton, (So, methinks, I see him still) As he pocketed the candle That was mentioned in the bill ! LOVE'S CALENDAR. TO AN ABSENT WIFE. 0, SINCE 't is decreed by the envious Fates, All deaf to the clamoring heart,' That the truest and fondest of conjugal mates Shall often be sighing apart ; Since the Days of our absence are many and sad, And the Hours of our meeting are few ; Ah ! what in a case so exceedingly bad, Can the deepest philosophy do ? Pray what can we do unfortunate elves, Unconscious of folly or crime But make a new Calendar up for ourselves, For the better appraisal of tune ? And the Hours alone shall the Calendar fill, (While Blanks show their distance apart,) Just sufficiently near to keep oft" the chill That else might be freezing the heart ; 270 AUGUSTA. And each Hour shall be such a glorious hour, Its moments so precious and dear, That in breadth, and in depth, and in bliss-giving power, It may fairly be reckoned a year 1 AUGUSTA. " Incedit regina / " "HANDSOME and haughty!" a comment that came From lips which were never accustomed to malice ; A girl with a presence superb as her name, And charmingly fitted for love in a palace ! And oft I have wished (for in musing alone One's fancy is apt to be very erratic) That the lady might wear No ! I never will own A thought so decidedly undemocratic ! But if't were a coronet this I '11 aver, No duchess on earth could more gracefully wear it; And even a democrat thinking of Tier Might surely be pardoned for wishing to share it ! YE PEDAGOGUE: A BALLAD. KIGHTE learned is ye Pedagogue, Fulle apt to reade and spelle, And eke to teache ye parts of speeche, And strap ye urchins welle. For as 't is meete to soake ye feete, Ye ailinge heade to mende, Ye younker's pate to stimulate, He beats ye other ende I Highte lordlie is ye Pedagogue As any turbaned Turke ; For welle to rule ye District Schoole, It is no idle worke. IV. For oft Rebellion lurketh there In breaste of secrete foes, Of malice fulle, in waite to pulle Ye Pedagogue his nose ! 272 YE PEDAGOGUE. Sometimes he heares with trembling feares, Of ye ungodlie rogue On mischieffe bent, with felle intent To licke ye Pedagogue 1 VI. And if ye Pedagogue be smalle, When to ye battell led, In such a plighte, God sende him rnighte To breake ye rogue his heade 1 VII. Daye after daye, for little pave, He teacheth what he can, And bears ye yoke, to please ye folke, And ye Committee-man. vnf. " Ah ! many crosses hath he borne, And many trials founde, Ye while he trudged ye district through, And boarded rounde and rounde ! IX. Ah ! many a steake hath he devoured, That, by ye taste and sighte, Was in disdaine, 't was very plaine, Of Daye his patent righte ! YE PEDAGOGUE. 273 X. Fulle solemn is ye Pedagogue, Amonge ye noisy churls, Yet other while he hath a smile To give ye handsome girls ; And one, ye fayrest mayde of all, To cheere his wayninge life, Shall be, when Springe ye flowers shall bringe, Ye Pedagogue his wife I 12* THE LAWYER'S VALENTINE. I 'M notified, fair neighbor mine, By one of our profession, That this the Term of Valentine Is Cupid's Special Session. Permit me, therefore, .to report Myself, on this occasion, Quite ready to proceed to Court, And File my Declaration. I 've an Attachment for you, too ; A legal and a strong one ; O, yield unto the Process, do ; Nor let it be a long one 1 No scowling bailiff lurks behind ; He 'd be a precious noddy, Who, failing to Arrest the mind, Should go and Take the Body ! For though a form like yours might throw A sculptor in distraction ; I could n't serve a Capias no I 'd scorn so base an Action 1 THE LAWYER'S VALENTINE. 275 O, do not tell me of your youth, And turn away demurely ; For though you 're very young, in truth, You 're not an Infant surely 1 The Case is everything to me ; My heart is love's own tissue ; Don't plead a Dilatory Plea ; Let 's have the General Issue ! Or, since you Ve really no Defence, Why not, this present Session, Omitting all absurd pretence, Give judgment by Confession ? So shall you be my lawful wife ; And I your faithful lover Be Tenant of your heart for Life, With no Remainder over 1 ANACREONTIC. TO A BEAUTIFUL STRANGER. A GLANCE, a smile, I see it yet ! A moment ere the train was starting ; How strange to tell ! we scarcely met, And yet I felt a pang at parting ! And you (alas that all the while 'T is / alone who am confessing ! ) What thought was lurking in your smile Is quite beyond my simple guessing. I only know those beaming rays Awoke in me a strange emotion, Which, basking in IKeir warmer blaze, Perhaps might kindle to devotion. Ah ! many a heart as stanch as this, By smiling lips allured from Duty, Has sunk in Passion's dark abyss, ' Wrecked on the coral reefs of Beauty ! ' And so, 't is well the train's swift flight That bore away my charming stranger, Took her God bless her ! out of sight, And me, as quickly, out of danger 1 THE CHOICE OF KING MIDAS. OR, TOO MUCH OP A GOOD THING. I. MIDAS, King of Phrygia, several thousand years ago, Was a very worthy monarch, as the classic annals show You may read 'em at your leisure, when you have a mind to doze, [n the finest Latin verses, or in choice Hellenic prose. Now this notable old monarch, King of Phrygia, as aforesaid, (Of whose royal state and character there might be vastly more said,) Though he occupied a palace, kept a very open door, And had still a ready welcome for the stranger and the poor. 278 THE CIIOICE OF KING MIDAS. III. Now it chanced that old Silenus, who, it seems, had lost his way, Following Bacchus through the forest, in the pleas- ant month of May, (Which was n't very singular, for at the present day The followers of Bacchus very often go astray ) IT. Came at, last to good King MIDAS, who received him in his court, Gave him comfortable lodgings, and to cut the matter short With as much consideration treated weary old Silenus, As if the entertainment were for Mercury or Venus. v. Now when Bacchus heard the story, he proceeded to the king, And says he, ' By old Silenus you have done the handsome thing ; He 's my much respected tutor, who has taught me how to read, And I 'm sure your royal kindness should receive its proper meed ; VI. So I grant you full permission to select your own reward : Choose a gift to suit your fancy, something worthy of a lord !' THE CHOICE OF KING MIDAS. 279 * Evos Bacche I ' cried the monarch, < If I do not make too bold, Let whatever I may handle be transmuted into gold 1 ' VII. MIDAS, sitting down to dinner, sees the answer to his wish, For the turbot on the platter turns into a golden fish ! And the bread between his fingers is no longer wheaten bread, But tho slice he tries to swallow is a wedge of gold instead ! VIII. And the roast he takes for mutton fills his mouth with golden meat, Very tempting to the vision, but extremely hard to eat; And the liquor in his goblet, very rare, select, and old, Down the monarch's thirsty throttle runs a stream of liquid gold I IX. Quite disgusted with his dining, he betakes him to his bed ; But, alas ! the golden pillow does n't rest his weary head ; Nor does all the gold around him soothe the mon- arch's tender skin ; Golden sheets, to sleepy mortals, might as well be sheets of tin ! 280 TUE CHOICE OF KING MIDAS. Now poor MIDAS, straight repenting 9f his rash and foolish choice, Went to Bacchus, and assured him, in a very plain- tive voice, That his golden gift was working hi a manner most unpleasant ; And the god, in sheer compassion, took away the fatal present. MORAL. By this mythologic story we are very plainly told, That, though gold may have its uses, there are bet- ter things than gold ; That a man may sell his freedom to procure the shining pelf: And that Avarice, though it prosper, still contrives to cheat itself ! WHERE THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WAY. Aut viam inveniam, autfaciam. IT was a noble Roman, In Rome's imperial day, Who heard a coward croaker, Before the Castle, say : * They 're safe in such a fortress , There is no way to shake it 1 ' * On on ! ' exclaimed the hero, * / 'ttjind a way, or make it I ' Is Fame your aspiration ? Her path is steep and high ; In vain he seeks her temple, Content to gaze and sigh : The shining throne is waiting, But he alone can take it Who says, with Roman firmness, 4 / 'lljind a way, or make it 1 ' Is Learning your ambition ? There is no royal road ; Alike the peer and peasant Must climb to her abode : 282 WHERE THERE *S A WILL THERE 's A WAY. Who feels the thirst of knowledge, In Helicon may slake it, If he has still the Roman will 4 To find a way, or make it I * Are Riches worth the getting ? They must be bravely sought ; With wishing and with fretting The boon cannot be bought : To all the prize is open, But only he can take it, Who says, with Roman courage, * / 'II find a way, or make it ! ' In Love's impassioned warfare The tale has ever been, That victory crowns the valiant, The brave are they who win : Though strong is Beauty's castle, A lover still may take it, Who says, with Roman daring, 1 1' II find a way, or make it!' SAINT JONATHAN. THERE 's many an excellent Saint, St. George, with his dragon and lance ; St. Patrick, so jolly and quaint ; St. Vitus, the saint of the dance ; St. Denis, the saint of the Gaul ; 'St. Andrew, the saint of the Scot ; But JONATHAN, youngest of all, Is the mightiest saint of the lot ! He wears a most serious face, Well worthy a martyr's possessing ; But it is n't all owing to grace, But partly to thinking and guessing ; In sooth, our American Saint, Has rather a secular bias, And I never have heard a complaint Of his being excessively pious ! He 's fond of financial improvement, And is always extremely inclined To be starting some practical movement For mending the morals and mind. 284 SAINT JONATHAN. Do you ask' me what wonderful labors ST. JONATHAN ever has done To rank with his Calendar neighbors ? Just listen, a moment, to one : One day when a flash in the air Split his meeting-house fairly asunder, Quoth JONATHAN, * Now I declare They 're dreadfully careless with thunder 1 ' So he fastened a rod to the steeple ; And now, when the lightning comes round, He keeps it from building and people, By running it into the ground ! Reflecting, with pleasant emotion, On the capital job he had done, Quoth JONATHAN, * I have a notion Improvements have barely begun ; If nothing "3 created in vain, As ministers often inform us, The lightning that 's wasted 't is plain, Is really something enormous V ' While ciphering over the thing, At length he discovered a plan To catch the Electrical King, And make him the servant of man ! And now, in an orderly way, He flies on the fleetest of pinions, And carries the news of the day All over his master's dominions ! SAINT JONATHAN. 285 One morning, while taking a stroll, He heard a lugubrious cry Like the shriek of a suffering soul In a Hospital standing near by ; Anon, such a terrible groan Saluted ST. JONATHAN'S ear, That his bosom which was n't of stone Was melted with pity to hear. That night he invented a charm So potent that folks who employ it, In losing a leg or an arm, Don't suffer, but rather enjoy it 1 A miracle, you must allow, As good as the best of his brothers,' And blessed ST. JONATHAN now Is patron of cripples and mothers ! There 's many an excellent Saint, St. George, with his dragon and lance ; St. Patrick, so jolly and quaint ; St. Vitus, the saint of the dance ; St. Denis, the saint of the Gaul; St. Andrew, the saint of the Scot ; But JONATHAN, youngest of all, Is the mightiest saint of the lot ! SONG OF SARATOGA. * PRAY, what do they d6 at the Springs ? ' The question is easy to ask ; But to answer it fully, my dear, Were rather a serious task. And yet, in a bantering way, As the magpie or mocking-bird sings, I '11 venture a bit of a song To tell what they do at the Springs ! Imprimis, my darling, they drink The waters so sparldiag and clear; Though the flavor is none of the best, And the odor exceedingly queer ; But the fluid is mingled, you know, With wholesome medicinal things, So they drink, and they drink, and they drink, - And that 's what they do at the Springs I Then with appetites keen as a knife, They hasten to breakfast or dine ; (The latter precisely at three ; The former from seven till nine.) SONG OF SARATOGA. 287 Ye gods ! what a rustle and rush When the eloquent dinner-bell rings ! Then they eat, and they eat, and they cat, And that *s what they do at the Springs ! Now they stroll in the beautiful walks, Or loll in the shade' of the trees; Where many r whisper is heard That never is told by the breeze ; And hands are commingled with hands, Regardless of conjugal rings ; And they flirt, and they flirt, and they flirt, And that 's what they do at the Springs ! The drawing-rooms now are ablaze, And music is shrieking away ; TERPSICHORE governs the hour, And FASHION was never so gay I An arm round a tapering waist Plow closely and fondly it clings : So they waltz, and they waltz, and they waltz, And that 'a what they do at the Springs 1 In short as it goes in the world They eat, and they drink, and they sleep ; They talk, and they walk, and they woo ; They sigh, and they laugh, and they weep ; They read, and they ride, and they dance ; (With other unspeakable things ;) They pray, and they play, and they pay, And that 's what they do at the Springs ' THE PORTRAIT; A. SONNET. A PRETTY picture hangs before my view ; The face, * in little,' of a Southern dame, To me unknown (though not unknown to fame) Save by the lines the cunning limner drew. So grandly Grecian is the lady's head, I took her for Minerva in disguise ; But when I marked the winning lips and eves, J thought of Aphrodite, in her stead ; And then I kissed her calm, unanswering mouth (The picture 's mine !) as any lover might, In the deep fervor of a nuptial night, And envied him who, in the * Sunny South,' Calls her his own whose shadow can impart Such very sunshine to a Northern heart 1 EPIGRAMS. ON A FAMOUS WATER-SUIT. MY wonder is really boundless That among the queer cases we try, A land-case should often be groundless, And a water-case always be dry ! KISSING CASUISTRY. WHEN SARAH JANE, the moral Miss, Declares 't is very wrong to kiss, I '11 bet a shilling I see through it ; The damsel, fairly understood, Feels just as any Christian should, She 'd rather suffer wrong than do it ! THE LOST CHARACTER. JULIA is much concerned, God wot, For the good name she has n't got ; So mortgagors are often known To guard the soil they deem their own ; As if, forsooth, they did n't know The land was forfeit long ago ! 13 . s 290 EPIGRAMS. REVERSING THE FIGURES. MARIA, just at twenty, swore That no man less than six feet four Should be her chosen one. At thirty she is glad to fix A spouse exactly four feet six, As better far than none ! TO A POETICAL CORRESPONDENT. ROSE hints she is n't one of those ~\Vho have the gift of writing prose ; But poetry is une autre chose, And quite an easy thing to Rose 1 As if an artist should decline, For lack of skill, to paint a sign, But, try him in the landscape line, You '11 find his genius quite divine I A DILEMMA. * WHENEVER I marry/ says masculine ANN, * I must really insist upon wedding a man 1 ' But what if the man (for men are but human) Should be equally nice about wedding a woman ? ON A LONG- WINDED ORATOR. THREE Parts compose a proper speech, (So wise Quintilian's maxims teach,) But LOQTJAX never can get through, In his orations, more than two. EPIGRAMS. 291 He does n't stick at the * Beginning- ; ' His ' Middle ' comes as sure as sinning ; Indeed, the whole one might commend, Could he contrive to make an * End ! ' THE THREE WIVES: A JUBILATION. MY First was a lady whose dominant passion Was thorough devotion to parties and fashion ; My Second, regardless of conjugal duty, Was only the worse for her wonderful beauty ; My Tliird was a vixen in temper and life, Without one essential to make a good wife. Jubilate! at last in my freedom I revel, For I 'm clear of the World, and the Flesh, and the Devil 1 THE PRESS. RECITED BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES OP BROWN UNIVERSITY, 1865. A WORTHY parson, once upon a time, Weary of list'ning to the sober rhyme That, of a winter's evening, chanced to fall From a young poet in a lecture hall, His disappointment openly confessed, And thus his censure to a friend expressed : * The poem, Sir, is well enough no doubt, But so much preaching one could do without ; A little wit had pleased me more by half; I did n't come to learn, I came to laugh ! ' So goes the world ; his very soul to save They will not let poor Harlequin be grave ; But vote him weaker than a vestry-mouse, Unless, like Samson, he brings down the house ! Alas 1 to-day, if such a rule prevail, My sober muse were surely doomed to fail ; , Her subject grave demands a serious song, And trival treatment were ignobly wrong. THE PRESS. 293 Yet let me hope that e'er ray song be done, When satire comes to punish with a pun, Some pleasant fancy may your hearts beguile, And win the favor of an answering smile. I sing the Press ; O sweet Enchantress, bring Fit inspiration for the theme I sing, The Art of Arts, whose earliest, freshest fame, With fierce debate, three rival cities claim ; The glorious art, that, scorning humbler birth, Came at a bound upon the wondering earth, 13 Full-armed and strong her instant might to prove, A new Minerva from the brain of Jove 1 I marvel not that rival towns dispute Where first the goddess set her radiant foot ; That blest Mayence, with honest pride, should bo^st The wondrous Bible of her wizard Faust ; That Haarlem, jealous of her proper fame, Erects a statue to her Coster's name ; While Strasburg's cits contemning all beside, Vaunt their own hero with an equal pride. How shall the poet venture to explain Where plodding History labors still in vain To solve the mystery the vexing doubt That only deepens with the deepening shout Of angry partisans ? The Muse essays The dangerous task, and thus awards the bays : Where counter claims the highest merit hide, If large the gift, 'tis fairest to divide. 294 THE PRESS. Honor to all who shared a noble part To find, to cherish, or adorn the art ; Honor to him who, with enraptured eye, First saw the nymph descending from the sky ; Honor to him, whate'er his name or land, The first to kneel, and kiss her royal hand ; Thrice honored he who, piercing the disguise That barred her beauty from obtuser eyes, First gave her shelter, when the dusky maid Knocked at his door in homely garb arrayed, And found at length, beyond his hopes or prayers, He M wooed and won an angel unawares 1 I sing the Press ; alas, 't were much the same As though the Muse essayed the trump of fame ; Though something harsh and grating in its tone, She keeps a mightier trumpet of her own, The which, while Freedom's banner is unfiirled, Shall swell her paeans through the wondering world 1 Strange is the sound when first the notes begin Where human voices blend with Vulcan's din ; The click, the clank, the clangor, and the sound Of rattling rollers in their rapid round ; The whizzing belt, the sharp metallic jar, Like clashing spears in fierce chivalric war ; The whispering birth of myriad flying leaves, Gathered, anon, in countless motley sheaves, Then scattered far, as on the winged wind, The mortal nurture of th' immortal mind ! THE PRESS. 295 I 'm fond of books ; 't is pleasant to behold In various apparel, new and old, The quaint array of well-adjusted tomes That grace the mantels of our rural homes ; The Bible, Bunyan, Baxter, and a score Of colder lights, from Hume to Hannah More ; Ripe with great thoughts and histories, or full Of pious homilies, devout and dull. Nor do I scorn those half-forgotten books That lie neglected in obscurer nooks Where poets mould, and critic-spiders spin Their flimsy lines to mock the lines within ! For here the curious questioner may find The pregnant hint that in some ampler mind Grew to a thought, and honors now the page That beams the brightest on the present age. I love vast libraries ; revere the fame Of all the Ptolemies; and each other name, JEmilius, Augustus, Crassus Caesar, all The old collectors, whether great or small, Who helped the cause of learning to advance, Trajan and Bodley, Charles the Wise of France, Kings, nobles, knights, who, anxious of renown Beyond the fame of garter, spur, or crown, And wisely provident against decay, (Since parchment lives while marble melts away,) Reared to their honor literary domes, And grew immortal in immortal tomes ! Grand are the pyramids, although the stones Are but the graves of rotten human bones 296 THE PRESS. That bear, alas ! nor name, nor crest, nor date To show the world their former regal state. Compared with these, how noble and sublime The garnered excellence of every clime Reared in vast Pantheons, and finely wrought, From sill to cap-stone, of immortal thought ! Here, e'en the sturdy democrat may find, Nor scorn their rank, the nobles of the mind ; While kings may learn, nor blush at being shown How Learning's patents abrogate their own. A goodly company and fair to see ; Royal plebeians ; earls of low degree ; Beggars whose wealth enriches every clime ; Princes who scarce can boast a mental dime ; Crowd here together like the quaint array Of jostling neighbors on a market day. Homer and Milton can we call them blind ? Of godlike sight, the vision of the mind ; Shakespeare, who calmly looked creation through, 4 Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new ; ' Plato the sage, so thoughtful and serene, He seems a prophet by his heavenly mien ; Shrewd Socrates, whose philosophic power Xantippe proved in many a trying hour ; And Aristophanes, whose humor run In vain endeavor to be-' cloud ' the sun ; M Majestic zEschylus, whose glowing page Holds half the grandeur of the Athenian stage ; Pindar, whose odes, replete with heavenly fire, Proclaim the master of the Grecian lyre ; THE PRKSS. 297 Anacreon, famed for many a luscious line Devote to Venus and the god of wine. I love vast libraries ; yet there is a doubt If one be better with them or without, Unless he use them wisely, and, indeed, Knows the high art of what and how to read. At Learning's fountain it is sweet to drink, But 't is a nobler privilege to think ; And oft, from books apart, the thirsting rnind May make the nectar which it cannot find. 'T is well to borrow from the good and great ; 'T is wise to learn ; 't is godlike to create 1 There is a story which my purpose suits ; 'Tis told by Richter of the author Wuz A poor lone scholar who, in urgent need (Or so he thought) of learned books to read, Wept o'er his poverty, lamenting sore, (The while a catalogue he pondered o'er,) Of all the charming works that met his eye, Not one, alas ! his meagre purse could buy. While musing thus, his racked invention brought To weeping Wuz for once a lucky thought : 4 Eureka ! ' cried the scholar, with a roar, As Archimedes shouted once before, 4 1 have it ! True, my purse is rather scant, But then this catalogue shows what I want, And so who cares for poverty or pelf? I '11 take my pen and write the books myself ! ' Where be our authors now ? The noble band 13* 298 THE PRESS. Dwindles apace from off the famished land. Scarce a round dozen, at the best, remain Of all who once, among the author-train, Wrote books like scholars ; nor esteemed it hard, Genius like Virtue was its own reward. O gentle Irving ! thou whom every grace Of wit and learning gave the highest place In the proud synod of the old regime, In all thy dreaming, didst thou ever dream To see thy craft a mere mechanic art, The servile minion of the bookish mart ? When authorship should be the merest trade, And men make books as hats and boots are made ? Didst ever dream to see the wondrous day When the vexed press should spawn the vast array Of trashy tomes that on the public burst, So fast, they print the Tenth Edition ' first ? Thou hast not read them. God forbid ! It racks One's brains enough to see tkeir brazen backs. Yet thou wilt smile, I know, when thou art told That with each book the buyer too is * sold ' ; That soon the puffing art shall all be vain, And sense and reason rule the town again. Sweet to the traveller is the urchin's chimes, Proclaiming, * 'Ere 's your 'Erald, Tribune, Times ! Those lively records of the passing day, That catch the echo, ere it dies away, Of battle, bravery, sudden death, and all That human minds can startle or appall ; THE PRESS. 299 Marriage and murder ; things of different name, Alas ! that oft the two should be the same ! Letters describing merry rural scenes ; Ship-news, and, often, news for the marines ; Fortune's bright favors, and Misfortune's shocks ; The fall of Hungary and the fall of stocks ; The important page that tells the thrilling tale How Empires rise, and ' Red Republics ' fail ; How England's lion, loitering in his lair, Essays in vain to fright the Russian bear ; How France, bemoaning the expensive war, Would give her * Louis,' to save her louis-d'or ; While the poor Turk, whom hapless luck attends, Cries, ' Gracious Allah ! save me from my friends 1 ' I have a neighbor, of eccentric views, Who has a mortal horror of the news ; As lessons are to boys, when long and hard ; Spiders, to ladies ; censure, to a bard ; To losers, bets ; to holders, railway stock ; Lectures to husbands, after ten o'clock ; Bacon to Hebrews, or to Quakers, war ; Squalls to a sailor, or a bachelor ; To Satan prayer-books, or to Islam, wine, So are * the papers ' to this friend of mine. You Ve but to ask him, in the common way, The usual question, and to your dismay, He '11 pour, remorseless, on your tingling ear, Such streams of satire as you '11 quake to hear. The News ? Thank Heaven ! I 'm not the man to know, I do not take the papers ; you can go, 300 THE PTCESS. If you possess the patience and the pelf, And read the lying journals for yourself; I hate, despise, detest, abhor them all, Hebdomadal, diurnal, great, and small. The News, indeed ! pray do you call it news "When shallow noddles publish shallow views ? Pray, is it news that turnips should be bred As large and hollow as the owner's head ? News, that a clerk should rob his master's hoard, Whose meagre salary scarcely pays his board ? News, that two knaves, their spurious friendship o'er, Should tell the truths which they concealed before ? News, that a maniac, weary of his life, Should end his sorrows with a rope or knife ? News, that a wife should violate the vows That bind her, loveless, to a tyrant spouse ? News, that a daughter cheats paternal rule, And weds a scoundrel to escape a fool ? The news, indeed ! Such matters are as old As sin and folly, rust and must" and mould ; Nor fit to publish even when, in sooth, By merest chance the papers tell the truth ! ' So raves my friend, a worthy man enough, But in his utterance rather rude and rough ; Fond of extremes, and so exceeding strong, E'en in the right he 's often in the wrong. One of those people whom you may have seen, (You know them always by their nervous mien,) Who when they go a-fishing in the well Where Truth, the angel, is supposed to dwell, THE PllESS. 301 So very roughly knock the nymph about, She kicks the bucket ere she 's fairly out ! Yet, if they would, the noble lords of print, E'en from my friend, might take a wholesome hint. O for a pen with Hogarth's genius rife To paint the scenes of Editorial life. The tale, I know, is rather trite and old, And yet, perchance, it may be freshly told, As some plain dish, a simple roast or stew, Takes a new flavor in a French ragout. SCENE a third story in a dismal court, Where weary printers just at eight resort ; A dingy door that with a rattle shuts ; Heaps of ' Exchanges,* much adorned with * cuts ; ' Pens, paste, and paper on the table strewed ; Books, to be read when they have been reviewed ; Pamphlets and tracts so very dull indeed That only they who wrote them e'er will read ; Nine letters, touching themes of every sort, And one with money just a shilling short Lie scattered round upon a common level. PERSONS the Editor ; enter, now, the Devil : * Please, Sir, since this 'ere article was wrote, There 's later news perhaps you 'd like to quote : * The allies storming with prodigious force, S'&as-to-pol is down ! ' * Set it up, of course.' * And, Sir, that murder 's done there 's only left One larceny.' * Pray don't omit the theft.' 302 THE PRESS. * And, Sir, about the mob the matter 's fat ' * The mob ? that 's wrong pray just distribute that.' * And here 's an article has come to hand, A reg'lar, 'rig'nal package ' ' Let that stand ! ' Exit the imp of Faust, and enter now A fierce subscriber with a scowling brow ; 'Sir, curse your paper! send the thing to' Well, The place he names were impolite to tell ; Enough to know the hero of the Press Cries, ' Thomas, change the gentleman's address ! We '11 send the paper, if the post will let it, Where the subscriber will be sure to get it ! ' Who would not be an Editor ? To write The magic * we ' of such enormous might ; To be so great beyond the common span It takes the plural to express the man ; And yet, alas, it happens oftentimes A unit serves to number all his dimes ! But don't despise him ; there may chance to be An earthquake lurking in his simple ' we ! ' In the close precincts of a dusty room That owes few losses to the lazy broom, There sits the man ; you do not know his name, Brown, Jones, or Johnson it is all the same Scribbling away at what perchance may seem An idler's musing, or a dreamer's dream ; His pen runs rambling, like a straying steed ; The ' we ' he writes seems very ' wee ' indeed ; THE PRESS. 303 But mark the change ; behold the wondrous power Wrought by the Press in one eventful hour ; To-night, 't is harmless as a maiden's rhymes ; To-morrow, thunder in the London Times f The ministry dissolves that held for years ; Her Grace, the Duchess, is dissolved in tears ; The Kothschilds quail; the church, the army, quakes ; The very kingdom to its centre shakes ; The Corn Laws fall ; the price of bread comes down Thanks to the ' we ' of Johnson, Jones, or Brown I Firm in the right, the daily Press should be The tyrant's foe, the champion of the free ; Faithful and constant to its sacred trust ; Calm in its utterance ; in its judgments, just ; Wise in its teaching ; uncorrupt, and strong To speed the right, and to denounce the wrong. Long may it be ere candor must confess On Freedom's shores a weak and venal Press. NOTES. NOTE 1. Page 7. * To show, for once, that Dutchmen are not duU." Pere Bouhours seriously asked ' if a German couW be a " bel esprit.'' 1 This concise question was answered by Kra- mer, in a ponderous work entitled ' Vindidce nominis Ger~ tt/OWOOU 1 NOTE 2. Page 13. l ln closest girdle, reluctant Muse, In scantiest skirts, and lightest stepping-shoet? Imitated from the opening couplet of Holmes's ' Terpsi- chore,' '/n narrowest girdle, reluciani Muse, In closest frock, and Cinderella shoes." 1 NOTE 3. Page 13. 'She stoops to conquer in a Grecian curve.'' Terence, who wrote comedies a little more than two thousand years ago, thus alludes to this and a kindred custom then prevalent among the Roman girls: * Virgines, quas matres student Demissis humeris esse, vincto corpore, ut graciles fiant.' T 306 NOTES. The sense of the passage may be given in English, with sufficient accuracy, thus : Maidens, whom fond, maternal care has graced With stooping shoulders, and a cinctured waist. NOTE 4. Page 17. * Their tumid trope* for simple Buncombe made.' 1 Many readers, who have heard about ' making speeches for Buncombe,' may not be aware that the phrase origi- nated as follows : A member of Congress from the county of Buncombe, North Carolina, while pronouncing a mag- niloquent set-speech, was interrupted by a remark from the chau> that ' the seats were quite vacant.' ' Never mind, never mind,' replied the orator, * I 'm talking for Buii- combe ! ' NOTE 6. Page 17. i THl rising high in rancorous debate, And higher still injierce, envenomed hate,' Etc. * Sed jurgia prima sonare Incipiunt animis ardentibus ; haec tuba rixse ; Dein clarnore pari concurritur, et vice teli Saevit nuda manus." Juv. Sat. xv. NOTE 6. Page 21. l Not uninvited to her task she came* This Poem was written at the instance of the Associated Alumni of Middlebury College, and spoken before that Society, July 22, 1846. NOTE 7. Page 21. ''No singer's trick, conveniently to bring A sudden cough when importuned to sing.' NOTES. 307 The capriciousness of musical folk, here alluded to, is by no means peculiar to our times. A little before the Chris- tian era, Horace had occasion to scold the Komau singers for the same fault: ' Omnibus hoc vitium est cantoribus, inter amicos, UK nunquam inducant animum cantare rogati ; Injussi nunquam desistant.' SAT. m. NOTE 8. Page 111. * Wliile the dear country, as the reader learns. Is saved or ruined in quadrennial turns.' It is certainly very notable that the difference between the country's * ruin ' and ' salvation,' by the vicissitudes of politics, is so little obvious to the mere observer of national affairs, that he would scarcely know when to weep or re- joice, but for the timely information afforded by his party newspaper! NOTE 9. Page 111. ' While their own thoughts, the wretches fear to speak, Not Sundays only, but throughout the week.' An allusion to the Scriptural injunction, ' not to speak one's own words ' on the Sabbath day. NOTE 10. Page 116. l And.hush the wail of Peter Plymley's ghost.' Rev. Sydney Smith, the English author and wit, lately deceased, who, having speculated in Pennsylvania Bonds to the damage of his estate, berated ' the rascally repudi- ators ' with much spirit, and lamented his losses in many excellent jests. NOTE 11. Page 116. ' Unfriendly hills no longer interpose As stubborn walls to geographic foes, Noi- envious streams run only to divide The hearts of brethren ranged on cither side' 308 NOTES. ' Lands intersected by a narrow frith Abhor each other. Mountains interposed Make enemies of nations, who had else Like kindred drops been mingled into one * NOTE 12. Page 118. 1 No pitying nymphs had gathered round to tceep.' It is a part of the fable of Phaethon, the son of Helios, of whom mention is made a few lines above, that, when he had fallen from the sky and was drowned in the river Eri- danus, his sisters, the Heliades, assembling on the shore, lamented his fate in tears, which were changed to amber as they fell. NOTE 13. Page 293. 1 Came at a bound upon (he wondering earth. 1 It is a notable fact, as one may see by a glance at the early specimens of printing, that typography was at the very first so excellent as to leave little room for improve- ment. With equal truth and felicity it has been called, Art simul inventa atque perfecta.' NOTE 14. Page 296. 'Aristophanes, whose humor run In vain endeavor to be-"doud" the sun. 1 An allusion to the comedy of " The Clouds," written in ridicule of Socrates. UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY B 000016409 5