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CONTENTS. 
 
 rvJiNTBODUOTION, BY J. C. HOIIEN . . 
 
 The BaiLAD OF THE OSSIEBMAN ' * QQ 
 
 P To AN Insect .... • • • - <i<s 
 
 > The Dilemma . 
 |DailyTeials 
 
 w .^_T0 THE PORTEAIT OF " A Lady" ... 
 
 m Reflections op a Proud Pedestrian .* [ [ ' 47 
 " The Dorchester Giant 49 
 The Music-Grinders 52 
 -^The September Gale . . 
 
 ^The Toadstool ^ H 
 "The Spectre Pig 
 ^The Treadmill Song ... 
 ^^MyAunt . . * 
 
 69 
 
 ^NES RECITED AT THE BERKSHIRE FESTIVAL . . 73 
 
 u'^Verses for After-Dinner . . . ' ' ' 75 ' 
 ^ A Song for the Centennial Celebration of Harvard 
 
 ^-y College, 1836 
 
 '^^vening ' ' 82 
 
 ^Nux Postccenatica . . . . , * * * 85 
 
 ^The Stethoscope Song * ' 91 
 
 OOn lending a Punch-Bowl . . , , [ ' * 96 
 
 'HThh Height of the Eidiculous . . * ] ' 101 
 
iv 
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 Lattee-Day Wabnings 
 Prologue . 
 
 The Deacon's Masterpiece ; or, The Wonderful 
 
 Hoss Shay" 
 The Old Man of the Sea 
 Ode for a Social Meeting 
 Parson Turell's Legacy; or, The President's Old 
 
 Chair . 
 Contentment 
 De Sauty . 
 
 iESTIVATION 
 
 The Old Man dreams 
 What we all think . 
 The Comet 
 The Last Blossom . 
 •'The Boys" 
 A Sea Dialogue 
 The Jubilee 
 The Sweet Little Man 
 Our Oldest Friend . 
 A Farewell to Agassiz 
 The Last Leaf . 
 The Mysterious Visitor 
 Lines by a Clerk 
 
 To the Portrait of "a Gentleman" 
 The Hot Season 
 A Modest Bequest . 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 This little volume of humorous verses, by the author 
 of the delightful Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table ^ may 
 be very appropriately introduced by a few biographical 
 particulars. 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes was born at Cambridge, 
 Massachusetts, in 1809, He was educated at Phillips' 
 Academy, Exeter, and graduated at Harvard in 1829. 
 In the following year the students of that university 
 started the Collegian^ a magazine possessing many of 
 the peculiarities, but scarcely the talent, of our Etonian 
 and Knighfs Quarterly Magazine, Amongst its best 
 papers were those from the pen of Holmes, who may 
 be said to have been the Praed of the occasion. He 
 contributed, amongst other humorous pieces, " Evening, 
 by a Tailor," and " The Spectre Pig," both of which 
 are given in the following pages. After six numbers of 
 the magazine had appeared it experienced the fate com- 
 mon to all school journals, and came to a standstill. 
 
TNTBODUOTION. 
 
 What the military profession is to young men of 
 position here, the law seems to be in America. It 
 affords gentlemanly occupation — lessons in worldly 
 education — until the final course or position has been 
 decided upon. Holmes spent a year in a lawyer's 
 office, but the profession was not congenial to his taste, 
 and he fell, we are told, under the poet's censure, of 
 "penning stanzas when he should engross." What led 
 him finally to choose medicine as his profession we are 
 not informed. His earliest studies in this new path, 
 we are assured, were prosecuted with great energy, 
 and so anxious was the student for success in his new 
 profession that literary composition was for a time for- 
 gotten. In 1833, however, a little volume appeared,* 
 for the benefit of a charitable institution; and as this 
 contains several pieces by him, we may conclude that, 
 the first excitement of his new duties past, the old 
 literary taste again creeped forth. The poems in this 
 tiny book do not bear the names of their authors, hut 
 Holmes's contributions may easily be discovered. 
 
 In the same year the medical student came U 
 Europe for the purpose of pursuing his studies at Paria 
 He remained here nearly three years, residing mostly 
 
 * The Harbinger ; a May Gift: dedicated to the Ladies 
 who have so kindly aided the New England Institution for 
 the Education of the Blind. Boston; 1833; 12mo, pp. 96. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 vii 
 
 in the French capital. In 1836 he returned home to 
 take his medical degree at Cambridge. It was on this 
 occasion that he delivered " Poetry, a Metrical Essay," 
 before the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa, which he published 
 the same year, in the first acknowledged volume of his 
 poems.* In " Poetry" he describes four stages of the 
 art,— the pastoral, martial, epic, and dramatic; success- 
 fully illustrating the two former by his lines on " The 
 Cambridge Churchyard" and " Old Ironsides," which 
 last became a national lyric, having ,first been printed 
 in the Boston Daily Advertiser, when the frigate Con- 
 stitution" lay at the Navy Yard in Charlestown, and 
 the department had resolved upon breaking her up,— a 
 fate from which she was preserved by the verses, which 
 ran through the newspapers with universal applause, and 
 were circulated in the city of Washington in handbills. 
 
 The same volume also contained The Last Leaf" 
 and My Aunt," which established Holmes's reputation 
 for humorous quaintness. Society was more staid then 
 than now, and the author in his preface felt called upon 
 to offer somewhat of an apology, in the shape of a 
 vindication of the extravagant in literature. He says, 
 " As material objects in different lights repeat them- 
 selves in shadows variously elongated, contracted, or 
 * Poems, by OHver Wendell Holmes. Boston: 1836; 12mo, 
 pp. 163. 
 
viii 
 
 INTEODUCTIOK 
 
 exaggerated, so our solid and sober thoughts caricature 
 themselves in fantastic shapes, inseparable from their 
 originals, and having a unity in their extravagance, 
 which proves them to have retained their proportions 
 in certain respects, however differing in outline from 
 their prototypes." 
 
 In 1838 Dr. Holmes became Professor of Anatomy 
 and Physiology at Dartmouth. On his marriage, in 
 1840, he established himself in Boston, where he ac- 
 quired the position of a fashionable and successful 
 practitioner of medicine. In 1847 he was appointed 
 Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the Medical 
 School connected with his own college at Harvard. 
 
 Dr. Holmes is celebrated for his vers d' occasion^ 
 cleverly introduced with impromptu graces at medical 
 feasts, college festivals, and other social gatherings; 
 which are pretty sure to have some fanciful descriptions 
 of nature, and laugh loudly at the quackeries, both the 
 properly professional, and the literary and social, of 
 the day. His " Terpsichore" was delivered on one of 
 these occasions, in 1843. The " Stethoscope Song" was 
 such an effusion, his " Modest Eequest" another. 
 
 It was on the occasion of receiving a copy of 
 Astrsea" — one of Holmes's most popular poems — that 
 Miss Mitford made some pleasant remarks concerning 
 our author in her Recollections of a Literary Life : 
 
li^TTODUCTION. 
 
 ix 
 
 "I hardly know/' she sajs, "any one so original 
 as Dr. Holmes. For him we can find no living proto- 
 type; to track his footsteps, we must travel back as 
 far as Pope or Dryden ; and, to my mind, it would be 
 well if some of our own bards would take the same 
 journey, provided always it produced the same result. 
 Lofty, poignant, graceful, grand, high of thought, and 
 clear of word, we could fancy ourselves reading some 
 pungent page of Absalom and Achitophel, or of the 
 Moral Epistles, if it were not for the pervading nation- 
 ality, which, excepting Whittier, American poets have 
 generally wanted, and for that true reflection of the 
 manners and follies of the age, without which satire 
 would fail alike of its purpose and its name. 
 
 " The work of which I am about to offer a sample- 
 all too brief itself— is a little book of less than forty pages, 
 described in the title-page as ' Astr^ea, a poem delivered 
 before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Yale College, 
 August 1850, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, and printed 
 at the request of the Society.' 
 
 ^' The introduction tells most gracefully in verse that 
 rather, perhaps, implies than relates the cause of the 
 author's visit to the college, dear to him as the place of 
 his father's education: 
 
 ' What secret charm, long whispering in mine ear, 
 Allures, attracts, compels, and chains, me here. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Where murmuring echoes call me to resign 
 Their sacred haunts to sweeter lips than mine; 
 Where silent pathways pierce the solemn shade, 
 In whose still depths my feet have never strayed; 
 Here, in the home where grateful children meet, 
 And I, half alien, take the stranger's seat. 
 Doubting, yet hoping, that the gift I bear 
 May keep its bloom in this unwonted air ? 
 Hush, idle fancy, with thy needless art; 
 Speak from thy fountains, 0 my throbbing heart ! 
 
 Say, shall I trust these trembling lips to tell 
 The fireside tale that memory knows so well ? 
 How, in the days of Freedom's dread campaign, 
 A home-bred schoolboy left his village plain, 
 Slow faring southward, till his wearied feet 
 Pressed the worn threshold of this fair retreat; 
 How, with his comely face and gracious mien, 
 He joined the concourse of the classic green; 
 Nameless, unfriended, yet by nature blest 
 With the rich tokens that she loves the best; 
 The flowing locks, his youth's redundant crown, 
 Smoothed o'er a brow unfurrowed by a frown; 
 The untaught smile, that speaks so passing plain 
 A world all hope, a past without a stain; 
 The clear-hued cheek, whose burning current glows, 
 Crimson in action, carmine in repose; — 
 Gifts such as purchase, with unminted gold, 
 Smiles from the young and blessings from the old.' " 
 
 Other passages are selected by Miss Mitford, amongst 
 them one portraying the schoolboy, — a delightful piece 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xi 
 
 of word-painting; then follows a description of an Ame- 
 rican spring, equally true to general nature and to 
 the locality where it is written." After this we are 
 introduced to a winter room, delineated with equal taste 
 and fidelity, — the very home of lettered comfort : 
 
 " Yet in the darksome crypt I left so late, 
 Whose only altar is its rusted grate, — 
 Sepulchral, ray less, joyless as it seems, 
 Shamed by the glare of May's refulgent beams, — 
 While the dim seasons dragged their shrouded train, 
 Its paler splendours were not quite in vain. 
 From these dull bars the cheerful firelight's glow 
 Streamed through the casement o'er the spectral snow; 
 Here,— while the night-wind wreaked its frantic will 
 On the loose ocean and the rock-bound hill, 
 Kent the cracked topsail from its quivering yard, 
 And rived the oak a thousand storms had scarred, — 
 Fenced by these walls, the peaceful taper shone, 
 Nor felt a breath to swerve its trembling cone. 
 
 Not all unblest the mild interior scene, 
 When the red curtain spread its folded screen; 
 O'er some light task the lonely hours were past, 
 And the long evening only flew too fast : 
 Or the wide chair its leathern arms would lend 
 In genial welcome to some easy friend. 
 Stretched on its bosom, with relaxing nerves. 
 Slow moulding, plastic to its hollow curves, — 
 Perchance indulging, if of generous creed, * 
 In brave Sir Walter's dream-compelling weed. 
 
INTBODUOTION. 
 
 Or, happier still, the evening hour would bring 
 To the round table its expected ring; 
 
 And while the punch-bowl's sounding depths were stirred, 
 
 Its silver cherubs smiling as they heard, 
 
 O'er caution's head the blinding hood was flung. 
 
 And friendship loosed the jesses of the tongue." 
 
 Then follows an enumeration, not merely of books, 
 but of printers, Yfhich "I confess," remarks Miss Mit- 
 ford, " took me a little by surprise. I knew that wide 
 readers were widely spread in the United States ; and 
 that there was no lack either of ripe scholars or of ex- 
 tensive libraries. I should have fully expected to find 
 such a man as Dr. Holmes among the buyers of the 
 best works, ancient and modern, but hardly amongst the 
 collectors of choice editions. That, I confess, did give 
 me a very pleasant astonishment. Woman although I 
 be, I have lived enough with such people to hold them 
 in no small reverence. Ay, and I know the Basker- 
 ville Virgil well enough by sight to recognise the won- 
 derful accuracy of the portrait. Is there any thing 
 under the sun that Dr. Holmes cannot paint ? 
 
 * Such the warm life this dim retreat has known, 
 Not quite deserted when its guests were flown ; 
 Nay, filled with friends, an unobtrusive set, 
 Guiltless of calls and cards and etiquette ; 
 BTeady to answer, never known to ask ; 
 Claiming no service, prompt for every task. 
 
INTBOBUCTION 
 
 On those dark shelves no housewife tool profanes, 
 O'er his mute files the monarch folio reigns; 
 A mingled race, the wreck of chance and time, 
 That talk all tongues and breathe of every clime ; 
 Each knows his place, and each may claim his part 
 In some quaint corner of his master's heart. 
 This old Decretal, won from Kloss's hoards, 
 Thick-leafed, brass-cornered, ribbed with oaken boards, 
 Stands the gray patriarch of the graver rows, 
 Its fourth ripe century narrowing to its close. 
 Not daily conned, but glorious still to view, 
 With glistening letters wrought in red and blue, 
 There towers Stagira's all-embracing sage. 
 The Aldine anchor on his opening page. 
 There sleep the births of Plato's heavenly mind. 
 In yon dark tome by jealous clasps confined, 
 " Olim e libris" (dare I call it mine ?) 
 Of Yale's great Head and Killingworth's divine ! 
 In those square sheets the songs of Maro fill 
 The silvery types of smooth-leafed Baskerville ; 
 High over all, in close compact array. 
 Their classic wealth the Elzevirs display. 
 In lower regions of the sacred space 
 Range the dense volumes of a humbler race ; 
 There grim chirurgeons all their mysteries teach 
 In spectral pictures or in crabbed speech ; 
 Harvey and Haller, fresh from Nature's page, 
 Shoulder the dreamers of an earlier age, 
 LuUy and Geber, and the learned crew 
 That loved to talk of all they could not do. 
 
xiv 
 
 INTBODUQTION. 
 
 Why count the rest, — those names of later days 
 That many love and all agree to praise, — 
 Or point the titles where a glance may read 
 The dangerous lines of party or of creed ? 
 Too well, perchance, the chosen list would show 
 What few may care and none can claim to know. 
 Each has his features, whose exterior seal 
 A brush may copy or a sunbeam steal ; 
 Go to his study — on the nearest shelf 
 Stands the mosaic portrait of himself. 
 
 What though for months the tranquil dust descends 
 Whitening the heads of these mine ancient friends, 
 While the damp offspring of the modern press 
 Flaunts on my table with its pictured dress ; 
 Not less I love each dull familiar face, 
 Nor less should miss it from the appointed place; 
 I snatch the book along whose burning leaves 
 His scarlet web our wild romancer weaves, — 
 Yet, while proud Hester's fiery pangs I share, 
 My old Magnalia must be standing there.^ 
 
 " Such is the opening of the * Astrsea.' It speaks 
 much for the man whose affluence of intellect could 
 afford such, an outpouring for a single occasion, the 
 recitation of one solitary evening ; and hardly less for 
 the audience that prompted and welcomed such an effort. 
 
 " Dr. Holmes's Collected Poems is now in the I know 
 not what edition ; for as man and as author he commands 
 an immense popularity in Boston, the capital of litera- 
 
INTBODUCTION, 
 
 XV 
 
 ture in North America. The volume is enriched with 
 an autograph and portrait, both eminently character- 
 istic — the handwriting being clear, free, vigorous, deli- 
 cate, such a hand as could be written by none but an 
 accomplished gentleman ; and the engraving just like 
 the picture which I had painted of him in my own mind. 
 There is a print of Hogarth's, The Election Ball," full 
 of people, with their hats flung into a corner ; and it is 
 said of that print, that every hat could be adjusted to 
 the figure to which it belonged. Now, I feel quite 
 certain that if there were a collection of living authors 
 of all countries. Dr. Holmes's head would be assigned 
 to its right owner ; the features and expression — not 
 according to this system or that, but according to that 
 stamp of character and intellect which we all tacitly 
 recognise — belong so entirely to him individually as we 
 see him in his works." 
 
 In 1852 Dr. Holmes delivered a course of lectures 
 on " The English Poets of the Nineteenth Century." 
 Their style is described as precise and animated, the 
 illustrations sharp and cleanly cut. In the criticism 
 there was a leaning rather to the bold and dashing 
 bravura of Scott and Byron than the calm philosophical 
 mood of Wordsworth. When there was any game on 
 the wing, when the " servile herd" of imitators and the 
 poetasters came in view, they were dropped at once by 
 
/5 
 
 xvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 a felicitous sliot. Each lecture closed with a copy of 
 verses. 
 
 If our author regarded critically the labours of others, 
 we may be pardoned for just one remark concerning a 
 passage in his own poems. Strange to say, the zoology 
 of America seems as little known to her poets as to 
 ours. Years ago Thomas Campbell wrote, 
 
 " On Erie's banks, where tigers steal away;" 
 and Dr. Holmes, though an American born, a member 
 of the medical profession, and a lecturer on poetry, in 
 his poem entitled "A Vision of the Housatonic." 
 writes, 
 
 " Perchance the blue Atlantic's brink, 
 The broad Ohio's gleam, 
 Or where the panther stoops to drink 
 Of wild Missouri*s stream." 
 
 The intelligent reader need scarcely be informed that on 
 the North- American continent there are neither " tigers" 
 nor " panthers," though that description of useless 
 bank-note called " wild-cat" is rather plentiful. 
 
 Mr. Duyckinck, in speaking of our author's publica- 
 tions, very justly pronounces his muse a foe to humbug. 
 " There is," he remarks, " among his poems a profes- 
 sional ballad — the * Stethoscope Song' — descriptive of 
 the practices of a young physician from Paris, who 
 went about knocking the wind out of old ladies, and 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xvii 
 
 terrifying young ones, mistaking all the while a buzzing 
 ay in the instrument for a frightful array of diseases 
 expressed in a variety of French appellations. The 
 exposure of this young man is a hint of the author's 
 process with the social grievances and absurdities of the 
 day. He clears the moral atmosphere of the morbid 
 literary and other pretences afloat. People breathe 
 freer for his verses. They shake the cobwebs out of 
 the system, and keep up in the world that brisk, healthy 
 current of common sense which is to the mind what 
 circulation is to the body. A tincture of the Epicurean 
 philosophy is not a bad corrective of ultraism, Fourier- 
 ism, transcendentalism, and other morbidities. Dr. 
 Holmes sees a thing objectively in the open air, and 
 understands what is due to nature and to the inevitable 
 conventionalisms of society. He is a lover of the fields, 
 trees, and streams, and of out-door life ; but we question 
 whether his muse is ever clearer in its metaphysics than 
 when, on some convivial occasion, it ranges a row of 
 happy faces, reflected in the wax-illuminated plateau of 
 the dining-table.^' 
 
 In look and manner Dr. Holmes is described as the 
 vivacious, sparkling personage his poems would indicate. 
 He excels in singing his own charming songg^ and, 
 with the genius of his country, speaks quite as well as 
 he writes. His smile is easily invoked, he is fond of 
 
 c 
 
xviii 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 puns, inevitable at repartee, and is, perhaps, the most 
 popular person in the city where he resides. It is only 
 in the winter season, however, that he lives in Boston. 
 In summer and autumn the Doctor is at his home on 
 the Housatonic, at Pittsfield, with acres around him 
 inherited from his maternal ancestors, the Wendells, in 
 whom the whole township was once vested. In 1735 
 the Hon. Jacob Wendell bought the township of Pontoo- 
 suc, and his grandson now resides on the remnant of 
 twenty-four thousand ancestral acres — a fact he informs 
 us of in one of his printed addresses. 
 
 There is one author in this country whose literary 
 and social standing amongst us offers many points of 
 resemblance to the career of the American author. Mr. 
 Alexander Smith thus compares the two men: "Dr. 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes seems to occupy much the same 
 position in Boston that Dr. John Brown occupies in 
 Edinburgh. He is a physician, and a skilful one ; he is 
 beloved by all men; he is fond of society; he is a 
 humorist, and rejoices over a joke or a characteristic 
 anecdote as over found treasure; and he excels all his 
 countrymen as a writer of verses of society. Of such 
 verses the basis is good sense, but the good sense must 
 be saved from dulness by a kindly satire, a pleasant 
 music, unexpected rhymes, and a constant flow of witty 
 and fanciful illustrations. It is not necessary that verses 
 
INTEODUCTION. 
 
 of society should be poetry 'all compact,' but it is 
 absolutely necessary that poetry should be there,-— like 
 a flower in the button-hole, like perfume in the hand- 
 kerchief. And for success in compositions of that class 
 Dr. Holmes has all the good sense, all the music, all the 
 unexpected rhymes, all the wit and fancy, and just the 
 exactest proportion of poetry. Since Praed, no one, 
 perhaps, on this side of the water, has cultivated that 
 difficult branch of writing — in which the knowledge of 
 the man of the world and the art of the poet are re- 
 quired in pretty nearly equal proportions — with more 
 success. His * Old Punch-Bowl' is one of his best 
 pieces, and exhibits his best qualities." 
 
 During the winter season Dr. Holmes amuses himself 
 by occasionally delivering lectures in the surrounding 
 villages and towns — a practice not at all unusual with 
 American authors of celebrity, although such a custom 
 does not obtain with us. The anatomy of the popular 
 lecture he is said to understand perfectly — -how large a 
 proportion of wit he may safely associate with the least 
 quantity of dulness. 
 
 In giving this selection from Holmes's poems the 
 title of " Wit and Humour," it is only due to the author 
 to say that almost every composition with which he has 
 hitherto favoured the world might very well be included 
 under such a title, for in all of them the author's 
 
INTBODUOTIOJiT. 
 
 peculiar humour — if not his wit~is apparent. It is 
 very evident that with him most things in this life have 
 a bright as well as a dull side — that tragedy is to 
 comedy but as the turning over of a short page. His 
 delightful poem, " Terpsichore," read on the occasion of 
 an annual celebration, is full of the happiest humour: 
 
 "TERPSICHORE* 
 In narrowest girdle, O reluctant Muse, 
 In closest frock and Cinderella shoes, 
 Bound to the foot-lights for thy brief display, 
 One zephyr step, and then dissolve away ! 
 
 Short is the space that gods and men can spare 
 To Song's twin brother when she is not there. 
 Let others water every lusty hne, 
 As Homer's heroes did their purple wine; 
 Pierian revellers ! Know in strains like these 
 The native juice, the real honest squeeze, — 
 Strains that, diluted to the twentieth power. 
 In yon grave templef might have filled an hour. 
 Small room for Fancy's many-chorded lyre. 
 For Wit's bright rockets with their trains of fire, 
 For Pathos, struggling vainly to surprise 
 The iron tutor's tear- denying eyes. 
 For Mirth, whose finger with delusive wile 
 Turns the grim key of many a rusty smile, 
 
 * Read at the Annual Dinner of the ^. b. k. Society, at Cambridge, 
 August 24, 1843. 
 
 t The Annual Foem is always delivered in the neighbouring church. 
 
INTBODUCTIOK 
 
 For Satire, emptying his corrosive flood 
 
 On hissing Folly's gas-exhaling brood, 
 
 The pun, the fun, the moral and the joke. 
 
 The hit, the thrust, the pugilistic pokej — 
 
 Small space for these, so pressed by niggard Time, 
 
 Like that false matron, known to nursery rhyme, — 
 
 Insidious Morey, — scarce her tale begun. 
 
 Ere listening infants weep the story done. 
 
 Oh, had we room to rip the mighty bags 
 That Time, the harlequin, has stuffed with rags ! 
 Grant us one moment to unloose the strings, 
 While the old gray-beard shuts his leather wings. 
 But what a heap of motley trash appears 
 Crammed in the bundles of successive years ! 
 As the lost rustic on some festal day 
 Stares through the concourse in its vast array, — 
 Where in one cake a throng of faces runs. 
 All stuck together like a sheet of buns, — 
 And throws the bait of some unheeded name. 
 Or shoots a wink with most uncertain aim. 
 So roams my vision, wandering over all, 
 And strives to choose, but knows not where to fall. 
 
 Skins of flayed authors, — husks of dead reviews, — 
 The turn-coat's clothes, — the office-seeker's shoes, — 
 Scraps from cold feasts, where conversation runs 
 Through mouldy toasts to oxydated puns. 
 And grating songs a listening crowd endures, 
 Rasped from the throats of bellowing amateurs ; — 
 Sermons, whose writers plajed such dangerous trick« 
 Their own heresiarchs called them heretics 
 
xxii 
 
 INTBODUCTION 
 
 (Strange that one term such distant poles should link. 
 
 The Priestleyan's copper and the Puseyan's zinc);— 
 
 Poems that shuffle with superfluous legs 
 
 A blindfold minuet over addled eggs, 
 
 Where all the syllables that end in ed, 
 
 Like old dragoons, have cuts across the head 
 
 Essays so dark Champollion might despair 
 
 To guess what mummy of a thought was there. 
 
 Where our poor English, striped with foreign phrase, 
 
 Looks like a Zebra in a parson's chaise ; — 
 
 Lectures that cut our dinners down to roots. 
 
 Or prove (by monkeys) men should stick to fruits ; 
 
 Delusive error, — as at trifling charge 
 
 Professor Gripes will certify at large,— 
 
 Mesmeric pamphlets, which to facts appeal. 
 
 Each fact as slippery as a fresh-caught eel ; — 
 
 And figured heads, whose hieroglyphs invite 
 
 To wandering knaves that discount fools at sight ; — 
 
 Such things as these, with heaps of unpaid bills, 
 
 And candy pus's and homoeopathic pills. 
 
 And ancient bell-crowns with contracted rim, 
 
 And bonnets hideous with expanded brim, 
 
 And coats whose memory turns the sartor pale, 
 
 Their sequels tapering like a lizard's tail ; — 
 
 How might we spread them to the smiling day, 
 
 And toss them, fluttering like the new-mown hay, 
 
 T^o laughter's light or sorrow's pitying shower. 
 
 Were these brief minutes lengthened to an hour. 
 
 The narrow moments fit like Sunday shoes, — 
 How vast the heap, how quickly must we choose ; 
 
INTBODUCTION. 
 
 xxiii 
 
 A few small scraps from out his mountain mass 
 We snatch in haste, and let the vagrant pass. 
 
 This shrunken crust that Cerberus could not bite, 
 Stamped (in one corner) 'Pickwick copyright,' 
 Kneaded by youngsters, raised by flattery's yeast, 
 Was once a loaf, and helped to make a feast. 
 He for whose sake the glittering show appears 
 Has sown the world with laughter and with tears, 
 And they whose welcome wets the bumper's brim 
 Have wit and wisdom, — for they all quote him. 
 So, many a tongue the evening hour prolongs 
 With spangled speeches, — let alone the songs, — 
 Statesmen grow merry, lean attorneys laugh, 
 And weak teetotals warm to half and half. 
 And beardless TuUys, new to festive scenes. 
 Cut their first crop of youth's precocious greens, 
 And wits stand ready for impromptu claps, 
 With loaded barrels and percussion caps. 
 And Pathos, cantering through the minor keys, 
 Waves all her onions to the trembling breeze ; 
 While the great Feasted views with silent glee 
 His scattered limbs in Yankee fricassee. 
 
 Sweet is the scene where genial friendship plays 
 The pleasing game of interchanging praise ; 
 Self-love, grimalkin of the human heart. 
 Is ever pliant to the master's art ; 
 Soothed with a word; she peacefully withdraws 
 And sheathes in velvet her obnoxious claws. 
 And thrills the hand that smooths her glossy fur 
 With the light tremor of her grateful purr. 
 
xxiv 
 
 INTBOBUCTION. 
 
 But what sad music fills the quiet hall, 
 If on her back a feline rival fall ; 
 And, oh, what noises shake the tranquil house. 
 If old Self-interest cheats her of a mouse ! 
 
 Thou, O my country, hast thy foolish ways, 
 Too apt to purr at every stranger's praise ; 
 But, if the stranger touch thy modes or laws. 
 Off goes the velvet and out come the claws ! ' 
 And thou, Illustrious ! but too poorly paid 
 In toasts from Pickwick for thy great crusade. 
 Though, while the echoes laboured with thy name, 
 The public trap denied thy little game, 
 Let other lips our jealous laws revile,—. 
 The marble Talfourd or the rude Carlyle,— 
 But on thy lids, that Heaven forbids to close 
 Where'er the light of kindly nature glows, 
 Let not the dollars that a churl denies 
 Weigh like the shillings on a dead man's eyes! 
 Or, if thou wilt, be more discreetly blind. 
 Nor ask to see all wide extremes combined. 
 Not in our wastes the dainty blossoms smile, 
 That crowd the gardens of thy scanty isle. 
 There white-cheeked Luxury weaves a thousand charms 
 Here sun-browned Labour swings his naked arms. 
 Long are the ftirrows he must trace between 
 The ocean's azure and the prairie's green ; 
 Full many a blank his destined reahn displays, 
 Yet see the promise of his riper days : 
 Far through yon depths the panting engine moves 
 His chariots ringing in their steel-shod grooves ; 
 
INTBODUCTION. 
 
 XXV 
 
 And Erie's naiad flings her diamond wave 
 O'er the wild sea-nymph in her distant cave! 
 While tasks like these employ his anxious hours, 
 What if his corn-fields are not edged with flowers ? 
 Though bright as silver the meridian beams 
 Shine through the crystal of thine English streams, 
 Turbid and dark the mighty wave is whirled 
 That drains our Andes and divides a world! 
 
 But lo ! a PARCHMENT ! Surely it would seem 
 The sculptured impress speaks of power supreme ; 
 Some grave design the s-olemn page must claim 
 That shows so broadly an emblazoned name ; 
 A sovereign's promise ! Look, the lines afford 
 All Honour gives when Caution asks his word; 
 There sacred Faith has laid her snow-white hands, 
 And awful Justice knit her iron bands ; 
 Yet every leaf is stained with treachery's dye, 
 And every letter crusted with a lie. 
 Alas ! no treason has degraded yet 
 The Arab's salt, the Indian's calumet ; 
 A simple rite, that bears the wanderer's pledge. 
 Blunts the keen shaft and turns the dagger's edge ; — 
 While jockeying senates stop to sign and seal, 
 And freeborn statesmen legislate to steal. 
 Rise, Europe, tottering with thine Atlas load. 
 Turn thy proud eye to Freedom's blest abode, 
 And round her forehead, wreathed with heavenly flame, 
 Bind the dark garland of her daughter's shame ! 
 Ye ocean clouds, that wrap the angry blast. 
 Coil her stained ensign round its haughty mast^ 
 
xxvi INTBODUCTIOK 
 
 Or tear the fold that wears so foul a scar, 
 
 And drive a bolt through every blackened star ! 
 
 Once more,^ — once only, — we must stop so soon, — 
 
 What have we here ? A German-silver spoon ; 
 
 A cheap utensil, which we often see 
 
 Used by the dabblers in aesthetic tea ; 
 
 Of slender fabric, somewhat light and thin, 
 
 Made of mixed metal, chiefly lead and tin ; 
 
 The bowl is shallow, and the handle small. 
 
 Marked in large letters with the name Jean Paul, 
 
 Small as it is, its powers are passing strange ; 
 
 For all who use it show a wondrous change ; 
 
 And first, a fact to make the barbers stare, 
 
 It beats Macassar for the growth of hair ; 
 
 See those small youngsters whose expansive ears 
 
 Maternal kindness grazed with frequent shears ; 
 
 Each bristling crop a dangling mass becomes, 
 
 And all the spoonies turn to Absaloms ! 
 
 Nor this alone its magic power displays, 
 
 It alters strangely all their works and ways ; 
 
 With uncouth words they tire their tender lungs, 
 
 The same bald phrases on their hundred tongues ; 
 
 *Ever' *The Ages' in their page appear, 
 
 * Alway' the bedlamite is called a * Seer 
 
 On every leaf the * earnest' sage may scan,— 
 
 Portentous bore ! — their ' many-sided' man, — 
 
 A weak eclectic, groping vague and dim, 
 
 Whose every angle is a half-starved whim, 
 
 Blind as a mole and curious as a lynx, 
 
 Who rides a beetle, which he calls a * Sphinx.' 
 
 And, oh, what questions asked in club-foot rhyme 
 
 Of Earth the tongueless and the deaf-mute Time I 
 
TNTBODUCTION. 
 
 xxvii 
 
 Here babbling ' Insight' shouts in Nature's ears 
 His last conundrum on the orbs and spheres ; 
 There Self-inspection sucks its little thumb, 
 With * Whence am I ?' and * Wherefore did I come T 
 Deluded infants ! will they ever know 
 Some doubts must darken o'er the world below, 
 Though all the Platos of the nursery trail 
 Their ' clouds of glory ' at the go-cart's tail ? 
 Oh, might these couplets their attention claim, 
 That gain their author the Philistine's name 
 (A stubborn race, that, spurning foreign law. 
 Was much belaboured with an ass's jaw) ! 
 
 Melodious Laura ! From the sad retreats 
 That hold thee, smothered with excess of sweets, 
 Shade of a shadow, spectre of a dream. 
 Glance thy wan eye across the Stygian stream ! 
 The slip-shod dreamer treads thy fragrant halls, 
 The sophist's cobwebs hang thy roseate walls. 
 And o'er the crotchets of thy jingling tunes 
 The bard of mystery scrawls his crooked ' runes.* 
 Yes, thou art gone, with all the tuneful hordes 
 That candied thoughts in amber-coloured words. 
 And in the precincts of thy late abodes 
 The clattering verse- wright hammers Orphic odes. 
 Thou, soft as zephyr, wast content to fly 
 On the gilt pinions of a balmy sigh ; 
 He, vast as Phoebus on his burning wheels, 
 Would stride through ether at Orion's heels ; 
 Thy emblem, Laura, was a perfume-jar. 
 And thine, young Orpheus, is a pewter star ; 
 The balance trembles, — be its verdict told 
 When the new jargon slumbers with the old!" 
 
xxviii 
 
 INTBODUCTION. 
 
 A little incident connecting Dr. Holmes's name with 
 that of a distinguished English author may here be men- 
 tioned. Some years ago, when Thackeray's famous 
 ballad of the " Three Sailors" was first printed, an altered 
 copy found its way into the American newspapers, and 
 rumour at once fixed upon Holmes as the author. 
 Whether the Doctor ever wrote such a parody — if not, 
 whether he ever took the trouble to correct popular 
 report — we are not informed. 
 
 A copy of the imitation reached this country, and 
 appeared in a Liverpool newspaper, with Dr. Holmes's 
 name as the author; but Thackeray's own version being 
 well known here — at least, in certain select literary 
 circles — and the verses having just then been printed in 
 a volume of travelUng sketches entitled Sand and Can- 
 vas : a Narrative of Adventures in Egypt ; with a Sojourn 
 among the Artists in Borne, hy Samuel Bevan, an American 
 artist who was prosecuting his studies at Eome, and met 
 Michael Angelo Titmarsh one evening at a students' 
 supper, the true author of the verses was soon publicly 
 declared, and the imitation pointed out. As numerous 
 versions of this comical ditty have appeared of late, it 
 may not be so very much out of place to give Mr. 
 Bevan's corrected text here, especially after our allusion 
 to the ballad. Already grave correspondents are writing 
 to Notes and Queries to know if the air to which the 
 writer was accustomed to chant it among friends, when 
 
INTBODUCTION. 
 
 xxix 
 
 certain small hours of the night had arrived, is preserved. 
 Mr. Bevan had written the verses down from memory 
 when sung by Thackeray at the students' supper before 
 mentioned. The author was not satisfied with the vivd 
 voce copy, so sent the following : 
 
 " The Three Sailors. 
 " There were three sailors in Bristol city, 
 Who took a boat and went to sea. 
 
 " But first with beef and captain's biscuit 
 And pickled pork they loaded she. 
 
 " There was guzzling Jack and gorging Jimmy, 
 And the youngest he was little Bil-/?/. 
 
 " Now very soon, they were so greedy. 
 They didn't leave not one split pea. 
 
 " Says guzzling Jack to gorging Jimmy, 
 
 * I am confounded hung-ery.' 
 
 " Says gorging Jim to guzzling Jacky, 
 
 * We have no wittles, so we must eat we,^ 
 
 " Says guzzling Jack to gorging Jimmy, 
 
 * O gorging Jim, what a fool you be ! 
 
 " * There's little Bill, as is young and tender; 
 We're old and tough ; so let's eat he, 
 
 " ' 0 Bill, we're going to kill and eat you, 
 So imdo the collar of your chemee.' 
 
XXX 
 
 INTBODUCTION. 
 
 " When Bill he heard this information, 
 He used his pocket handkerchee. 
 
 " ' Oh, let me say my catechism, 
 As my poor mammy taught to me.' 
 
 " * Make haste, make haste/ says guzzling Jacky, 
 Whilst Jim pulled out his snickersee. 
 
 " So Bill went up the maintop-gallant mast, 
 Where down he fell on his bended knee. 
 
 " He scarce had said his catechism, 
 When up he jumps, ' There's land I see ! 
 
 " 'There's Jerusalem and Madagascar, 
 And North and South Ameri-^ey. 
 
 " * There's the British fleet a-riding at anchor, 
 With Admiral Napier, K.C.B/ 
 
 " So when they come to the admiral's vessel, 
 He hanged first Jack and flogged ^im-rny ; 
 
 " But as for little Bill, he made him 
 The captain of a seventy-three." 
 
 With the ballad was this note : 
 
 " Dear Bevan, — I don't like the look of the ballad 
 at all in print j but, if you please, prefer to have it in 
 
INTHODUCTIOm 
 
 xxxi 
 
 this way exactly. ^ Be blowed' would never do in a 
 printed ballad of Yours very truly, 
 
 " Wm. M. Thackeray." 
 
 The playfulness of Holmes's genius, however, more 
 closely resembles the delightful humour of many of 
 Hood's poems, than the burlesque fun and quaint parody 
 of Thackeray's inimitable verses. Holmes's humour 
 keeps the gentlest smile upon its countenance, whilst it 
 tickles with the softest feather. Hood's plays with its 
 subject, now tenderly, then boisterously — delighting in 
 the sudden change, and bursting forth into the broad 
 grin of the shiny-faced countryman. Thackeray's wit 
 comes from the mouth of a satirist who keeps a rigid, 
 long-drawn face, and enjoys his fun inwardly and with- 
 out smiles. At its best sallies the eyes open and stare 
 a little more — nothing further. He assumes the charac- 
 ter, and much of our enjoyment of the fun arises from 
 a knowledge that he is only acting the part of the 
 humorist. If the genius presiding over some of Hood's 
 wildest pieces comes to us in uncontrollable laughter, 
 with tears in his eyes and drooles running from the 
 mouth, the countenance of Thackeray's wit is perfectly 
 dry — needing no handkerchief. Holmes's wit lies be- 
 tween the two : the finger may be raised, the hand 
 occasionally waved; but the smile that lights up the 
 
xxxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 face is not sufficient to displace a curl or crease a shirt- 
 collar. It is of that style of light pleasantry which I 
 always imagine must have characterised the best wits 
 of the old days of the Bath pump-chamber and Beau 
 Nash's assembly-rooms, — the days when wits fluttered 
 in society like butterflies from flower to flower, relating 
 the latest hon mot from my lady's tea-table, the last 
 new riddle by the London coach, Dr. Primrose's Oxford 
 epigram, or Sir Jonathan's epitaph on the accident 
 which befell his favourite China punch -bowl— these 
 accompanied by the gentle thrust from a silver-mounted 
 cane, the wily suspense occasioned by the sedate tapping 
 of the gold snufl*-box, and introduced by the careful 
 deposit of hat under arm and the profoundest of polite 
 bows. 
 
 J. C. H. 
 
 Piccadilly. 
 
 I am indebted to Duyckinck's Cyclopcedia of American 
 Literature for some of the particulars of Holmes's literary 
 career, sketched in mere outline in the preceding pages. 
 
HUMOROUS POEMS. 
 
 THE BALLAD OF THE OYSTERMAN. 
 
 JT was a tall young oysterman lived by the river-side, 
 His shop was just upon the bank, his boat was on 
 the tide ; 
 
 The daughter of a fisherman, that was so straight and 
 slim, 
 
 Lived over on the other bank, right opposite to him. 
 
 It was the pensive oysterman that saw a lovely maid, 
 Upon a moonlight evening, a-sitting in the shade; 
 He saw her wave her handkerchief, as much as if to say, 
 " I'm wide awake, young oysteyman, and all the folks 
 
 5J 
 
 D 
 
34 EUMOB 0 US FOEMS. 
 
 Then up arose the oysterman, and to himself said 
 he, 
 
 " I guess I'll leave the skiff at home, for fear that folks 
 should see ; 
 
 I read it in the story-book, that, for to kiss his 
 dear, 
 
 Leander swam the Hellespont,— and I will swim this 
 here." 
 
 And he has leaped into the waves, and crossed the shin- 
 ing stream, 
 
 And he has clambered up the bank, all in the moonlight 
 gleam ; 
 
 Oh, there were kisses sweet as dew, and words as soft as 
 rain, — 
 
 But they have heard her father's step, and in he leaps 
 again ! 
 
 Out spoke the ancient fisherman: " Oh, what was that, 
 
 my daughter?" 
 "'Twas nothing but a pebble, sir, I threw into the 
 
 water." 
 
 " And what is that, pray tell me, love, that paddles off 
 so fast?" 
 
 "It's nothing but a porpoise, sir, that's been a-swimming 
 past." 
 
TEE BALLAD OF THE OYSTEBMAK 35 
 
 Out spoke the ancient fisherman: "Now, bring me my 
 harpoon I 
 
 I'll get into my fishing-boat, and fix the fellow soon." 
 Down fell that pretty innocent, as falls a snow-white 
 lamb ; 
 
 Her hair drooped round her pallid cheeks, like seaweed 
 on a clam. 
 
 Alas for those two loving ones I she waked not from her 
 swound, 
 
 And he was taken with the cramp, and in the waves was 
 drowned j 
 
 But Fate has metamorphosed them, in pity of their woe, 
 And now they keep an oyster-shop for mermaids down 
 below. 
 
TO AN INSECT. 
 
 J LOVE to hear thine earnest voice, 
 
 Wherever thou art hid, 
 Thou testy little dogmatist, 
 
 Thou pretty Katydid ! 
 Thou mindest me of gentlefolks, — 
 
 Old gentlefolks are they, — 
 Thou say' St an undisputed thing 
 
 In such a solemn way. 
 
 Thou art a female, Katydid I 
 
 I know it by the trill 
 That quivers through thy piercing notes, 
 
 So petulant and shrilL 
 I think there is a knot of you 
 
 Beneath the hollow tree, — 
 A knot of spinster Katydids, — 
 
 Do Katydids drink tea ? 
 
TO AN INSECT, 
 
 Oh, tell me where did Katy live, 
 
 And what did Katy do? 
 And was she very fair and young, 
 
 And yet so wicked too ? 
 Did Katy love a naughty man, 
 
 Or kiss more cheeks than one? 
 I warrant Katy did no more 
 
 Than many a Kate has done. 
 
 Dear me I I'll tell you all about 
 
 My fuss with little Jane, . 
 And Ann, with whom I used to walk 
 
 So often down the lane. 
 And all that tore their locks of black, 
 
 Or wet their eyes of blue, — 
 Pray tell me, sweetest Katydid, 
 
 What did poor Katy do? 
 
 Ah, no 1 the living oak shall crash, 
 
 That stood for ages still, 
 The rock shall rend its mossy base 
 
 And thunder down the hill, 
 Before the little Katydid 
 
 Shall add one word, to tell 
 The mystic story of the maid 
 
 Whose name she knows so well. 
 
HUMOBOUS POEMS 
 
 Peace to the ever-murinuring race ! 
 
 And when the latest one 
 Shall fold in death her feeble wings 
 
 Beneath the autumn sun, 
 Then shall she raise her fainting voice, 
 
 And lift her drooping lid, 
 And then the child of future years 
 
 Shall hear what Katy did. 
 
THE DILEMMA. 
 
 OW, by the blessed Paphian queen, 
 
 Who heaves the breast of sweet sixteen 
 
 By all that thrills the beating heart ; 
 The bright black eye, the melting blue, — 
 I cannot choose between the two. 
 
 I had a vision in my dreams ; — 
 I saw a row of twenty beams j 
 From every beam a rope was hung, 
 In every rope a lover swung ; 
 I asked the hue of every eye. 
 That bade each luckless lover die ; 
 Ten shaiowy lips said, heavenly blue, 
 And ten accused the darker hue. 
 
 By every name I cut on bark 
 Before my morning star grew dark ; 
 By Hymen's torch, by Cupid's dart. 
 
40 
 
 HUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 I asked a matron wliicli she deemed 
 
 With fairest light of beauty beamed ; 
 
 She answered, some thought both were fair, — 
 
 Give her blue eyes and golden hair. 
 
 I might have liked her judgment well, 
 
 But, as she spoke, she rang the bell, 
 
 And all her girls, nor small nor few, 
 
 Came marching in,— their eyes were blue. 
 
 I asked a maiden ; back she flung 
 
 The locks that round her forehead hung. 
 
 And turned her eye, a glorious one, 
 
 Bright as a diamond in the sun. 
 
 On me, until beneath its rays 
 
 I felt as if my hair would blaze ; 
 
 She liked all eyes but eyes of green ; 
 
 She looked at me, — what could she mean? 
 
 Ah ! many lids Love lurks between, 
 Nor heeds the colouring of his screen ; 
 And when his random arrows fly. 
 The victim falls, but knows not why. 
 Gaze not upon his shield of jet, 
 The shaft upon the string is set ; 
 Look not beneath his azure veil, 
 Though every limb were cased in mail. 
 
THE DILE3IMA. 
 
 Well, both might make a martyr break 
 The chain that bound him to the stake ; 
 And both, with but a single ray, 
 Can melt our very hearts away ; 
 And both, when balanced, hardly seem 
 To stir the scales, or rock th« beam ; 
 But that is dearest, all the while, 
 That wears for us the sweetest smile. 
 
DAILY TRIALS. 
 
 BY A SENSITIVE MAN. 
 
 QH, there are times 
 
 When all this fret and tumult that we hear 
 Do seem more stale than to the sexton's ear 
 His own dull chimes. 
 
 Ding dong ! ding dong ! 
 The world is in a simmer like a sea 
 Over a pent volcano, — woe is me 
 
 All the day long ! 
 
 From crib to shroud ! 
 Nurse o'er our cradles screameth lullaby, 
 And friends in boots tramp round us as we die, 
 
 Snuffling aloud. 
 
 At morning's call 
 The small- voiced pug-dog welcomes in the sun, 
 And flea-bit mongrels, wakening one by one. 
 
 Give answer all. 
 
DAILY TBIALS. 
 
 43 
 
 When evening dim 
 Draws round us, then the lonely caterwaul, 
 Tart solo, sour duet, and general squall, — 
 
 These are our hymn. 
 
 Women, with tongues 
 Like polar needles, ever on the jar, — 
 Men, plugless word-spouts, whose deep fountains are 
 
 Within their lungs. 
 
 Children, with drums 
 Strapped round them by the fond paternal ass, 
 Peripatetics with a blade of grass 
 
 Between their thumbs. 
 
 Vagrants, whose arts 
 Have caged some devil in their mad machine, 
 Which grinding, squeaks, with husky groans between, 
 
 Come out by starts. 
 
 Cockneys that kill 
 Thin horses of a Sunday, — men with clams. 
 Hoarse as young bisons roaring for their dams 
 
 From hill to hill. 
 
jIUMOROUS POEMS. 
 
 Soldiers, with guns, 
 Making a nuisance of the blessed air ; 
 Child-crying bellmen, children in despair, 
 
 Screeching for buns. 
 
 Storms, thunders, waves ! 
 Howl, crash, and bellow till ye get your fill 
 Te sometimes rest ; men never can be still 
 
 But in their graves. 
 
TO THE PORTRAIT OF ^'A LADY.' 
 
 IN THE ATHEN^UM GALLERY. 
 
 l^ELLy Miss, I wonder where you live, 
 
 I wonder what's your name, 
 I wonder how you came to be 
 
 In such a stylish frame ; 
 Perhaps you were a favourite child, 
 
 Perhaps an only one ; 
 Perhaps your friends were not aware 
 
 You had your portrait done I 
 
 Yet you must be a harmless soul ; 
 
 I cannot think that Sin 
 Would care to throw his loaded dice, 
 
 With such a stake to win ; 
 I cannot think you would provoke 
 
 The poet's wicked pen, 
 Or make young women bite their lips, 
 
 Or ruin fine young men. 
 
HUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 Pray, did you ever hear, my love, 
 
 Of boys that go about, 
 Who, for a very trifling sum, 
 
 Will snip one's picture out ? 
 I'm not averse to red and white. 
 
 But all things have their place, — 
 I think a profile cut in black 
 
 Would suit your style of face ? 
 
 I love sweet features ; I will own 
 
 That I should like myself 
 To see my portrait on a wall. 
 
 Or bust upon a shelf ; 
 But nature sometimes makes one up 
 
 Of such sad odds and ends. 
 It really might be quite as well 
 
 Hushed up among one's friends I 
 
REFLECTIONS OF A PROUD PEDESTRIAN. 
 
 J SAW the curl of his waving lash, 
 
 And the glance of his knowing eye, 
 And I knew that he thought he was cutting a dash, 
 As his steed went thundering by. 
 
 And he may ride in the rattling gig, 
 
 Or flourish the Stanhope gay, 
 And dream that he looks exceeding big 
 
 To the people that walk in the way ; 
 
 But he shall think, when the night is still, 
 On the stable-boy's gathering numbers, 
 
 And the ghost of many a veteran bill 
 Shall hover around his slumbers ; 
 
 The ghastly dun shall worry his sleep. 
 And constables cluster around him, 
 
 And he shall creep from the wood-hole deep 
 Where their spectre eyes have found him ! 
 
HUMOROUS POEMS. 
 
 Ay ! gather your reins, and crack your thong, 
 
 And bid your steed go faster ; 
 He does not know, as he scrambles along. 
 
 That he has a fool for his master ; 
 
 And hurry away on your lonely ride, 
 Nor deign from the mire to save me ; 
 
 I will paddle it stoutly at your side 
 
 With the tandem that nature gave me I 
 
THE DORCHESTER GIANT. 
 
 ^HERE was a giant in time of old, 
 
 A mighty cine was he ; 
 He had a wife, but she was a scold. 
 So he kept her shut in his mammoth fold ; 
 And he had children three. 
 
 It happened to be an election day, 
 
 And the giants were choosing a king; 
 The people were not democrats then,— 
 They did not talk of the rights of men. 
 
 And all that sort of thing. 
 
 Then the giant took his children three. 
 
 And fastened them in the pen • 
 The children roared; quoth thegLnt, "Be still J 
 And Dorchester Heights and Milton Hill 
 
 Rolled back the sound again. 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 HVMOB 0 US POEMS. 
 
 Then lie brought them a pudding stufFed with plums, 
 
 As big as the State-House dome ; 
 Quoth he, " There's something for you to eat ; 
 So stop your mouths with your 'lection treat, 
 
 And wait till your dad comes home." 
 
 So the giant pulled him a chestnut stout. 
 
 And whittled the boughs away ; 
 The boys and their mother set up a shout; 
 Said he, " You're in, and you can't get out, 
 
 Bellow as loud as you may." 
 
 Off he went, and he growled a tune 
 
 As he strode the fields along ; 
 'Tis said a buffalo fainted away. 
 And fell as cold as a lump of clay. 
 
 When he heard the giant's song. 
 
 But whether the story's true or not, 
 
 It is not for me to show ; 
 There's many a thing that's twice as queer 
 In somebody's lectures that we hear. 
 
 And those are true, you know. 
 
 « * * * * * 
 
THE DORCHESTER GIANT. 
 
 What are those lone ones doing now, 
 The wife and the children sad ? 
 
 Oh, they are in a terrible rout, 
 
 Screaming, and throwing their pudding about. 
 Acting as they were mad. 
 
 They flung it over to Koxbury hills, 
 
 They flung it over the plain, 
 And all over Milton and Dorchester too 
 Great lumps of pudding the giants threw ; 
 
 They tumbled as thick as rain. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Giant and mammoth have passed away, 
 
 For ages have floated by ; 
 The suet is hard as a marrow-bone, 
 And every plum is turned to a stone, 
 
 But there the puddings lie. 
 
 And if, some pleasant afternoon, 
 
 You'll ask me out to ride. 
 The whole of the story I will tell. 
 And you shall see where the puddings fell, 
 
 And pay for the punch beside. 
 
THE MUSIC-GRINDERS. 
 
 'JpHERE are three ways in which men take 
 
 One's money from his purse, 
 And very hard it is to tell 
 
 Which of the three is worse ; 
 But all of them are bad enough 
 
 To make a body curse. 
 
 You're riding out some pleasant day, 
 
 And counting up your gains ; 
 A fellow jumps from out a bush, 
 
 And takes your horse's reins, 
 Another hints some words about 
 
 A bullet in your brains. 
 
 It's hard to meet such pressing friends 
 
 In such a lonely spot ; 
 It's very hard to lose your cash, 
 
 But harder to be shot ; 
 And so you take your wallet out, 
 
 Though you would rather not. 
 
TEE MUSiaGBINDEBS. 
 
 Perhaps you're going out to dine, — 
 Some filthy creature begs 
 
 You'll hear about the cannon-ball 
 That carried off his pegs, 
 
 And says it is a dreadful thing 
 For men to lose their legs. 
 
 He tells you of his starving wife, 
 His children to be fed, — 
 
 Poor little, lovely innocents, 
 All clamorous for bread, — 
 
 And so you kindly help to put 
 A bachelor to bed. 
 
 You're sitting on your window-seat, 
 Beneath a cloudless moon ; 
 
 You hear a sound that seems to wear 
 The semblance of a tune. 
 
 As if a broken fife should strive 
 To drown a cracked bassoon. 
 
 And nearer, nearer still the tide 
 
 Of music seems to come : 
 There's something like a human voice, 
 
 And something like a drum ; 
 You sit in speechless agony. 
 
 Until your ear is numb. 
 
HUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 Poor " home, sweet home" should seem to be 
 
 A very dismal place ; 
 Your **auld acquaintance" all at once 
 
 Is altered in the face ; 
 Their discords sting through Burns and Moore, 
 
 Like hedgehogs dressed in lace. 
 
 You think they are crusaders sent 
 
 From some infernal clime, 
 To pluck the eyes of Sentiment, 
 
 And dock the tail of Rhyme, 
 To crack the voice of Melody, 
 
 And break the legs of Time. 
 
 But hark ! the air again is still, 
 
 The music all is ground. 
 And silence, like a poultice, comes 
 
 To heal the blows of sound ; 
 It cannot be, — it is, — it is, — 
 
 A hat is going round ! 
 
 No ! Pay the dentist when he leaves 
 
 A fracture in your jaw, 
 And pay the owner of the bear 
 
 That stunned you with his paw, 
 And buy the lobster that has had 
 
 Your knuckles in his claw ; 
 
THE MUSI0-QBIKDEB8. 55 
 
 But if you are a portly man, 
 
 Put on your fiercest frown, 
 And talk about a constable 
 
 To turn them out of town ; 
 Then close your sentence with an oath, 
 
 And shut the window down ! 
 
 And if you are a slender man, 
 
 Not big enough for that. 
 Or if you cannot make a speech, 
 
 Because you are a flat, 
 Go very quietly and drop 
 
 A button in the hat I 
 
THE SEPTEMBER GALE. 
 
 J>M not a chicken ; I have seen 
 
 Full many a chill September, 
 And though I was a youngster then, 
 
 That gale I well remember ; 
 The day before my kite-string snapped, 
 
 And I my kite pursuing, 
 The wind whisked off my palm-leaf hat : 
 
 For me two storms were brewing ! 
 
 It came as quarrels sometimes do. 
 
 When married folks get clashing ; 
 There was a heavy sigh or two, 
 
 Before the fire was flashing, — 
 A little stir among the clouds. 
 
 Before they rent asunder, — 
 A little rocking of the trees, 
 
 And then came on the thunder. 
 
THE SEPTEMBEB GALE, 
 
 Lord ! how the ponds and rivers boiled, 
 
 And how the shingles rattled ! 
 And oaks were scattered on the ground, 
 
 As if the Titans battled ; 
 And all above was in a howl, 
 
 And all below a clatter, — 
 The earth was like a frying-pan, 
 
 Or some such hissing matter. 
 
 It chanced to be our washing-day. 
 
 And all our things were drying : 
 The storm came roaring through the lines. 
 
 And set them all a-flying ; 
 I saw the shirts and petticoats 
 
 Go riding off like witches ; 
 I lost — ah ! bitterly I wept — 
 
 I lost my Sunday breeches ! 
 
 I saw them straddling through the air, 
 
 Alas ! too late to win them ; 
 I saw them chase the clouds, as if 
 
 The devil had been in them ; 
 They were my darlings and my pride. 
 
 My boyhood's only riches, — 
 "Farewell, farewell," I faintly cried,— 
 
 " My breeches ! O my breeches !" 
 
HUMOBOUS POEMS, 
 
 That night I saw them in my dreams, 
 
 How changed from what I knew them ! 
 The dews had steeped their faded threads, 
 
 The winds had whistled through them ! 
 I saw the wide and ghastly rents 
 
 Where demon-claws had torn them ; 
 A hole was in their amplest part, 
 
 As if an imp had worn them. 
 
 I have had many happy years, 
 
 And tailors kind and clever, 
 But those young pantaloons have gone 
 
 For ever and for ever ! 
 And not till Fate has cut the last 
 
 Of all my earthly stitches, 
 This aching heart shall cease to mourn ' 
 
 My loved, my long-lost breeches ! 
 
THE TOADSTOOL. 
 
 ^HERE'S a thing tliat grows by the fainting flower, 
 
 And springs in the shade of the lady's bower ; 
 The lily shrinks and the rose turns pale, 
 When they feel its breath in the summer gale, 
 And the tulip curls its leaves in pride, 
 And the blue-eyed violet starts aside ; 
 But the lily may flaunt, and the tulip stare, 
 For what does the honest toadstool care ? 
 
 She does not glow in a painted vest. 
 
 And she never blooms on the maiden's breast ; 
 
 But she comes, as the saintly sisters do, 
 
 In a modest suit of a Quaker hue. 
 
 And when the stars in the evening skies 
 
 Are weeping dew from their gentle eyes. 
 
 The toad comes out from his hermit cell, 
 
 The tale of his faithful love to tell. 
 
60 
 
 HUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 Oh, there is light in her lover's glance, 
 That flies to her heart like a silver lance ; 
 His breeches are made of spotted skin, 
 His jacket is tight, and his pumps are thin ; 
 In a cloudless night you may hear his song. 
 As its pensive melody floats along. 
 And if you will look by the moonlight fair, 
 The trembling form of the toad is there. 
 
 And he twines his arms round her slender stem, 
 In the shade of her velvet diadem ; 
 But she turns away in her maiden shame, 
 And will not breathe on the kindling flame ; 
 He sings at her feet through the livelong night, 
 And creeps to his cave at the break of light ; 
 And whenever he comes to the air above, 
 His throat is swelling with baffled love. 
 
 ^^^^ 
 
THE SPECTRE PIG. 
 
 A BALLAD. 
 
 JT was the stalwart butcher man 
 That knit his swarthy brow, 
 
 And said the gentle Pig must die, 
 And sealed it with a vow. 
 
 And, oh ! it was the gentle Pig 
 Lay stretched upon the ground ; 
 
 And, ah ! it was the cruel knife 
 His little heart that found. 
 
 They took him then, those wicked men, 
 They trailed him all along ; 
 
 They put a stick between his lips, 
 And through his heels a thong ; 
 
 And round and round an oaken beam 
 A hempen cord they flung, 
 
 And, like a mighty pendulum. 
 All solemnly he swung ! 
 
EUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 Now say thy prayers, thou sinful man, 
 And think what thou hast done, 
 
 And read thy catechism well, 
 Thou bloody-minded one; 
 
 For if his sprite should walk by night, 
 
 It better were for thee 
 That thou wert mouldering in the ground, 
 
 Or bleaching in the sea. 
 
 It was the savage butcher then 
 
 That made a mock of sin. 
 And swore a very wicked oath 
 
 He did not care a pin. 
 
 It was the butcher's youngest son, — 
 His voice was broke with sighs. 
 
 And with his pocket-handkerchief 
 He wiped his little eyes ; 
 
 All young and ignorant was he, 
 
 But innocent and mild ; 
 And, in his soft simplicity, 
 
 Out spoke the tender child : — 
 
THE SPECTBE PIG, 
 
 " 0 father, father, list to me ; 
 
 The Pig is deadly sick, 
 And men have hung him by his heels, 
 
 And fed him with a stick." 
 
 It was the bloody butcher then 
 That laughed as he would die ; 
 
 Yet did he soothe the sorrowing child, 
 And bid him not to cry: — 
 
 " 0 Nathan, Nathan, what's a Pig, 
 That thou shouldst weep and wail ? 
 
 Come, bear thee like a butcher's child, 
 And thou shalt have his tail !" 
 
 It was the butcher's daughter then, 
 
 So slender and so fair, 
 That sobbed as if her heart would break, 
 
 And tore her yellow hair; 
 
 And thus she spoke in thrilling tone, — 
 Fast fell the tear-drops big : — 
 
 " Ah I woe is me ! Alas ! alas ! 
 The Pig ! the Pig ! the Pig!" 
 
HUMOROUS POEMS, 
 
 Then did her wicked father's lips 
 
 Make merry with her woe, 
 And call her many a naughty name, 
 
 Because she whimpered so. 
 
 Ye need not weep, ye gentle ones, — 
 
 In vain your tears are shed ; 
 Ye cannot wash his crimson hand, 
 
 Ye cannot soothe the dead. 
 
 The bright sun folded on his breast 
 
 His robes of rosy flame. 
 And softly over all the west 
 
 The shades of evening came. 
 
 He slept, and troops of murdered Pigs 
 
 Were busy with his dreams ; 
 Loud rang their wild, unearthly shrieks, 
 
 Wide yawned their mortal seams. 
 
 The clock struck twelve j the Dead hath heard ; 
 
 He opened both his eyes. 
 And sullenly he shook his tail 
 
 To lash the feeding flies. 
 
THE SPECTBE PIG. 
 
 65 
 
 One quiver of the hempen cord,— 
 One struggle and one bound,— 
 
 With stiffened limb and leaden eye 
 The Pig was on the ground ! 
 
 . And straight towards the sleeper's house 
 His fearful way he wended ; 
 And hooting owl and hovering bat 
 On midnight wing attended. 
 
 Back flew the bolt, up rose the latch, 
 
 And open swung the door, 
 And little mincing feet were heard 
 
 Pat, pat along the floor. 
 
 Two hoofs upon the sanded floor, 
 
 And two upon the bed; 
 And they are breathing side by side, 
 
 The living and the dead I 
 
 " Now wake, now wake, thou butcher man I 
 What makes thy cheek so pale? 
 
 Take hold, take hold 1 thou dost not fear 
 To clasp a spectre's tail ?" 
 
 F 
 
HUMOROUS POEMS. 
 
 Untwisted every winding coil; 
 
 The shuddering wretch took hold ; 
 All like an icicle it seemed, 
 
 So tapering and so cold. 
 
 " Thou com'st with me, thou butcher man ]" — 
 
 He strives to loose his grasp, 
 But, faster than the clinging vine, 
 
 Those twining spirals clasp. 
 
 And open, open swung the door, 
 
 And, fleeter than the wind, 
 The shadowy spectre swept before, 
 
 The butcher trailed behind. 
 
 . Fast fled the darkness of the night. 
 And morn rose faint and dim ; 
 
 They called full loud, they knocked full long, 
 
 They did not waken him. 
 
 Straight, straight towards that oaken beam, 
 
 A trampled pathway ran ; 
 A ghastly shape was swinging there, — 
 
 It was the butcher man. 
 
THE TREADMILL SONG. 
 
 ^HE stars are rolling in the sky, 
 
 The earth rolls on below, 
 And we can feel the rattling wheel 
 
 Revolving as we go. 
 Then tread away, my gallant boys, 
 
 And make the axle fly; 
 Why should not wheels go round about, 
 
 Like planets in the sky ? 
 
 Wake up, wake up, my duck-legged man. 
 
 And stir your solid pegs ! 
 Arouse, arouse, my gawky friend, 
 
 And shake your spider legs ; 
 What though you're awkward at the trade, 
 
 There's time enough to learn, — 
 So lean upon the rail, my lad. 
 
 And take another turn. 
 
HUM OB 0 US Fi)EMS. 
 
 TheyVe built us up a noble wall, 
 
 To keep the vulgar out ; 
 We've nothing in the world to do, 
 
 But just to walk about; 
 So faster, now, you middle men. 
 
 And try to beat the ends, — 
 It's pleasant work to ramble round 
 
 Among one's honest friends. 
 
 Here, tread upon the long man's toes, 
 
 He sha'n't be lazy here, — 
 And pimch the little fellow's ribs, 
 
 And tweak that lubber's ear, — 
 He's lost them both, — don't pull his hair, 
 
 Because he wears a scratch. 
 But poke him in the further eye, 
 
 That isn't in the patch. 
 
 Hark ! fellows, there's the supper-bell, 
 
 And so our work is done; 
 It's pretty sport, — suppose we take 
 
 A round or two for fun ! 
 If ever they should turn me out 
 
 When I have better grown. 
 Now hang me, but I mean to have 
 
 A treadmill of my own ! 
 
MY AUNT. 
 
 jp^Y aunt ! my dear unmarried aunt ! 
 
 Long years have o'er her flown ! 
 Yet still she strains the aching clasp 
 
 That binds her virgin zone ; 
 I know it hurts her, — though she looks 
 
 As cheerful as she can ; 
 Her waist is ampler than her life, 
 
 For life is but a span. 
 
 My aunt ! my poor deluded aunt ! 
 
 Her hair is almost gray; 
 Why will she train that winter curl 
 
 In such a spring-like way ? 
 How can she lay her glasses down, 
 
 And say she reads as well. 
 When, through a double convex lens, 
 
 She just makes out to spell ? 
 
HUMOBOUS FOE MS 
 
 Her father — grandpapa ! forgive 
 
 This erring lip its smiles — 
 Vowed she should make the finest girl 
 
 Within a hundred miles j 
 He sent her to a stylish school — 
 
 'Twas in her thirteenth June — 
 And with her, as the rules required, 
 
 " Two towels and a spoon." 
 
 They braced my aunt against a board, 
 
 To make her straight and tall ; 
 They laced her up, they starved her down, 
 
 To make her light and small; 
 They pinched her feet, they singed her hair, 
 
 They screwed it up with pins j — 
 Oh, never mortal suffered more 
 
 In penance for her sins. 
 
 So, when my precious aunt was done. 
 
 My grandsire brought her back 
 (By daylight, lest some rabid youth 
 
 Might follow on the track); 
 " Ah," said my grandsire, as he shook 
 
 Some powder in his pan, 
 " What could this lovely creature do 
 
 Against a desperate man !" 
 
MY AUNT. 
 
 Alas ! nor chariot, nor barouche, 
 
 Nor bandit cavalcade, 
 Tore from the trembling father's arms 
 
 His all-accomplished maid. 
 For her how happy had it been ! 
 
 And Heaven had spared to me 
 To see one sad, ungathered rose 
 
 On my ancestral tree. 
 
LINES 
 
 RECITED AT THE BERKSHIRE FESTIVAL. 
 
 ^OME back to your mother, ye children, for shame, 
 Who have wandered like truants, for riches or 
 fame ! 
 
 With a smile on her face, and a sprig in her cap, 
 She calls you to feast from her bountiful lap. 
 
 Come out from your alleys, your courts, and your lanes. 
 And breathe, like young eagles, the air of our plains ; 
 Take a whiff from our fields, and your excellent wives 
 Will declare it's all nonsense insuring your lives. 
 
 Come you of the law, who can talk, if you please, 
 Till the man of the moon will allow if s a cheese, 
 And leave " the old lady that never tells lies," 
 To sleep with her handkerchief over her eyes. 
 
LINES, 
 
 73 
 
 Ye healers of men, for a moment decline 
 Your feats in the rhubarb and ipecac line ; 
 While you shut up your turnpike, your neighbours can 
 go 
 
 The old roundabout road to the regions below. 
 
 You clerk, on whose ears are a couple of pens, 
 And whose head is an ant-hill of units and tens ; 
 Though Plato denies you, we welcome you still 
 As a featherless biped, in spite of your quill. 
 
 Poor drudge of the city! how happy he feels, 
 
 With the burs on his legs, and the grass at his heels I 
 
 No dodger behind, his bandannas to share, 
 
 No constable grumbling, " You mustn't walk there !" 
 
 In yonder green meadow, to memory dear, 
 
 He slaps a mosquito, and brushes a tear ; 
 
 The dew-drops hang round him on blossoms and shoots; 
 
 He breathes but one sigh for his youth and his boots. 
 
 There stands the old school-house, hard by the old 
 church ; 
 
 That tree at its side had the flavour of birch ; 
 Oh, sweet were the days of his juvenile tricks. 
 Though the prairie of youth had so many " big licks.'' 
 
74 
 
 HUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 By the side of yon river he weeps and he slumps ; 
 The boots fill with water, as if they were pumps ; 
 Till, sated with rapture, he steals to his bed. 
 With a glow in his heart, and a cold in his head. 
 
 'Tis past, — ^he is dreaming, — I see him again ; 
 The ledger returns as by legerdemain ; 
 His neckcloth is damp with an easterly flaw, 
 And he liolds in his fingers an omnibus straw. 
 
 He dreams the chill gust is a blossomy gale. 
 That the straw is a rose from his dear native vale ; 
 And murmurs, unconscious of space and of time, 
 "A 1. Extra-super. Ah, isn't it PRniE !" 
 
 Oh, what are the prizes we perish to win 
 
 To the first little " shiner" we caught with a pin ! 
 
 No soil upon earth is so dear to our eyes 
 
 As the soil we first stirred in terrestrial pies ! 
 
 Then come from all parties and parts to our feast ; 
 Though not at the " Astor," we'll give you at least 
 A bite at an apple, a seat on the grass, 
 And the best of old — water, at nothing a glass. 
 
VERSES FOR AFTER-DINNER. 
 
 B K SOCIETY, 1844. 
 
 J WAS thinking last night, as I sat in the cars, 
 
 With the charmingest prospect of cinders and stars, 
 Next Thursday is— bless me ! — how hard it will be, 
 If that cannibal president calls upon me ! 
 
 There is nothing on earth that he will not devour, 
 From a tutor in seed to a freshman in flower ; 
 No sage is too gray, and no youth is too green. 
 And you can't be too plump, though you're never too 
 lean. 
 
 While others enlarge on the boiled and the roast, 
 He serves a raw clergyman up with a toast, 
 Or catches some doctor, quite tender and young, 
 And basely insists on a bit of his tongue. 
 
76 
 
 HUM OB 0 US POEMS. 
 
 Poor victim, prepared for his classical spit, 
 
 With a stuffing of praise, and a basting of wit, 
 
 You may twitch at your collar, and wrinkle your brow, 
 
 But you're up on your legs, and you're in for it now. 
 
 Oh, think of your friends, — ^they are waiting to hear 
 Those jokes that are thought so remarkably queer ; 
 And all the Jack Horners of metrical buns 
 Are prying and fingering to pick out the puns. 
 
 Those thoughts which, like chickens, will always thrive 
 best 
 
 When reared by the heat of the natural nest, 
 Will perish if hatched from their embryo dream 
 In the midst and the glow of convivial steam. 
 
 Oh, pardon me, then, if I meekly retire, 
 With a very small flash of ethereal fire ; 
 No rubbing will kindle your Lucifer match, 
 If the/;2? does not follow the primitive scratch. 
 
 Dear friends, who are listening so sweetly the while, 
 With your lips double reefed in a snug little smile, 
 I leave you two fables, both drawn from the deep,— 
 The shells you can drop, but the pearls you may keep. 
 ****** 
 
VEBSES FOB AFTEB-DINNJER. 77 
 
 The fish called the Flounder, perhaps you may know, 
 
 Has one side for use and another for show ; 
 
 One side for the public, a delicate brown, 
 
 And one that is white, which he always keeps down. 
 
 A very young flounder, the flattest of flats 
 (And they're none of them thicker than opera hats). 
 Was speaking more freely than charity taught 
 Of a friend and relation that just had been caught. 
 
 " My ! what an exposure ! just see what a sight ! 
 I blush for my race,— he is showing his white ! 
 Such spinning and wriggling,— why, what does he wish? 
 How painfully small to respectable fish I" 
 
 Then said an old Sculpin : " My freedom excuse. 
 But you're playing the cobbler with holes in your shoes; 
 Your brown side is up,— but just wait till you're tried, 
 And you'll find that aU flounders are white on one side." 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 There's a slice near the Pickerel's pectoral fins. 
 Where the thorax leaves off" and the venter begins. 
 Which his brother, survivor of fish-hooks and lines, 
 Though fond of his family, never declines. 
 
78 
 
 EUM0B0U8 POEMS, 
 
 He loves his relations ; he feels they'll be missed ; 
 But that one little tit-bit he cannot resist ; 
 So your bait may be swallowed, no matter how fast, 
 For you catch your next fish with a piece of the last. 
 
 And thus, O survivor, whose merciless fate 
 Is to take the next hook with the president's bait. 
 You are lost while you snatch from the end of his line 
 The morsel he rent from this bosom of mine. 
 
A SONG 
 
 FOR THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF HARVARD COLLEGE, 
 
 Our hills and swamps to clear. 
 The woods were full of catamounts, 
 
 And Indians red as deer, 
 With tomahawks and scalping-knives, 
 
 That make folks' heads look queer ; — 
 Oh, the ship from England used to bring 
 A hundred wigs a year I 
 
 The crows came cawing through the air 
 
 To pluck the pilgrims* corn, 
 The bears came snuffing round the door 
 
 Whene'er a babe was born, 
 The rattlesnakes were bigger round 
 
 Than the but of the old ram's horn 
 The deacon blew at meeting time 
 
 On every " Sabbath" morn. 
 
 1836. 
 
 "HEN the Puritans came over. 
 
HUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 But soon they knocked the wigwams down, 
 
 And pine-tree trunk and limb 
 Began to sprout among the leaves 
 
 In shape of steeples slim ; 
 And out the little wharves were stretched 
 
 Along the ocean's rim, 
 And up the little schoolhouse shot, 
 
 To keep the boys in trim. 
 
 And when at length the College rose, 
 
 The sachem cocked his eye 
 At every tutor's meagre ribs 
 
 Whose coat-tails whistled by ; 
 But when the Greek and Hebrew words 
 
 Came tumbling from their jaws. 
 The copper-coloured children all 
 
 Ean screaming to the squaws. 
 
 And who was on the Catalogue 
 
 When college was begun ? 
 Two nephews of the President, 
 
 And the Professor's son 
 (They turned a little Indian by, 
 
 As brown as any bun) ; 
 Lord ! how the seniors knocked about 
 
 The freshman class of one ! 
 
A CENTENNIAL SONG, 
 
 81 
 
 They had not then the dainty things 
 
 That commons now afford, 
 But succotash and homony 
 
 Were smoking on the board ; 
 They did not rattle round in gigs, 
 
 Or dash in long-tail blues, 
 But always on Commencement days 
 
 The tutors blacked their shoes. 
 
 God bless the ancient Puritans ! 
 
 Their lot was hard enough ; 
 But honest hearts make iron arms, 
 
 And tender maids are tough ; 
 So love and faith have formed and fed 
 
 Our true-born Yankee stuff. 
 And keep the kernel in the shell 
 
 The British found so rough I 
 
EVENING. 
 
 BY A TAILOR. 
 
 DAY hath put on his jacket, and around 
 His burning bosom buttoned it with stars. 
 Here will I lay me on the velvet grass, 
 That is like padding to earth's meagre ribs, 
 And hold communion with the things about me. 
 Ah me ! how lovely is the golden braid 
 That binds the skirt of night's descending robe ! 
 The thin leaves, quivering on their silken threads, 
 Do make a music like to rustling satin. 
 As the light breezes smooth their downy nap. 
 
 Ha! what is this that rises to my touch, 
 So Hke a cushion ? Can it be a cabbage ? 
 It is, it is that deeply injured flower. 
 Which boys do flout us with but yet I love thee. 
 Thou giant rose, wrapped in a green surtout. 
 Doubtless in Eden thou didst blush as bright 
 
BVENING. 
 
 As these, thy puny brethren ; and thy breath 
 Sweetened the fragrance of her spicy air ; 
 But now thou seemest like a bankrupt beau, 
 Stripped of his gaudy hues and essences, 
 And growing portly in his sober garments. 
 
 Is that a swan that rides upon the water? 
 
 Oh, no, it is that other gentle bird. 
 
 Which is the patron of our noble c'alling. 
 
 I well remember in my early years. 
 
 When these young hands first closed upon a goose 
 
 I have a scar upon my thimble finger. 
 
 Which chronicles the hour of young ambition. 
 
 My father was a tailor, and his father, 
 
 And my sire's grandsire, aU of them were tailors • 
 
 They had an ancient goose,-it was an heirloom ' 
 
 From some remoter taUor of our race. 
 
 It happened I did see it on a time 
 
 When none was near, and I did deal with it, 
 
 And it did burn me— oh, most fearfully ! 
 
 It is a joy to straighten out one's limbs, 
 And leap elastic from the level counter, 
 Leaving the petty grievances of earth, ' 
 The breaking thread, the din of clashing shears, • 
 And all the needles that do wound the spirit, 
 
84 
 
 HUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 For such a pensive hour of soothing silence. 
 Kind Nature, shuffling in her loose undress, 
 Lays bare her shady bosom ; I can feel 
 With all around me ; I can hail the flowers 
 That sprig earth's mantle,— and yon quiet bird, 
 That rides the stream, is to me as a brother. 
 The vulgar know not all the hidden pockets 
 Where Nature stows away her loveliness. 
 But this unnatural posture of the legs 
 Cramps my extended calves, and I must go 
 Where I can coil them in their wonted fashion. 
 
NUX POSTCGENATICA. 
 
 J WAS sitting with my microscope, upon my paxlour 
 
 With a very heavy quarto, and a very lively bug ; 
 The true bug had been organised with only two an- 
 tennae, 
 
 But the humbug in the copper-plate would have them 
 twice as many. 
 
 And I thought, like Dr. Faustus, of the emptiness of 
 art. 
 
 How we take a fragment for the whole, and call the 
 whole a part, 
 
 When I heard a heavy footstep, that was loud enough 
 for two. 
 
 And a man of forty entered, exclaiming,—" How d'ye 
 do?" 
 
86 
 
 HUM OB 0 US POEMS, 
 
 He was not a ghost, my visitor, but solid flesh and bone; 
 He wore a Palo Alto hat, his weight was twenty stone ; 
 (It's odd how hats expand their brims as riper years 
 invade. 
 
 As if when life had reached its noon, it wanted them for 
 shade !) 
 
 I lost my focus, — dropped my book, — the bug, who was 
 a flea. 
 
 At once exploded, and commenced experiments on me. 
 They have a certain heartiness that frequently appals, — 
 Those medieval gentlemen in semilunar smalls ! 
 
 " My boy," he said, — (colloquial ways, — ^the vast, broad- 
 hatted man), — 
 Come dine with us on Thursday next, — ^you must, you 
 know you can ; 
 
 We're going to have a roaring time, mth lots of fun and 
 
 > noise, 
 
 Distinguished guests, et cetera^ the Judge, and all the 
 boys." 
 
 Not so, — I said, — my temporal bones are showing pretty 
 clear 
 
 It's time to stop, — just look and see that hair above this 
 ear ; 
 
NVX P08TC(ENATICA, 
 
 87 
 
 My golden days are more than spent, — and, what is very 
 strange, 
 
 If these are real silver hairs, I*m getting lots of change. 
 
 Besides — my prospects — don't you know that people 
 won't employ 
 
 A man that wrongs his manliness by laughing like a 
 boy? 
 
 And suspect the azure blossom that unfolds upon a shoot, 
 As if wisdom's old potato could not flourish at its root ? 
 
 It's a very fine reflection, when you're etching out a smile 
 On a copper-plate of faces that would stretch at least a 
 mile. 
 
 That, what with sneers from enemies, and cheapening 
 
 shrugs of friends. 
 It will cost you all the earnings that a month of labour 
 
 lends! 
 
 It's a vastly pleasing prospect, when you're screwing out 
 a laugh. 
 
 That your very next year's income is diminished by a 
 half. 
 
 And a little boy trips barefoot that Pegasus may go, 
 4.nd the baby's milk is watered that your Helicon may 
 flow ! 
 
88 
 
 HUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 No the joke has been a good one —but I'm getting fond 
 of quiet, 
 
 And I don't like deviations from my customary diet , 
 So I think I will not go with you to hear the toast and 
 speeches. 
 
 But stick to old Montgomery Place, and have some pig and 
 peaches. 
 
 The fat man answered : — Shut your mouth, and hear the 
 
 genuine creed ; 
 The true essentials of a feast are only fun and feed ; 
 The force that wheels the planets round delights in 
 
 spinning tops, 
 
 And that young earthquake t'other day was great at 
 shaking props. 
 
 I tell you what, philosopher, if all the longest heads 
 That ever knocked their sinciputs in stretching on their 
 beds 
 
 Were round one great mahogany, I'd beat those fine old 
 folks 
 
 With twenty dishes, twenty fools, and twenty clever 
 jokes 1 
 
 Why, if Columbus should be there, the company would 
 beg 
 
 He'd show that little trick of his of balancing the egg I 
 
NUX FOSTGCENATICA. 
 
 89 
 
 Milton to Stilton would give in, and Solomon to Salmon, 
 And Eoger Bacon be a bore, and Francis Bacon gammon. 
 
 And as for all the patronage'* of all the clowns and boors 
 That squint their little narrow eyes at any freak of yours, 
 Do leave them to your prosier friends, — such fellows 
 ought to die 
 
 When rhubarb is so very scarce and ipecac so high ! 
 
 And so I come, — ^like Lochinvar, to tread a single 
 measure. 
 
 To purchase with a loaf of bread a sugar-plum of pleasure, 
 To enter for the cup of glass that's run for after dinner, 
 Which yields a single sparkling draught, then breaks and 
 cuts the winner. 
 
 Ah, that's the way delusion comes, — a glass of old 
 Madeira, 
 
 A pair of visual diaphragms revolved by Jane or Sarah. 
 And down go vows and promises without the slightest 
 question 
 
 If eating words won't compromise the organs of digestion I 
 
 And yet, among my native shades, beside my nursing 
 mother. 
 
 Where every stranger seems a friend, and every friend a 
 brother. 
 
90 
 
 HUMOBOUS POEMS, 
 
 I feel the old convivial glow (unaided) o'er me stealing, — 
 The warm, champagny, old-particular, brandy-punchy 
 feeling. 
 
 We're all alike; — Vesuvius flings the scoriae from his 
 fountain, 
 
 But down they come in volleying rain back to the burning 
 mountain ; 
 
 We leave, like those volcanic stones, our precious Alma 
 Mater, 
 
 But will keep dropping in again to see the dear old crater. 
 
THE STETHOSCOPE SONG. 
 
 A PROFESSIONAL BALLAD. 
 
 ^HEEE was a young man in Boston town, 
 
 He bought him a Stethoscope nice and new, 
 All mounted and finished and polished down, 
 With an ivory cap and a stopper too. 
 
 It happened a spider within did crawl, 
 
 And spun a web of ample size. 
 Wherein there chanced one day to fall 
 
 A couple of very imprudent flies. 
 
 The first was a bottle-fly, big and blue, 
 
 The second was smaller, and thin and long ; 
 
 So there was a concert between the two; 
 Like an octave flute and a tavern gong. 
 
 Now, being from Paris but recently. 
 
 This fine young man would show his skill; 
 
 And so they gave him, his hand to try, 
 A hospital patient extremely ill. 
 
92 
 
 HUM0B0U8 POEMS. 
 
 Some said that his liver was short of lile, 
 And some that his heart was over size, 
 
 While some kept arguing all the while 
 
 He was crammed with tubercles up to his eyes. 
 
 This fine young man then up stepped he, . 
 
 And all the doctors made a pause ; 
 Said he, — The man must die, you see. 
 
 By the fifty- seventh of Louis's laws. 
 
 But since the case is a desperate one, 
 To explore his chest it may be well ; 
 
 For if he should die and it were not done, 
 You know the autopsy would not tell. 
 
 Then out his stethoscope he took, 
 
 And on it placed his curious ear ; 
 Mon Dieu I said he, with a knowing look. 
 
 Why, here is a sound that's mighty queer \ 
 
 The bourdonnement is very clear, — 
 
 Amphoric buzzing, as I'm alive ! 
 Five doctors took their turn to hear; 
 
 Amphoric buzzing, said all the five. 
 
 I 
 
THE STETHOSCOPE SONG, 93 
 
 There's empyema beyond a doubt; 
 
 We'll plunge a trocar in bis side. 
 The diagnosis was made out, 
 
 They tapped the patient ; so he died. 
 
 Now such as hate new-fashioned toys 
 
 Began to look extremely glum ; 
 They said that rattles were made for boys, 
 
 And vowed that his buzzing was all a hum. 
 
 There was an old lady had long been sick, 
 And what was the matter none did know: 
 
 Her pulse was slow, though her tongue was quick ; 
 To her this knowing youth must go. 
 
 So there the nice old lady sat, 
 
 With phials and boxes all in a row ; 
 
 She asked the young doctor what he was at, 
 To thump her and tumble her ruffles so. 
 
 Now, when the stethoscope came out. 
 The flies began to buzz and whiz ; — 
 
 O ho ! the matter is clear, no doubt ; 
 An aneurism there plainly is. 
 
94 
 
 nUMOBOUS POEMS, 
 
 The hruit de rape and the hruit de scie 
 
 And the hruit de diable are all combined ; 
 
 How happy Bouillaud would be, 
 If he a case like this could find ! 
 
 Now, when the neighbouring doctors found 
 A case so rare had been descried, 
 
 They every day her ribs did pound 
 In squads of twenty; so she died. 
 
 Then six young damsels, slight and frail, 
 Received this kind young doctor's cares; 
 
 They all were getting slim and pale, 
 
 And short of breath on mounting stairs. 
 
 They all made rhymes with "sighs" and " skies," 
 And loathed their puddings and buttered rolls, 
 
 And dieted, much to their friends' surprise. 
 On pickles and pencils, and chalk and coals. 
 
 So fast their little hearts did bound, 
 
 The frightened insects buzzed the more; 
 
 So over all their chests he found 
 The rdle sifflant and rale sonore. 
 
THE STETHOSCOPE SONG. 
 
 He shook his head; — there's" grave disease, — 
 I greatly fear you all must die ; 
 
 A slight post-mortem, if you please, 
 Surviving friends would gratify. 
 
 The six young damsels wept aloud ; 
 
 Which so prevailed on six young men, 
 That each his honest love avowed: 
 
 Whereat they all got well again. 
 
 This poor young man was all aghast ; 
 
 The price of stethoscopes came down ; 
 And so he was reduced at last 
 
 To practise in a country town. 
 
 The doctors being very sore, 
 
 A stethoscope they did devise, 
 That had a rammer to clear the bore, 
 
 With a knob at the end to kill the flies. 
 
 Now use your ears, all you that can. 
 But don't forget to mind your eyes. 
 
 Or you may be cheated, like this young man, 
 By a couple of silly, abnormal flies. 
 
ON LENDING A PUNGH-BOWL. 
 
 ^HIS ancient silver bowl of mine, — it tells of good 
 old times, 
 
 Of joyous days, and jolly nights, and merry Christmas 
 chimes ; 
 
 They were a free and jovial race, but honest, brave, and 
 true, 
 
 That dipped their ladle in the punch when this old bowl 
 was new. 
 
 A Spanish galleon brought the bar, — so runs the ancient 
 tale ; 
 
 'Twas hammered by an Antwerp smith, whose arm was 
 like a flail ; 
 
 And now and then between the strokes, for fear his 
 
 strength should fail, 
 He wiped his brow, and quaffed a cup of good old 
 
 Flemish ale. 
 
ON LENDING A PUNCH-BOWL. 
 
 97 
 
 *Twas purchased by an English squire to please his 
 loving dame, 
 
 Who saw the cherubs, and conceived a longing for the 
 same ; 
 
 And oft as on the ancient stock another twig was found, 
 'Twas filled with caudle spiced and hot, and handed 
 smoking round. 
 
 But, changing hands, it reached at length a Puritan 
 divine. 
 
 Who used to follow Timothy, and take a little wine, 
 But hated punch and prelacy ; and so it was, perhaps, 
 He went to Leyden, where he found conventicles and 
 schnaps. 
 
 And then, of course, you know what's next, — it left the 
 
 Dutchman's shore 
 With those that in the Mayflower came,— a hundred 
 
 souls and more, — 
 Along with all the furniture, to fill their new abodes,— 
 To judge by what is still on hand, at least a hundred 
 
 loads. 
 
 'Twas on a dreary winter's eve, the night was closing 
 dim. 
 
 When old Miles Standish took the bowl, and filled it to 
 the brim ; 
 
 H 
 
98 HUM OB 0 US P0EM8. 
 
 The little Captain stood and stirred tlie posset with his 
 sword, 
 
 And all his sturdy men-at-arms were ranged about the 
 board. 
 
 He poured the fiery Hollands in, — the man that never 
 feared, — 
 
 He took a long and solemn draught, and wiped his 
 yellow beard ; 
 
 And one by one the musketeers — the men that fought 
 and prayed — 
 
 All drank as 'twere their mother's milk, and not a man 
 afraid. 
 
 That night, affrighted from his nest, the screaming eagle 
 flew ; 
 
 He heard the Pequot's ringing whoop, the soldier's wild 
 halloo ; 
 
 And there the sachem learned the rule he taught to kith 
 and kin, 
 
 " Run from the white man when you find he smells of 
 Hollands gin !" 
 
 A hundred years, and fifty more, had spread their leaves 
 and snows, 
 
 A thousand rubs had flattened down each little cherub's 
 nose, 
 
ON LENDING A PVNCE-BOWL. 99 
 
 When once again the bowl was filled, but not in mirth 
 or joy— 
 
 'Twas mingled by a mother's hand to cheer her parting 
 boy. 
 
 Drink, John, she said, 'twill do you good,-poor child, 
 you'll never bear 
 
 This working in the dismal trench, out in the midnight 
 air ; 
 
 And if— God bless me !— you were hurt, 'twould keep 
 
 away the chill ; 
 So John did drink,-and well he wrought that night at 
 
 Bunker's Hill ! 
 
 I tell you, there was generous warmth in good old Eng- 
 lish cheer ; 
 
 I tell you, 'twas a pleasant thought to bring its symbol 
 here. 
 
 ■Tis but the fool that loves excess ;-hast thou a drunken 
 soul ? 
 
 Thy bane is in thy shallow skull, not in my silver bowl ! 
 
 I love the memory of the past,_its pressed yet fragrant 
 flowers, — 
 
 The moss that clothes its broken walls,-the ivy on its 
 towers ; — 
 
100 
 
 HUM0B0U8 POEMS. 
 
 Nay, this poor bauble it bequeathed, — my eyes grow 
 
 moist and dim 
 To think of all the vanished joys that danced around its 
 
 brim. 
 
 Then fill a fair and honest cup, and bear it straight to 
 me ; 
 
 The goblet hallows all it holds, whatever the liquid be ; 
 And may the cherubs on its face protect me from the 
 sin 
 
 That dooms one to those dreadful words, — " My dear, 
 where have you been?'' 
 
THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS. 
 
 J WEOTE some linee once on a time 
 In wondrous merry mood, 
 
 And thought, as usual, men would say 
 They were exceeding good. 
 
 They were so queer, so very queer, 
 I laughed as I would die ; 
 
 Albeit, in the general way, 
 A sober man am I. 
 
 I called my servant, and he came ; 
 
 How kind it was of him 
 To mind a slender man like me. 
 
 He of the mighty limb 1 
 
 " These to the printer," I exclaimed, 
 And, in my humorous way, 
 
 I added (as a trifling jest), 
 
 " There'll be the devil to pay." 
 
102 
 
 HUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 He took the paper, and I watched, 
 And saw him peep within ; 
 
 At the first line he read, his face 
 Was all upon the grin. 
 
 He read the next— the grin grew broad, 
 And shot from ear to ear j 
 
 He read the third — a chuckling noise 
 I now began to hear. 
 
 The fourth — he broke into a roar ; 
 
 The fifth — his waistband split ; 
 The sixth— he burst five buttons off, 
 
 And tumbled in a fit. 
 
 Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye, 
 I watched that wretched man ; 
 
 And since, I never dare to write 
 As funny as I can. 
 
LATTER-DAY WARNINGS. 
 
 '^^HEN legislators keep the law, 
 
 When banks dispense with bolts and locks, 
 When berries — whortle, rasp, and straw — 
 
 Grow bigger downwards through the box, — 
 
 When he that selleth house or land 
 
 Shows leak in roof or flaw in right, — 
 
 When haberdashers choose the stand 
 
 Whose window hath the broadest light, — 
 
 When preachers tell us all they think, 
 And party leaders all they mean, — 
 
 When what we pay for, that we drink, 
 From real grape and coffee-bean,- — 
 
 When lawyers take what they would give, 
 And doctors give what they would take, — 
 
 When city fathers eat to live. 
 
 Save when they fast for conscience' sake, — 
 
HUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 When one that hath a horse on sale 
 Shall bring his merit to the proof. 
 
 Without a lie for every nail 
 
 That holds the iron on the hoof, — 
 
 When in the usual place for rips 
 
 Our gloves are stitched with special care, 
 And guarded well the whalebone tips 
 
 Where first umbrellas need repair, — 
 
 When Cuba's weeds have quite forgot 
 
 The power of suction to resist, 
 And claret bottles harbour not 
 
 Such dimples as would hold your fist, — 
 
 When publishers no longer steal, 
 
 And pay for what they stole before, — 
 
 When the first locomotive's wheel 
 
 EoUs through the Hoosac tunnel's bore ; — 
 
 Till then let Gumming blaze away, 
 
 And Miller's saints blow up the globe ; 
 
 But when you see that blessed day. 
 Then order your ascension robe 1 
 
PROLOGUE. 
 
 PEOLOGUE ? Well, of course the ladies know 
 I have my doubts. No matter, — here we go! 
 What is a Prologue ? Let our Tutor teach : 
 Fro means beforehand ; logos stands for speech. 
 'Tis like the harper's prelude on the strings, 
 The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings : — 
 Prologues in metre are to other pros 
 As worsted stockings are to engine-hose. 
 
 " The world's a stage," — as Shakespeare said, one day ; 
 
 The stage a world — was what he meant to say. 
 
 The outside world's a blunder, that is clear ; 
 
 The real world that Nature meant is here. 
 
 Here every foundling finds its lost mamma; 
 
 Each rogue, repentant, melts his stern papa; 
 
 Misers relent, the spendthrift's debts are paid, 
 
 The cheats are taken in the traps they laid ; 
 
 One after one the troubles all are past. 
 
 Till the fifth act comes right side up at last, 
 
106 
 
 HUM OB 0 US POEMS. 
 
 When the young couple, old folks, rogues, and all, 
 
 Join hands, so happy at the curtain's fall. 
 
 Here suffering virtue ever finds relief, 
 
 And black-browed ruffians always come to grief. 
 
 When the lorn damsel, with a frantic screech, 
 
 And cheeks as hueless as a brandy-peach, 
 
 Cries, Help, kyind Heaven !" and drops upon her knees 
 
 On the green— baize,— beneath the (canvas) trees,— 
 
 See to her side avenging Yalour fly : — 
 
 " Ha ! Villain ! Draw ! Now, Terraitorr, yield or die !" 
 
 When the poor hero flounders in despair, 
 
 Some dear lost uncle turns up millionaire, 
 
 Clasps the young scapegrace with paternal joy, 
 
 Sobs on his neck, " My hoy ! My boy ! ! MY BOY ! ! !" 
 
 Ours, then, sweet friends, the real world to-night, 
 
 Of love that conquers in disaster's spite. 
 
 Ladies, attend ! While woful cares and doubt 
 
 Wrong the soft passion in the world without, 
 
 Though fortune scowl, though prudence interfere, 
 
 One thing is certain : Love will triumph here ! 
 
 Lords of creation, whom your ladies rule, — 
 
 The world's great masters, when you're out of school, — 
 
 Learn the brief moral of our evening's play : 
 
 Man has his will, — but woman has her way ! 
 
 While man's dull spirit toils in smoke and fire, 
 
PBOLOGUE. 
 
 Woman's swift instinct threads the electric wire,— 
 The magic bracelet stretched beneath the waves 
 Beats the black giant with his score of slaves. 
 All earthly powers confess your sovereign art 
 But that one rebel, — woman's wilful heart. 
 All foes you master ; but a woman's wit 
 Lets daylight through you ere you know you're hit. 
 So, just to picture what her art can do. 
 Hear an old story, made as good as new. 
 
 Rudolph, professor of the headsman's trade, 
 
 Alike was famous for his arm and blade. 
 
 One day a prisoner Justice had to kill 
 
 Knelt at the block to test the artist's skill. 
 
 Bare-armed, swart-visaged, gaunt, and shaggy^browed 
 
 Rudolph the headsman rose above the crowd. 
 
 His falchion lightened with a sudden gleam. 
 
 As the pike's armour flashes in the stream. 
 
 He sheathed his blade ; he turned as if to go j 
 
 The victim knelt, still waiting for the blow. 
 
 " Why strikest not ? Perform thy murderous act," 
 
 The prisoner said. (His voice was slightly cracked.) 
 
 "Friend, I have struck," the artist straight replied ; 
 
 " Wait but one moment, and yourself decide." 
 
 He held his snuff-box,— "Now, then, if you please !" 
 
 The prisoner sniffed, and, with a crashing sneeze, 
 
108 
 
 HUM OB 0 US FOE MS. 
 
 Off his head tumbled, — ^bowled along the floor, — 
 Bounced down the steps ; the prisoner said no more 
 
 W®man ! thy falchion is a glittering eye j 
 If death lurk in it, oh, how sweet to die ! 
 Thou takest hearts as Rudolph took the head ; 
 We die with love,, and never dream we're dead ! 
 
THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE: 
 
 OR, THE WONDERFUL ONE-HOSS SHAY." 
 A LOGICAL STORY. 
 
 JJAVE jou heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, 
 
 That was built in such a logical waj, 
 It ran a hundred years to a day, 
 And then, of a sudden, it — ah, but stay, 
 I'll tell you what happened without delay, 
 Scaring the parson into fits, 
 Frightening people out of their wits, — 
 Have you ever heard of that, I say ? 
 
 Seventeen hundred and fifty-five. 
 Georgius Secundus was then alive, — 
 Snuffy old drone from the German hive. 
 That was the year when Lisbon- town 
 Saw the earth open and gulp her down, 
 And Braddock's army was done so brown, 
 Left without a scalp to its crown. 
 
110 
 
 HUMOROUS POEMS 
 
 It was on the terrible Earthquake-day 
 That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay. 
 
 Now in building of chaises, I tell you what, 
 
 There is always somewhere a weakest spot, 
 
 In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill, 
 In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill. 
 In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,-~lurking still. 
 
 Find it somewhere you must and will, 
 
 Above or below, or within or without, — 
 
 And that's the reason, beyond a doubt, 
 
 A chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out. 
 
 But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do. 
 With an " I dew vum," or an " I tell yeou''), 
 He would build one shay to beat the taown 
 'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun' ; 
 It should be so built that it couldn' break daown: 
 — " Fur," said the Deacon, " 't's mighty plain 
 Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain ; 
 'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain. 
 
 Is only jest 
 T' make that place uz strong uz the rest." 
 
 So the Deacon inquired of the village folk 
 Where he could find the strongest oak, 
 That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke, — 
 
 « 
 
THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE. 
 
 That was for spokes and floor and sills ; 
 
 He sent for lancewood to make the thills ; 
 
 The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees 
 
 The panels of white- wood, that cuts like cheese, 
 
 But lasts like iron for things like these; 
 
 The hubs of logs from the " Settler's ellum," — 
 
 Last of its timber, — they couldn't sell 'em, 
 
 Never an axe had seen their chips, 
 
 And the wedges flew from between their lips, 
 
 Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; 
 
 Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, 
 
 Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, 
 
 Steel of the finest, bright and blue j 
 
 Thoroughbrace bison- skin, thick and wide ; 
 
 Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide 
 
 Found in the pit when the tanner died. 
 
 That was the way he " put her through." — 
 
 " There !" said the Deacon, " naow she'll dew T 
 
 Do ! I tell you, I rather guess 
 
 She was a wonder, and nothing less. 
 
 Colts grew horses, beards turned gray. 
 
 Deacon and deaconess dropped away, 
 
 Children and grandchildren — where were they ? 
 
 But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay 
 
 As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day I 
 
112 
 
 EUMOBOUS POEMS, 
 
 Eighteen hundred; — it came and found 
 The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound. 
 Eighteen hundred increased by ten ; — 
 " Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then. 
 Eighteen hundred and twenty came; — 
 Eunning as usual ; much the same. 
 Thirty and forty at last arrive, 
 And then come fifty, and fifty-five. 
 
 Little of all we value here 
 
 Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year 
 
 Without both feehng and looking queer. 
 
 In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth, 
 
 So far as I know, but a tree and truth. 
 
 (This is a moral that runs at large; 
 
 Take It. — You're welcome. — No extra charge.) 
 
 First of November, — the Earthquake-day. — 
 There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay, 
 A general flavour of mild decay, 
 But nothing local, as one may say. 
 There couldn't be, — for the Deacon's art 
 Had made it so like in every part 
 That there wasn't a chance for one to start. 
 For the wheels were just as strong as the thills^ 
 And the floor was just as strong as the sills, 
 
THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE. 
 
 And the panels just as strong as the floor, 
 And the whippletree neither less nor more, 
 And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore, 
 And spring and axle and hub encore. 
 And yet, as a whole^ it is past a doubt 
 In another hour it will be worn ovt! 
 
 First of November, Tiftj-five! 
 This morning the parson takes a drive. 
 Now, small boys, get out of the way! 
 Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay, 
 Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay. 
 "Huddupl" said the parson. — Off went they. 
 
 The parson was working his Sunday's text, — 
 Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed 
 At what the — Moses — was coming next. 
 All at once the horse stood still, 
 Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill. 
 — First a shiver, and then a thrill, 
 
 Then something decidedly like a spill, 
 
 And the parson was sitting upon a rock, 
 At half-past nine by the meet'n'-house clock,— 
 Just the hour of the Earthquake shock! 
 — What do you think the parson found, 
 When he got up and stared around ? 
 
HUMOROUS POEMS. 
 
 The poor old chaise in a heap or mound, 
 As if it had been to the mill and ground ! 
 You see, of course, if you're not a dunce, 
 How it went to pieces all at once, — 
 All at once, and nothing first, — 
 Just as bubbles do when they burst. 
 
 End of the wonderful one-hoss shay. 
 Logic is logic. That's all I say. 
 
THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA. 
 
 A NIGHTMARE DREAM BY DAYLIGHT. 
 
 JQO you know the Old Man of the Sea, of the Sea? 
 
 Have you met with that dreadful old man? 
 If you haven't been caught, you will be, you will be; 
 For catch you he must and he can. 
 
 He doesn't hold on by your throat, by your throat, 
 
 As of old in the terrible tale; 
 But he grapples you tight by the coat, by the coat. 
 
 Till its buttons and button-holes fail. 
 
 There's the charm of a snake in his eye, in his eye, 
 
 And a polypus-grip in his hands; 
 You cannot go back, nor get by, nor get by. 
 
 If you look at the spot where he stands. 
 
 Oh, you're grabbed! See his claw on your sleeve, c 
 your sleeve! 
 
 It is Sinbad's Old Man of the Sea! 
 You're a Christian, no doubt you believe, you believe: 
 
 You're a martyr, whatever you be! 
 
116 
 
 HUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 — Is the breakfast-hour past? They must wait, they 
 
 must wait, 
 While the coffee boils sullenly down, 
 While the Johnny-cake burns on the grate, on the 
 
 grate, 
 
 And the toast is done frightfully brown. 
 
 — Yes, your dinner will keep ; let it cool, let it cool, 
 
 And Madam may worry and fret. 
 And children half-starved go to school, go to school; 
 
 He can t think of sparing you yet. 
 
 — Hark! the bell for the train! "Come along! Come 
 along! 
 
 For there isn't a second to lose." 
 "All aboard!" (He holds on.) "Fsht! ding-dong! 
 Fsht! ding-dong!" — 
 You can follow on foot, if you choose. 
 
 — There's a maid with a cheek like a peach, like a 
 peach. 
 
 That is waiting for you in the church ; — 
 But he clings to your side like a leech, like a leech, 
 And you leave your lost bride in the lurch. 
 
THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA. 
 
 117 
 
 —There's a babe in a fit,— Hurry quick! hurry quick! 
 
 To the doctor's as fast as you can! 
 The baby is off, while you stick, while you stick, 
 
 In the grip of the dreadful Old Man! 
 
 — I have looked on the face of the Bore, of the Bore; 
 
 The voice of the Simple I know ; 
 I have welcomed the Flat at my door, at my door; 
 
 I have sat by the side of the Slow; 
 
 I have walked like a lamb by the Friend, by the Friend, 
 
 That stuck to my skirts like a bur ; 
 I have borne the stale talk without end, without end, 
 
 Of the sitter whom nothing could stir: 
 
 But my hamstrings grow loose, and I shake, and I 
 shake, 
 
 At the sight of the dreadful Old Man; 
 Yea, I quiver and quake, and I take, and I take, 
 To my legs with what vigour I can! 
 
 Oh, the dreadful Old Man of the Sea, of the Sea! 
 
 He's come back like the Wandering Jew! 
 He has had his cold claw upon me, upon me, — 
 
 And be sure that he'll have it on you! 
 
ODE FOR A SOCIAL MEETING. 
 
 WITH SLIGHT ALTERATIONS BY A TEETOTALER. 
 
 QOME! fill a fresh bumper, — for why should we go 
 
 logwood 
 
 While the nectar still reddens our cups as they flow ? 
 
 decoction 
 
 Pour out the rich juices still bright with the sun, 
 
 dye-stuff 
 
 Till o'er the brimmed crystal the rubies shall run. 
 
 half-ripened apples 
 
 The purple-globed clusters their life-dews have bled; 
 
 taste sngar-of-lea d 
 
 How sweet is the breath of the fragrance they shed ! 
 
 rank poisons wines!!! 
 
 For summer's last roses lie hid in the wines 
 
 stable-boys smoking long-nines 
 
 That were garnered by maidens who laughed thro' the vines. 
 
 scowl howl scoff sneer 
 
 Then a smile, and a glass, and a toast, and a cheer, 
 
 strychnine and whieky, and ratsban e and beer 
 
 For all the good wine, and we've some of it here I 
 In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall, 
 
 Down, down with th e tyrant that masters us all ! 
 
 Long live the gay servant that laughs for us all! 
 
PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY; 
 
 OR, THE president's OLD ARM-CHAIR. 
 A MATHEMATICAL STORY. 
 
 ?ACTS respecting an old arm-chair. 
 
 At Cambridge. Is kept in the College there. 
 Seems but little the worse for wear. 
 That's remarkable when I say 
 It was old in President Holyoke's day. 
 (One of his boys, perhaps you know, 
 Died, at one hundred, years ago.) 
 He took lodgings, for rain or shine, 
 Under green bed-clothes in '69. 
 
 Know old Cambridge? Hope you do.— 
 Born there? Don't say so ! I was, too. 
 (Born in a house with a gambrel-roof, — 
 Standing still, if you must have proof — 
 " Gambrel?— Gambrel?"— Let me beg 
 You'll look at a horse's hinder leg, — 
 
EUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 First great angle above the hoof, — 
 That's the gambrel; hence gambrel-roof.) 
 — ^Nicest place that ever was seen, — 
 Colleges red and common green. 
 Side- walks brownish with trees between. 
 Sweetest spot beneath the skies 
 When the canker-worms don't rise, — 
 When the dust, that sometimes flies 
 Into your mouth and ears and eyes, 
 In a quiet slumber lies, 
 Not in the shape of unbaked pies 
 Such as barefoot children prize. 
 
 A kind of harbour it seems to be, 
 Facing the flow of a boundless sea. 
 Eows of gray old Tutors stand 
 Eanged like rocks above the sand; 
 EoUing beneath them, soft and green. 
 Breaks the tide of bright sixteen, — 
 One wave, two waves, three waves, four,— 
 Sliding up the sparkling floor: 
 Then it ebbs to flow no more. 
 Wandering off from shore to shore 
 With its freight of golden ore ! 
 — ^Pleasant place for boys to play; — 
 Better keep your girls away ; 
 
PAB80N TUBELVS LEGACY. 121 
 
 Hearts get rolled as pebbles do 
 
 Which countless fingering waves pursue, 
 
 And every classic beach is strown 
 
 With heart-shaped pebbles of blood-red stone. 
 
 But this is neither here nor there; — 
 Tm talking about an old arm-chair. 
 You've heard, no doubt, of Parson Turell? 
 Over at Medford he used to dwell; 
 Married one of the Mathers' folk ; 
 Got with his wife a chair of oak, — 
 Funny old chair, with seat like wedge, 
 Sharp behind and broad front edge, — 
 One of the oddest of human things, 
 Turned all over with knobs and rings, — 
 But heavy, and wide, and deep, and grand, — 
 Fit for the worthies of the land, — 
 Chief-Justice Sewall a cause to try in. 
 Or Cotton Mather to sit — and lie — in. 
 — Parson Turell bequeathed the same 
 To a certain student,— Smith by name; 
 These were the terms, as we are told: 
 " Saide Smith saide Chaire to have and holde; 
 When he doth graduate, then to passe 
 To y® oldest Youth in y® Senior Classe. 
 
122 
 
 HUM0B0U8 POEMS, 
 
 On Payment of" (naming a certain sum) 
 
 " By him to whom y« Chaire shall come; 
 
 He to y« oldest Senior next, 
 
 And soe for ever" (thus runs the text), 
 
 " But one Crown lesse then he gave to claime, 
 
 That being his Debte for use of same." 
 
 ^mi^A^ transferred it to one of the Bkowns, 
 And took his money, — five silver crowns. 
 Brown delivered it up to Moore, 
 Who paid, it is plain, not five, but four. 
 Moore made over the chair to Lee, 
 Who gave him crowns of silver three. 
 Lee conveyed it unto Drew, 
 And now the payment, of course, was two. 
 Drew gave up the chair to Dunn,— 
 All he got, as you see, was one. 
 Dunn released the chair to Hall, 
 And got by the bargain no crown at all. 
 — And now it passed to a second Brown, 
 Who took it and likewise claimed a crown. 
 When Brown conveyed it unto Ware, 
 Having had one crown, to make it fair, 
 He paid him two crowns to take the chair ; 
 And Ware J being honest (as all Wares be), 
 He paid one Potter, who took it, three. 
 
PABSON TUBELUS LEGACY, 
 
 Four got Eobinson; five got Dix; 
 Johnson i^nmMS demanded six; 
 And so the sum kept gathering still 
 Till after the battle of Bunker's Hill. 
 
 — When paper money became so cheap, 
 Folks wouldn't count it, but said " a heap," 
 A certain Eichards — the books declare — 
 (A.M. in '90? I've looked with care 
 Through the Triennial, — name not there) — 
 This person, Eichards, was offered then 
 . Eight score pounds, but would have ten ; 
 Nine, I think, was the sum he took, — 
 Not quite certain, — but see the book. 
 — By and by the wars were still, 
 But nothing had altered the Parson's will. 
 The old arm-chair was solid yet. 
 But saddled with such a monstrous debt ! 
 Things grew quite too bad to bear. 
 Paying such sums to get rid of the chair ! 
 But dead men's fingers hold awful tight. 
 And there was the will in black and white, 
 Plain enough for a child to spell. 
 What should be done no man could tell, 
 For the chair was a kind of nightmare curse, 
 And every season but made it worse. 
 
124 
 
 EUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 As a last resort, to clear the doubt, 
 They got old Governor Hancock out. 
 The Governor came with his Light-horse Troop 
 And his mounted truckmen, all cock-a-hoop; 
 Halberds glittered and colours flew, 
 French horns whinnied and trumpets blew, 
 The yellow fifes whistled beneath their teeth. 
 And the bumble-bee bass-drums boomed beneath ; 
 So he rode with all his band, 
 Till the President met him, cap in hand. 
 — The Governor "hefted" the crowns, and said: 
 " A will is a will, and the Parson's dead." 
 The Governor hefted the crowns. Said he: 
 " There is your p'int. And here's my fee. 
 These are the terms you must fulfil, — 
 On such conditions I break the will !" 
 The Governor mentioned what these should be. 
 (Just wait a minute, and then you'll see.) 
 The President prayed. Then all was still, 
 And the Governor rose and broke the will ! 
 — " About those conditions?" Well, now you go 
 And do as I tell you, and then you'll know. 
 Once a year, on Commencement-day, 
 If you'll only take the pains to stay, 
 You'll see the President in the Chair, 
 Likewise the Governor sitting there. 
 
FABSON TUBELUS LEGACY. 125 
 
 The President rises ; both old and young ^7 ' 
 
 May hear his speech in a foreign tongue^ 
 
 The meaning whereof, as lawyers swear, 
 
 Is this: Can I keep this old arm-chair? 
 
 And then his Excellency bows, 
 
 4s much as to say that he allows. 
 
 The Vice-Gub. next is called by name ; 
 
 He bows like t'other, which means the same. 
 
 And all the officers round 'em bow, 
 
 As much as to say that they allow. 
 
 And a lot of parchments about the chair 
 
 Are handed to witnesses then and there, 
 
 And then the lawyers hold it clear 
 
 That the chair is safe for another year. 
 
 God bless you, Gentlemen ! Learn to give 
 Money to colleges while you live. 
 Don't be silly, and think you'll try 
 To bother the colleges, when you die, 
 With codicil this, and codicil that. 
 That Knowledge may starve while Law grows fat ; 
 For there never was pitcher that wouldn't spill, 
 And there's always a flaw in a donkey's will I 
 
CONTENTMENT. 
 
 " Man wants but little here below." 
 
 J^ITTLE I ask; my wants are few; 
 
 I only wish a hut of stone 
 (A 'o&ry 'plain brown stone will do), 
 
 That I may call my own ; — 
 And close at hand is such a one, 
 In yonder street that fronts the sun. 
 
 Plain food is quite enough for me ; 
 
 Three courses are as good as ten ; — 
 If Nature can subsist on three. 
 
 Thank Heaven for three. Amen! 
 I always thought cold victual nice, — 
 My choice would be vanilla-ice. 
 
 I care not much for gold or land ; — 
 
 Give me a mortgage here and there, 
 Some good bank-stock, some note of hand, 
 Or trifling railroad share, — 
 
CONTENTMENT. 
 
 I only ask that Fortune send 
 A little more than I shall spend. 
 
 Honours are silly toys, I know, 
 
 And titles are but empty names; 
 I would, perhaps^ be Plenipo — 
 
 But only near St. James; 
 Fm very sure I should not care 
 To fill our Gubernator's chair. 
 
 Jewels are baubles ; 'tis a sin 
 
 To care for such unfruitful things ; — 
 One good-sized diamond in a pin, 
 
 Some, not so large^ in rings, 
 A ruby, and a pearl, or so, 
 Will do for me ; — I laugh at show. 
 
 My dame should dress in cheap attire 
 
 (Good, heavy silks are never dear) ; 
 I own perhaps I might desire 
 
 Some shawls of true Cashmere,- 
 Some marrowy crapes of China silk. 
 Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk. 
 
 I would not have the horse I drive 
 
 So fast that folks must stop and stare 
 
HUMOBOUS POEBIS. 
 
 An easy gait — two, forty-five — 
 
 Suits me; I do not care; — 
 Perhaps, for just a single spurt, 
 Some seconds less would do no hurt. 
 
 Of pictures, I should like to own 
 
 Titians and Eaphaels three or four— 
 I love so much their style and tone — 
 
 One Turner, and no more 
 (A landscape, foreground golden dirt, 
 The sunshine painted with a squirt). 
 
 Of books but few, — some Mty score 
 
 For daily use, and bound for wear; 
 The rest upon an upper floor; — 
 Some little luxury there 
 Of red morocco's gilded gleam. 
 And vellum rich as country cream. 
 
 Busts, cameos, gems,^ — such things as these, 
 
 "Which others often show for pride, 
 / value for their power to please, 
 
 And selfish churls deride j 
 One Stradivarius, 1 confess, 
 Two Meerschaums, I would fain possess. 
 
CONTENTMENT. 
 
 129 
 
 Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn, 
 
 Nor ape the glittering upstart fool; 
 Shall not carved tables serve my turn, 
 
 But all must be of buhl? 
 Give grasping pomp its double share, — 
 I ask but one recumbent chair. 
 
 Thus humble let me live and die, 
 
 Nor long for Midas' golden touch ; 
 If Heaven more generous gifts deny, 
 
 I shall not miss them much^ — 
 Too grateful for the blessing lent 
 Of simple tastes and mind content ! 
 
DE SAUTY. 
 
 AN ELECTRO-CHEMICAL ECLOGUE. 
 
 Professor. Blue- Nose, 
 
 PROFESSOR. 
 
 HTELL me, O Provincial ! speak, Ceruleo-Nasal ! 
 
 Lives there one De Sauty extant now among you. 
 Whispering Boanerges, son of silent thunder, 
 Holding talk with nations? 
 
 Is there a De Sauty ambulant on Tellus, 
 Bifid-cleft like mortals, dormient in night- cap, 
 Having sight, smell, hearing, food-receiving feature 
 Three times daily patent? 
 
 Breathes there such a being, O Ceruleo-Nasal? 
 Or is he a my thus — ancient word for " humbug" — 
 Such as Livy told about the wolf that wet-nursed 
 Eomulus and Eemus? 
 
DE SAUTY. 
 
 131 
 
 Was he born of woman, this alleged De Sauty? 
 Or a living product of galvanic action, 
 Like the acarus bred in Crosse's flint- solution? 
 Speak, thou Cyano-Rhinal ! 
 
 BLUE-NOSE. 
 
 Many things thou askest, jackknife-bearing stranger, 
 Much-conjecturing mortal, pork-and- treacle- waster ! 
 Pretermit thy whittling, wheel thine ear-flap toward me. 
 Thou shalt hear them answered. 
 
 When the charge galvanic tingled through the cable, 
 At the polar focus of the wire electric 
 Suddenly appeared a white-faced man among us : 
 Called himself " De Sauty." 
 
 As the small opossum, held in pouch maternal, 
 Grasps the nutrient organ whence the term mammalia^ 
 So the unknown stranger held the wire electric. 
 Sucking in the current. 
 
 When the current strengthened, bloomed the pale-faced 
 stranger, — 
 
 Took no drink nor victual, yet grew fat and rosy, — 
 And from time to time, in sharp articulation, 
 Said, " All right ! De Sauty." 
 
132 
 
 HUMOROUS FOEMS. 
 
 From the lonely station passed the utterance, spread- 
 ing 
 
 Through the pines and hemlocks to the groves of 
 steeples, 
 
 Till the land was filled with loud reverberations 
 Oi'' All right! De Sauty." 
 
 When the current slackened, drooped the mystic 
 stranger, — 
 
 Faded, faded, faded, as the stream grew weaker, — 
 Wasted to a shadow, with a hartshorn odour 
 Of disintegration. 
 
 Drops of deliquescence glistened on his forehead, 
 Whitened round his feet the dust of efflorescence, 
 Till one Monday morning, when the flow suspended, 
 There was no De Sauty. 
 
 Nothing but a cloud of elements organic, 
 C. O. H. N. Ferrum, Chlor. Flu. Sil. Potassa, 
 Calc. Sod. Phosph. Mag. Sulphur, Mang. (?) Alumin. (?) 
 Cuprum (?), 
 Such as man is made of. 
 
DE SAUTY. 
 
 Born of stream galvanic, with it he had perished 
 There is no De Sauty now there is no current ! 
 Give us a new cable, then again we'll hear him 
 Cry, " All right! De Sauty." 
 
ESTIVATION. 
 
 AN UNPUBLISHED POEM, BY MY LATE LATIN TUTOR. 
 
 JN candent ire the solar splendor flames ; 
 
 The foles, languescent, pend from arid rames 
 His humid front the cive, anheling, wipes, 
 And dreams of erring on ventiferous ripes. 
 
 How dulce to vive occult to mortal eyes, 
 Dorm on the herb with none to supervise, 
 Carp the suave berries from the crescent vine, 
 And bibe the flow from longicaudate kine ! 
 
 To me, alas ! no verdurous visions come, 
 Save yon exiguous pool's conferva-scum, — 
 No concave vast repeats the tender hue 
 That laves my milk-jug with celestial blue 1 
 
 Me wretched ! Let me curr to quercine shades I 
 Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids ! 
 Oh, might I vole to some umbrageous clump, — 
 Depart, — be off, — excede, — ^ evade, — erump ! 
 
THE OLD MAN DREAMS. 
 
 r\B, for one hour of youthful joy I 
 
 Give back my twentieth spring I 
 I'd rather laugh a bright-haired boy 
 
 Than reign a gray-beard king ! 
 
 Off with the wrinkled spoils of age ! 
 
 Away with learning's crown ! 
 Tear out life's wisdom-written page, I 
 
 And dash its trophies down ! 
 
 One moment let my life-blood stream 
 
 From boyhood's fount of flame ! 
 Give me one giddy, reeling dream 
 
 Of life all love and fame ! 
 
 — ^My listening angel heard the prayer, 
 
 And, calmly smiling, said, 
 " If I but touch thy silvered hair, 
 
 Thy hasty wish hath sped. 
 
HUMOBOUS POEMS, 
 
 " But is there nothing in thy track 
 To bid thee fondly stay, 
 
 While the swift seasons hurry back 
 To find the wished- for day ?" 
 
 — Ah, truest soul of womankind ! 
 
 Without thee, what were life ? 
 One bliss I cannot leave behind : 
 
 I'll take — my — precious— wife ! 
 
 — The angel took a sapphire pen 
 And wrote in rainbow dew, 
 
 " The man would be a boy again, 
 And be a husband too !" 
 
 — " And is there nothing yet unsaid 
 Before the change appears ? 
 
 Eemember, all their gifts have fled 
 With those dissolving years 
 
 Why, yes ; for memory would recall 
 
 My fond paternal joys \ 
 I could not bear to leave them all ; 
 
 I'll take — my~girl — and — boys ! 
 
THE OLD MAN DBEAMS. 
 
 The smiling angel dropped his pen, — 
 
 " Why, this will never do ; 
 The man would be a boy again, 
 
 And be a father too 1" 
 
 And so I laughed, — my laughter woke 
 The household with its noise, — 
 
 And wrote my dream, when morning broke, 
 To please the gray-haired boys. 
 
WHAT WE ALL THINK. 
 
 rj^HAT age was older once than now, 
 In spite of locks untimely shed, 
 
 Or silvered on the youthful brow ; 
 
 That babes make love and children wed. 
 
 That sunshine had a heavenly glow, 
 
 Which faded with those " good old days" 
 
 When winters came with deeper snow, 
 And autumns with a softer haze. 
 
 That— mother, sister, wife, or child— 
 The " best of women" each has known. 
 
 Were schoolboys ever half so wild ? 
 
 How young the grandpapas have grown ! 
 
 That hut for this our souls were free. 
 And hut for that our lives were blest ; 
 
 That in some season yet to be 
 
 Our cares will leave us time to rest. 
 
WHAT WE ALL THINK. 
 
 Whene'er we groan with ache or pain, — 
 Some common ailment of the race, — 
 
 Though doctors think the matter plain, — 
 That ours is " a peculiar case." 
 
 That when like babes with fingers burned 
 We count one bitter maxim more, 
 
 Our lesson all the world has learned, 
 And men are wiser than before. 
 
 That when we sob o'er fancied woes, 
 The angels hovering overhead 
 
 Count every .pitying drop that flows, 
 And love us for the tears we shed. 
 
 That when we stand with tearless eye 
 
 And turn the beggar from our door, 
 They still approve us when we sigh, 
 
 " Ah, had I b.ut one thousand more /" 
 
 Though temples crowd the crumbled brink 
 O'erhanging truth's eternal flow, 
 
 Their tablets bold with what we think, 
 Their echoes dumb to what we know ; 
 
140 
 
 EUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 That one unquestioned text we read, 
 All doubt beyond, all fear above, 
 
 Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed 
 Can burn or blot it : God is Love I 
 
THE COMET. 
 
 ^HE Comet ! He is on his way. 
 
 And singing as he flies ; 
 The whizzing planets shrink before 
 
 The spectre of the skies ; 
 Ah ! well may regal orbs burn blue, 
 
 And satellites turn pale, 
 Ten million cubic miles of head, 
 
 Ten billion leagues of tail ! 
 
 On, on by whistling spheres of light, 
 
 He flashes and he flames ; 
 He turns not to the left nor right, 
 
 He asks them not their names ; 
 One spurn from his demoniac heel, — 
 
 Away, away they fly. 
 Where darkness might be bottled up 
 
 And sold for " Tyrian dye." 
 
EUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 And what would happen to the land, 
 
 And how would look the sea, 
 If in the bearded devil's path 
 
 Our earth should chance to be ? 
 Full hot and high the sea would boil, 
 
 Full red the forests gleam ; 
 Methought I saw and heard it all 
 
 In a dyspeptic dream 1 
 
 I saw a tutor take his tube 
 
 The Comet's course to spy ; 
 I heard a scream,— the gathered rays 
 
 Had stewed the tutor's eye ; 
 I saw a fort, — the soldiers all 
 
 Were armed with goggles green ; 
 Pop cracked the guns ! whiz flew the balls ! 
 
 Bang went the magazine ! 
 
 I saw a poet dip a scroll 
 
 Each moment in a tub ; 
 I read upon the warping back, 
 
 " The Dream of Beelzebub 
 He could not see his verses burn, 
 
 Although his brain was fried, 
 And ever and anon he bent 
 
 To wet them as they dried. 
 
THE COMET. 
 
 I saw the scalding pitch roll down 
 
 The crackling, sweating pines, 
 And streams of smoke, like water-spouts, 
 
 Burst thiough the rumbling mines ; 
 I asked the firemen why they made 
 
 Such noise about the town ; 
 They answered not, — but all the while 
 
 The breaks went up and down. 
 
 I saw a roasting pullet sit 
 
 Upon a baking egg ; 
 I saw a cripple scorch his hand 
 
 Extinguishing his leg ; 
 I saw nine geese upon the wing 
 
 Towards the frozen pole. 
 And every mother's gosling feJl 
 
 Crisped to a crackling coal. 
 
 I saw the ox that browsed the grass 
 
 Writhe in the blistering rays, 
 The herbage in his shrinking jaws 
 
 Was all a fiery blaze; 
 I saw huge fishes, boiled to rags. 
 
 Bob through the bubbling brine ; 
 And thoughts of supper crossed my soul ; 
 
 I had been rash at mine. 
 
144 
 
 HUMOBOUS P0EM8. 
 
 Strange sights ! strange sounds ! O fearful dream I 
 
 Its memory haunts me still : 
 The steaming sea, the crimson glare, 
 
 That wreathed each wooded hill ; 
 Stranger I if through thy reeling brain 
 
 Such midnight visions sweep. 
 Spare, spare, oh, spare thine evening meal, 
 
 And sweet shall be thy sleep ! 
 
THE LAST BLOSSOM. 
 
 J^HOUGH young no more, we still would dream 
 
 Of beauty's dear deluding wiles ; 
 The leagues of life to graybeards seem 
 
 Shorter than boyhood's lingering miles. 
 
 Who knows a woman's. wild caprice ? 
 
 It played with Goethe's silvered hair, 
 And many a Holy Father's " niece" 
 
 Has softly smoothed the papal chair. 
 
 When sixty bids us sigh in vain 
 
 To melt the heart of sweet sixteen, 
 
 We think upon those ladies twain 
 
 Who loved so well the tough old Dean. 
 
 We see the Patriarch's wintry face, 
 
 The maid of Egypt's dusky glow. 
 And dream that Youth and Age embrace, 
 
 As April violets fill with snow. 
 
HUMOROUS POEMS. 
 
 .Tranced in her lord's Olympian smile 
 His lotus-loving Memphian lies, — 
 
 The musky daughter of the Nile, 
 
 With plaited hair and almond eyes. 
 
 Might we but share one wild caress 
 Ere life's autumnal blossoms fall. 
 
 And Earth's brown, clinging lips impress 
 The long cold kiss that waits us all ! 
 
 My bosom heaves, remembering yet 
 The morning of that blissful day, 
 
 When Eose, the flower of spring, I met, 
 And gave my raptured soul away. 
 
 Flung from her eyes of purest blue, 
 A lasso, with its leaping chain. 
 
 Light as a loop of larkspurs, flew 
 
 O'er sense and spirit, heart and brain. 
 
 Thou com'st to cheer my waning age, 
 Sweet vision, waited for so long ! 
 
 Dove that would seek the poet's cage. 
 Lured by the magic breath of song I 
 
THE LAST BLOSSOM. 
 
 She blushes ! Ah, reluctant maid, 
 
 Love's drapeau rouge the truth has told ! 
 
 O'er girlhood's yielding barricade 
 
 Floats the great Leveller's crimson fold ! 
 
 Come to my arms I— love heeds not years ; 
 
 No frost the bud of passion knows. 
 
 Ha ! what is this my frenzy hears ? 
 
 A voice behind me uttered, — Rose ! 
 
 Sweet was her smile,— but not for me ; 
 
 Alas ! when woman looks too kind, 
 Just turn your foolish head and see,— 
 
 Some youth is walking close behind 1 
 
"THE BOYS. 
 
 JJAS there any old fellow got mixed with the boys ? 
 
 If there has, take him out, without making a noise. 
 Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite ! 
 Old Time is a liar ! We're twenty to-night ! 
 
 We're twenty 1 We're twenty ! Who says we are more? 
 He's tipsy, — young jackanapes ! — show him the door I 
 " Gray temples at twenty ?" — Yes ! white if we please ; 
 Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing can 
 freeze ! 
 
 Was it snowing I spoke of ? Excuse the mistake ! 
 Look close, — you will see not a sign of a flake ! 
 We want some new garlands for those we have shed^ — 
 And these are white roses in place of the red. 
 
THE BOYSr 
 
 149 
 
 We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been 
 told, 
 
 Of talking (in public) as if we were old : — 
 
 That boy we call " Doctor," and this we call " Judge/' 
 
 It's a neat little fiction, — of course, it's all fudge. 
 
 That fellow's the " Speaker," — the one on the right ; 
 
 Mr. Mayor," my young one, how are you to-night ? 
 That's our " Member of Congress," we say when we 
 chaff ; 
 
 There's the " Eeverend" What's his name ? — don't make 
 me laugh. 
 
 That boy with the grave mathematical look 
 Made believe he had written a wonderful book, 
 And the Eoyal Society thought it was true ! 
 So they chose him right in, — a good joke it was too ! 
 
 There's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain. 
 That could harness a team with a logical chain ; 
 When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire 
 We called him "The Justice," but now he's *^The 
 Squire." 
 
 And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith, — 
 Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith ; 
 
150 
 
 HUM0B0U8 POEMS. 
 
 But he shouted a song for the brave and the free, — 
 Just read on his medal, " My country," " of thee !" 
 
 You hear that boy laughing ? — You think he's all fun ; 
 But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done ; 
 The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, 
 And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all ! 
 
 Yes, we're boys,— always playing with tongue or with 
 pen; 
 
 And I sometimes have asked, Shall we ever be men ? 
 Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, and gay. 
 Till the last dear companion drops smiling away ? 
 
 Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray ! 
 The stars of its winter, the dews of its May ! 
 And when we have done with our life-lasting toys. 
 Dear Father, take care of Thy children, the Boys ! 
 
 January 6, 1859. 
 
A SEA DIALOGUE. 
 
 Cabin Passenger. Man at Wheel. 
 
 CABIN PASSENGER. 
 
 T7EIEND, you seem tliouglitful. I not wonder much 
 
 That he who sails the ocean should be sad. 
 I am myself reflective. — When I think 
 Of all this wallowing beast, the Sea, has sucked 
 Between his sharp, thin lips, the wedgy waves ; 
 What heaps of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls; 
 What piles of shekels, talents, ducats, crowns, 
 What bales of Tyrian mantles, Indian shawls, 
 Of laces that have blanked the weavers' eyes. 
 Of silken tissues, wrought by worm and man. 
 The half-starved workman, and the well-fed worm; 
 What marbles, bronzes, pictures, parchments, books; 
 What many-lobuled, thought-engendering brains; 
 Lie with the gaping sea-shells in his maw, — 
 I, too, am silent; for all language seems 
 A mockery, and the speech of man is vain. 
 
152 
 
 HUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 0 mariner, we look upon the waves 
 
 And thej rebuke our babbling. " Peace!" they say, 
 
 " Mortal, be still I" My noisy tongue is hushed, 
 
 And with my trembling finger on my lips 
 
 My soul exclaims in ecstasy — 
 
 MAN AT WHEEL. 
 
 Belay! 
 
 CABIN PASSENGER. 
 
 Ah, yes! " Delay,"— it caUs, " nor haste to break 
 The charm of stillness with an idle word!" 
 O mariner, I love thee, for thy thought 
 Strides even with my own, nay, flies before. 
 Thou art a brother to the wind and wave ; 
 Have they not music for thine ear as mine. 
 When the wild tempest makes thy ship his lyre, 
 Smiting a cavernous basso from the shrouds 
 And climbing up his gamut through the stays. 
 Through buntlines, bowlines, ratlines, till it shrills 
 An alto keener than the locust sings, 
 And all the great ^olian orchestra 
 Storms out its mad sonata in the gale? 
 Is not the scene a wondrous and — 
 
 MAN AT WHEEL. 
 
 Avast! 
 
A SEA DIALOGUE. 
 
 CABIN PASSENGER. 
 
 Ah, yes, a vast, a vast and wondrous scene! 
 I see thy soul is open as the day 
 That holds the sunshine in its azure bowl 
 To all the solemn glories of the deep! 
 Tell me, O mariner, dost thou never feel 
 The grandeur of thine office, — to control 
 The keel that cuts the ocean like a knife, 
 And leaves a wake behind it like a seam 
 In the great shining garment of the world? 
 
 MAN AT WHEEL. 
 
 Belay y'r jaw, y' swab! y' hoss-marinel 
 
 {To the Captain.) 
 Ay, ay, Sir! Stiddy, Sir! Sou'wes' b' sou' I 
 
 November 10, 1864. 
 
THE JUBILEE. 
 
 NAUTICUS LOQUITUR. 
 
 J'VE heerd some talk of a Jubilee 
 
 To celebrate "our" "victory;" — 
 Now Tm a chap as foUers the sea, 
 'n' f r 'z I know, nob'dy '11 listen to me, 
 B't I'll tell y' jest what's my idee. 
 
 When you 'n' a fellah 'z got your grip, 
 Before y' Ve settled it which can whip, 
 I won't say nothin'. You let her rip I 
 Knock him to pieces, chip by chip! 
 But don't fire into a sinkin' ship ! 
 
 I tell y', shipmates 'n' lan'sm'n too. 
 There's chaps aboard th't's 'z good 'z you, 
 'Twas God A'mighty that made her crew ! 
 Folks is folks! 'n' that's 'z true 
 'z that land is black 'n' water blue! 
 
THE JUBILEE. 
 
 155 
 
 Come tell us, shipmates, ef y' can, 
 
 Was there ever a crew sence th' worF began 
 
 That sech a wallopin' had to stan' 
 
 'z them poor fellahs th't tried t' man 
 
 The great Chicago catamaran ! 
 
 Wahl, this is what y' Ve hed t' do, — 
 T' lick 'em, — ^but not t* drown *em too; 
 There's some good fellahs, 'n' not a few, 
 That's a swimmin' about, all chilled 'n' blue, 
 'n' wants t' be h'isted aboard o' you! 
 
 Come, drowning foes! your friends we'll be, — 
 
 We've licked! Haw! haw! You're licked! Hee! heel 
 
 Hooraw for you! Hooraw for we! 
 
 We'll wait till the whole wide land is free, 
 
 And then we'll have our Jubilee ! 
 
 November 12, 1864. 
 
THE SWEET LITTLE MAN. 
 
 DEDICATED TO THE STAY-AT-HOME RANGERS. 
 
 JY^W, while our soldiers are fighting our battles, 
 Each at his post to do all that he can, 
 
 Down among rebels and contraband chattels, 
 What are you doing, my sweet little man? 
 
 All the brave boys under canvas are sleeping, 
 
 All of them pressing to march with the van, 
 Far from the home where their sweethearts are weep- 
 
 What are you waiting for, sweet little man? 
 
 You with the terrible warlike moustaches, 
 
 Fit for a colonel or chief of a clan. 
 You with the waist made for sword-belts and sashes, 
 
 Where are your shoulder-straps, sweet little man? 
 
THE SWEET LITTLE MAN, 157 
 
 Bring him the buttonless garment of woman ! 
 
 Cover his face lest it freckle and tan; 
 Muster the Apron-string Guards on the Common, — 
 
 That is the corps for the sweet little man! 
 
 Give him for escort a file of young misses, 
 Each of them armed with a deadly rattan; 
 
 They shall defend him from laughter and hisses, 
 Aimed by low boys at the sweet little man ! 
 
 All the fair maidens about him shall cluster. 
 
 Pluck the white feathers from bonnet and fan, 
 
 Make him a plume like a turkey-wing duster, — 
 That is the crest for the sweet little man! 
 
 Oh, but the Apron-string Guards are the fellows! 
 
 Drilling each day since our troubles began, — 
 " Handle your walking-sticks!" " Shoulder umbrellas!" 
 
 That is the style for the sweet little man. 
 
 Have we a nation to save? In the first place 
 Saving ourselves is the sensible plan, — 
 
 Surely the spot where there's shooting's the worst place 
 Where I can stand, says the sweet little man. 
 
158 
 
 SUMOBOUS POEMS, 
 
 Catch me confiding mj person with strangers! 
 
 Think how the cowardly BuU-Eunners ran» 
 In the brigade of the Staj-at-home Rangers 
 
 Marches my corps, says the sweet Httle man. 
 
 Such was the stufFof the Malakoff-takers, 
 
 Such were the soldiers that scaled the Eedan, 
 
 Truculent housemaids and bloodthirsty Quakers, 
 Brave not the wrath of the sweet little man! 
 
 Yield him the side-walk, ye nursery maidens! 
 
 Sauve qui pent ! Bridget; and right about! Ann;— 
 Fierce as a shark in a school of menhadens^ 
 
 See him advancing, the sweet little man! 
 
 When the red flails of the battle-field's threshers 
 Beat out the continent's wheat from its bran. 
 
 While the wind scatters the chaffy seceshers, 
 What will become of our sweet little man? 
 
 When the brown soldiers come back from the borders. 
 How will he look while his features they scan? 
 
 How will he feel when he gets marching orders, 
 Signed by his lady-love? sweet little man! 
 
THE SWEET LITTLE MAN. 
 
 159 
 
 Fear not for him, though the rebels expect him, — 
 Life is too precious to shorten its span ; 
 
 Woman her broomstick shall raise to protect him, — 
 Will she not fight for the sweet little man I 
 
 Now, then, nine cheers for the Stay-at-home Eanger ! 
 
 Blow the great fish-horn, and beat the big pan ! 
 First in the field that is farthest from danger, 
 
 Take your white-feather plume, sweet little man ! 
 
OUR OLDEST FRIEND. 
 
 READ TO " THE BOYS OF '29," JAN. 5, 1865. 
 
 J GIVE you the health of the oldest friend 
 
 That, short of eternity, earth can lend, 
 
 A friend so faithful and tried and true 
 
 That nothing can wean him from me and you. 
 
 When first we screeched in the sudden blaze 
 Of the daylight's blinding and blasting rays, 
 And gulped at the gaseous, groggy air, 
 This old, old friend stood waiting there. 
 
 And when, with a kind of mortal strife, 
 We had gasped and choked into breathing life, 
 He watched by the cradle, day and night, 
 And held our hands till we stood upright. 
 
 From gristle and pulp our frames have grown 
 To stringy muscle and solid bone ; 
 While we were changing, he altered not ; 
 We might forget, but he never forgot. 
 
OUR OLDEST FRIEND. 
 
 161 
 
 He came with us to the college class, 
 
 Little cared he for the steward's pass ! 
 
 All the rest must pay their fee, 
 
 But the grim old dead-head entered free. 
 
 He stayed with us while we counted o'er 
 Four times each of the seasons four ; 
 And with every season, from year to year, 
 The dear name Classmate he made more dear. 
 
 He never leaves us, — he never will. 
 Till our hands are cold, and our hearts are still; 
 On birthdays, and Christmas, and New-Years too, 
 He always remembers both me and you. 
 
 Every year this faithful friend 
 
 His little present is sure to send ; 
 
 Every year, wheresoe'er we be, 
 
 He wants a keepsake from you and me. 
 
 How he loves us ! he pats our heads, 
 And lo ! they are gleaming with silver threads ; 
 And he's always begging one lock of hair, 
 Till our shining crowns have nothing to wear. 
 
 M 
 
HUMOBOUS F0EM8, 
 
 At length he will tell us, one by one, 
 " My child, your labour on earth is done ; 
 And now you must journey afar to see 
 My elder brother, — Eternity 1" 
 
 And so, when long, long years have passed, 
 Some dear old fellow will be the last, — 
 Never a boy alive but he 
 Of all our goodly company ! 
 
 When he lies down, but not till then, 
 Our kind Class-Angel will drop the pen 
 That writes in the day-book kept above 
 Our lifelong record of faith and love. 
 
 So here's a health, in homely rhyme. 
 To our oldest classmate, Father Time ! 
 May our last survivor live to be 
 As bald, but as wise and tough as he ! 
 
A FAREWELL TO AGASSIZ. 
 
 JJOW the mountains talked together, 
 Looking down upon the weather, 
 When they heard our friend had planned his 
 Little trip among the Andes ! 
 How they'll bare their snowy scalps 
 To the climber of the Alps 
 When the cry goes through their passes, 
 " Here comes the great Agassiz !" 
 " Yes, I'm tall/' says Chimborazo, 
 " But I wait for him to say so, — 
 That's the only thing that lacks, — ^he 
 Must see me, Cotopaxi !" 
 "Ay, ay!" the fire-peak thunders, 
 "And he must view my wonders 1 
 I'm but a lonely crater 
 Till I have him for spectator !" 
 The mountain hearts are yearning, 
 The lava-torches burning. 
 
SUMO BO us POEMS. 
 
 The rivers bend to meet him, 
 The forests bow to greet him, 
 It thrills the spinal column 
 Of fossil fishes solemn, 
 And glaciers crawl the faster 
 To the feet of their old master ! 
 
 Heaven keep him well and hearty, 
 Both him and all his party ! 
 From the sun that broils and smites, 
 From the centipede that bites, 
 From the hail-storm and the thunder, 
 From the vampire and the condor, 
 From the gust upon the river, 
 From the sudden earthquake shiver. 
 From the trip of mule or donkey, 
 From the midnight howling monkey, 
 From the stroke of knife or dagger, 
 From the puma, and the jaguar, 
 From the horrid boa-constrictor 
 That has scared us in the pictur', 
 From the Indians of the Pampas 
 Who would dine upon their grampas. 
 From every beast and vermin 
 That to think of sets us squirming, 
 From every snake that tries on 
 
A F ABE WELL TO AGA8SIZ, 
 
 165 
 
 The traveller his p'ison, 
 
 From every pest of Natur', 
 
 Likewise the alligator, 
 
 And from two things left behind him,— 
 
 (Be sure they'll try to find him), 
 
 The tax-bill and assessor, — 
 
 Heaven keep the great Professor ! 
 
 May he find, with his apostles. 
 That the land is full of fossils, 
 That the waters swarm with fishes 
 Shaped according to his wishes, 
 That every pool is fertile 
 In fancy kinds of turtle, 
 New birds around him singing, 
 New insects, never stinging. 
 With a million novel data 
 About the articulata. 
 And facts that strip off all husks 
 From the history of moUusks. 
 
 And when, with loud Te Deum, 
 He returns to his Museum, 
 May he find the monstrous reptile 
 That so long the land has kept ill 
 
HUMOBOUS POEMS, 
 
 By Grant and Sherman throttled, 
 And by Father Abraham bottled 
 (All specked and streaked and mottled 
 With the scars of murderous battles, 
 Where he clashed the iron rattles 
 That gods and men he shook at), 
 For all the world to look at ! 
 
 God bless the great Professor ! 
 And Madam too, God bless her ! 
 Bless him and all his band, 
 On the sea and on the land, 
 As they sail, ride, walk, and stand, — 
 Bless them head and heart and hand. 
 Till their glorious raid is o'er, 
 And they touch our ransomed shore ! 
 Then the welcome of a nation, 
 With its shout of exultation, 
 Shall awake the dumb creation, 
 And the shapes of buried seons 
 Join the living creatures' paeans. 
 While the mighty megalosaurus 
 Leads the palaeozoic chorus, — 
 God bless the great Professor, 
 And the land his proud possessor, — 
 Bless them now and evermore ! 
 
THE LAST LEAF. 
 
 J SAW him once before, 
 As he passed by the door, 
 And again 
 The pavement stones resound, 
 As he totters o'er the ground 
 With his cane. 
 
 They say that in his prime, 
 Ere the pruning-knife of Time 
 
 Cut him down, 
 Not a better man was found 
 By the Crier on his round 
 
 Through the town. 
 
 But now he walks the streets, 
 And he looks at all he meets 
 
 Sad and wan, 
 And he shakes his feeble head, 
 That it seems as if he said, 
 
 " They are gone." 
 
HUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 The mossy marbles rest 
 
 On the lips that he has prest 
 
 In their bloom, 
 And the names he loved to hear 
 Have been carved for many a year 
 
 On the tomb. 
 
 My grandmamma has said, — 
 Poor old lady, she is dead 
 
 Long ago,— 
 That he had a Eoman nose, 
 And his cheek was like a rose 
 
 In the snow. 
 
 But now his nose is thin, 
 And it rests upon his chin 
 
 Like a staff ; 
 And a crook is in his back, 
 And a melancholy crack 
 
 In his laugh. 
 
 I know it is a sin 
 For me to sit and grin 
 
 At him here ; 
 But the old three-cornered hat, 
 And the breeches, and all that, 
 
 Are so queer ! 
 
THE LAST LEAF. 
 
 And if I should live to be 
 The last leaf upon the tree 
 
 In the spring, — 
 Let them smile, as I do now, 
 At the old forsaken bough 
 
 Where I cling. 
 
THE MYSTERIOUS VISITOR. 
 
 ^HERE was a sound of hurrying feet, 
 A tramp on echoing stairs, 
 
 There was a rush along the aisles, — 
 It was the hour of prayers. 
 
 And on, like Ocean's midnight wave, 
 
 The current rolled along. 
 When, suddenly, a stranger form 
 
 Was seen amidst the throng. 
 
 He was a dark and swarthy man, 
 
 That uninvited guest ; 
 A faded coat of bottle-green 
 
 Was buttoned round his breast. 
 
 There was not one among them all 
 Could say from whence he came ; 
 
 Nor beardless boy, nor ancient man, 
 Could tell that stranger's name. 
 
THE MY8TEBI0U8 VI8IT0B. 
 
 All silent as the sheeted dead, 
 In spite of sneer and frown, 
 
 Fast by a gray-haired senior's side 
 He sat him boldly down. 
 
 There was a look of horror flashed 
 
 From out the tutor's eyes ; 
 When all around him rose to pray^ 
 
 The strangPT did not rise ! 
 
 A murmur broke along the crowd, 
 
 The prayer was at an end ; 
 With ringing heels and measured tread 
 
 A hundred forms descend. 
 
 Through sounding aisle, o'er grating stair^ 
 The long procession poured, 
 
 Till all were gathered on the seats 
 Around the Commons board. 
 
 That fearful stranger I down he sat, 
 
 Unasked, yet undismayed ; 
 And on his lip a rising smile 
 
 Of scorn or pleasure played. 
 
HUM0B0U8 POEMS 
 
 He took his hat and huog it up, 
 
 With slow but earnest air ; 
 He stripped his coat from off his back, 
 
 And placed it on a chair. 
 
 Then from his nearest neighbour's side 
 
 A knife and plate he drew ; 
 And reaching out his hand again, 
 
 He took his teacup too. 
 
 How fled the sugar from the bowl I 
 
 How sunk the azure cream ! 
 They vanished like the shapes that floa* 
 
 Upon a summer's dream. 
 
 A long, long draught, — an outstretched hand, — 
 
 And crackers, toast, and tea. 
 They faded from the stranger's touch 
 
 Like dew upon the sea. 
 
 Then clouds were dark on many a brow, 
 
 Fear sat upon their souls. 
 And, in a bitter agony, 
 
 They clasped their buttered rolls. 
 
THE MY8TEBI0US VISIT OB, 
 
 A whisper trembled through the crowd, — 
 Who could the stranger be ? 
 
 And some were silent, for they thought 
 A cannibal was he. 
 
 What if the creature should arise, — 
 For he was stout and tall, — 
 
 And swallow down a sophomore, 
 Coat, crow's-foot, cap, and all I 
 
 All sullenly the stranger rose ; 
 
 They sat in mute despair ; 
 He took his hat from off the peg, 
 
 His coat from off the chair. 
 
 Four freshmen fainted on the seat, 
 Six swooned upon the floor ; 
 
 Yet on the fearful being passed, 
 And shut the chapel door. 
 
 There is full many a starving man, 
 
 That walks in bottle-green, 
 But never more that hungry one 
 
 In Commons-hall was seen. 
 
HUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 Yet often at the sunset hour, 
 When tolls the evening bell, 
 
 The freshman lingers on the steps, 
 That frightful tale to tell. 
 
LINES BY A GLERK. 
 
 ! I did love her dearly, 
 
 And gave her toys and rings, 
 And I thought she meant sincerely, 
 
 When she took my pretty things ; 
 But her heart has grown as icy 
 
 As a fountain in the fall, 
 And her love that was so spicy. 
 
 It did not last at aU. 
 
 I gave her once a locket, 
 
 It was filled with my own hair, 
 And she put it in her pocket 
 
 With very special care. 
 But a jeweller has got it, — 
 
 He offered it to me, — 
 And another that is not it 
 
 Around her neck I see. 
 
HUM OB 0 US POEMS. 
 
 For my cooings and mj billings 
 
 I do not now complain, 
 But my dollars and my shillings 
 
 Will never come again ; 
 They were earned with toil and sorrow^ 
 
 But I never told her that, 
 And now I have to borrow, 
 
 And want another hat. 
 
 Think, think, thou cruel Emma, 
 
 When thou shalt hear my woe, 
 , And know my sad dilemma, 
 
 That thou hast made it so. 
 See, see my beaver rusty, 
 
 Look, look upon this hole, 
 This coat is dim and dusty ; 
 
 Oh, let it rend thy soul ! 
 
 Before the gates of fashion 
 
 I daily bent my knee, 
 But I sought the shrine of passion, 
 
 And found my idol, — thee ; 
 Though never love intenser 
 
 Had bowed a soul before it. 
 Thine eye was on the censer, 
 
 And not the hand that bore it. 
 
THE PORTRAIT OF «A GENTLEMAN/ 
 
 IN THE ATHEN^UM GALLEKT. 
 
 JT maj be so,— perhaps thou hast 
 A warm and loving heart ; 
 
 I will not blame thee for thy face, 
 Poor devil as thou art. 
 
 That thing, thou fondly deem'st a nose, 
 Unsightly though it be,~ 
 
 In spite of aU the cold world's scorn, 
 It may be much to thee. 
 
 Those eyes,— among thine elder friends 
 Perhaps they pass for blue 
 
 No matter,— if a man can see. 
 What more have eyes to do ? 
 
HUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 Thy mouth, — that fissure in thy face 
 
 By something like a chin, — 
 May be a very useful place 
 
 To put thy victual in. 
 
 I know thou hast a wife at home, 
 
 I know thou hast a child, 
 By that subdued, domestic smile 
 
 Upon thy features mild. 
 
 That wife sits fearless by thy side, 
 
 That cherub on thy knee ; 
 They do not shudder at thy looks, 
 
 They do not shrink from thee. 
 
 Above thy mantle is a hook, — 
 
 A portrait once was there ; 
 It was thine only ornament, — 
 
 Alas ! that hook is bare. 
 
 She begged thee not to let it go, 
 
 She begged thee all in vain ; 
 She wept,— and breathed a trembling prayer 
 
 To meet it safe again. 
 
TO THE POBTBAIT OF A GENTLEMAN^ 
 
 It was a bitter sight to see 
 That picture torn awaj ; 
 
 It was a solemn thought to think 
 What all her friends would say 1 
 
 And often in her calmer hours, 
 And in her happy dreams, 
 
 Upon its long-deserted hook 
 The absent portrait seems. 
 
 Thy wretched infant turns his head 
 
 In melancholy wise, 
 And looks to meet the placid star 
 
 Of 4feose unbending eyes. 
 
 I never saw thee, lovely one, — 
 Perchance I never may ; 
 
 It is not often that we cross 
 Such people in our way ; 
 
 But if we n'eet in distant years, 
 Or on some foreign shore. 
 
 Sure I can take my Bible oath, 
 I've seen that face before. 
 
THE HOT SEASON. 
 
 ^HE folks, that on tlie first of May 
 
 Wore winter-coats and hose, 
 Began to say, the first of June, 
 
 " Good Lord ! how hot it grows." 
 At last two Fahrenheits blew np, 
 
 And killed two children small, 
 And one barometer shot dead 
 
 A tutor with its ball I 
 
 Now all day long the locusts sang 
 
 Among the leafless trees ; 
 Three new hotels warped inside out, 
 
 The pumps could only wheeze ; 
 And ripe old wine, that twenty years 
 
 Had cobwebbed o'er in vain, 
 Came spouting through the rotten corks, 
 
 Like Joly's best champagne ! 
 
TEE EOT SEASON. 
 
 The Worcester locomotives did 
 
 Their trip in half an hour ; 
 The Lowell cars ran forty miles 
 
 Before they checked the power ; 
 EoU brimstone soon became a drug, 
 
 And loco-focos fell ; 
 All asked for ice, but every where 
 
 Saltpetre was to sell. 
 
 Plump men of mornings ordered tights, 
 
 But, ere the scorching noons, 
 Their candle-moulds had grown as loose 
 
 As Cossack pantaloons ! 
 The dogs ran mad, — men could not try 
 
 If water they would choose ; 
 A horse fell dead, — he only left 
 
 Four red-hot, rusty shoes ! 
 
 But soon the people could not bear 
 
 The slightest hint of fire ; 
 Allusions to caloric drew 
 
 A flood of savage ire ; 
 The leaves on heat were all torn out 
 
 From every book at school. 
 And many blackguards kicied and caned, 
 
 Because they said, — Keep cool !" 
 
HUMOBOUS P0EM8. 
 
 The gas-liglit companies were mobbed, 
 
 The bakers all were shot, 
 The penny press began to talk 
 
 Of Lynching Doctor Nott ; 
 And all about the warehouse -steps 
 
 Were angry men in droves, 
 Crashing and splintering through the doors 
 
 To smash the patent stoves 1 
 
 The abolition men and maids 
 
 Were tanned to such a hue. 
 You scarce could tell them from their friends, 
 
 Unless their eyes were blue ; 
 And, when I left, society 
 
 Had burst its ancient guards, 
 And Brattle Street and Temple Place 
 
 Were interchanging cards ! 
 
A MODEST REQUEST. 
 
 COMPLIED WITH AFTER THE DINNER AT PRESIDENT EVERETT'S 
 INAUGURATION. 
 
 ^CENE, — a back parlour in a certain square, 
 
 Or court, or lane, — in short, no matter where ; 
 Time, — early morning, dear to simple souls, 
 Who love its sunshine, and its fresh-baked rolls ; 
 Persons, — take pity on this tell-tale blush. 
 That, like the Jithiop, whispers, " Hush, oh^ hush I" 
 
 Delightful scene ! where smiling comfort broods, 
 Nor business frets, nor anxious care intrudes ; 
 0 si sic omnia I were it ever so ! 
 But what is stable in this world below ! 
 Medio efonie — Virtue has her faults,— 
 The clearest fountains taste of Epsom salts ; 
 We snatch the cup and lift to drain it dry, — 
 Its central dimple holds a drowning % ! 
 
 Strong is the pine by Maine's ambrosial streams, 
 But stronger augers pierce its thickest beams ; 
 
184 HUM OB 0 US POEMS. 
 
 I ■ 
 
 No iron gate, no spiked and panelled door, 
 
 Can keep out death, the postman, or the bore ; — 
 
 Oh, for a world where peace and silence reign, 
 
 And blunted dulness terebrates in vain ! 
 
 — The door-bell jingles, — enter Eichard Fox, 
 
 And takes this letter from his leathern box. 
 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 In writing on a former day. 
 One little matter I forgot to say ; 
 I now inform you in a single line, 
 On Thursday next our purpose is to dine. 
 The act of feeding, as you understand, 
 Is but a fraction of the work in hand ; 
 Its nobler half is that ethereal meat 
 The papers call * the intellectual treat / 
 Songs, speeches, toasts, around the festive board, 
 Drowned in the juice the College pumps afford ; 
 For only water flanks our knives and forks. 
 So, sink or float, we swim without the corks. 
 Yours is the art, by native genius taught, 
 To clothe in eloquence the naked thought ; 
 Yours is the skill its music to prolong 
 Through the sweet effluence of mellifluous song ; 
 Yours the quaint trick to cram the pithy line 
 That cracks so crisply over bubbling wine ; 
 
A M0DE8T BEQUEST. 
 
 And since success your various gifts attends, 
 We — that is, I and all your numerous friends — 
 Expect from you— your single self a host — 
 A speech, a song, excuse me, and a. toast ; 
 Nay, not to haggle on so small a claim, 
 A few of each, or several of the same. 
 
 (Signed) Yours, most truly, 
 
 No ! my sight must fail, — 
 If that ain't Judas on the largest scale ! 
 
 Well, this is modest ! — nothing else than that ? 
 My coat ? my boots ? my pantaloons ? my hat ? 
 My stick ? my gloves ? as well as all my wits, 
 Learning, and linen ? — every thing that fits ! 
 
 Jack, said my lady, is it grog you'll try, 
 Or punch, or toddy, if perhaps you're dry ? 
 Ah, said the sailor, though T can't refuse, 
 You know, my lady, 'tain't for me to choose 
 ril take the grog to finish off my lunch, 
 And drink the toddy while you mix the punch. 
 
 The Speech. (The speaker, rising to be seen, 
 Looks very red, because so very green.) 
 
186 
 
 HUMOBOUS POEMS. 
 
 I rise — rise — with unaffected fear 
 
 (Louder ! — speak louder ! — who the deuce can hear ?), 
 
 I rise — I said — with undisguised dismay — - 
 
 — Such are my feelings as I rise, I say ! 
 
 Quite unprepared to face this learned throng, 
 
 Already gorged with eloquence and song ; 
 
 Around my view are ranged on either hand 
 
 The genius, wisdom, virtue of the land ; 
 
 " Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed" 
 
 Close at my elbow stir their lemonade ; 
 
 Would you like Homer learn to write and speak, 
 
 That bench is groaning with its weight of Greek ; 
 
 Behold the naturalist that in his teens 
 
 Found six new species in a dish of greens ; 
 
 And, lo, the master in a statelier walk, 
 
 Whose annual ciphering takes a ton of chalk ; 
 
 And there the linguist, that by common roots 
 
 Through all their nurseries tracks old Noah's shoots, — 
 
 How Shem's proud children reared the Assyrian piles, 
 
 While Ham's were scattered through the Sandwich Isles 
 
 — ^Fired at the thought of all the present shows, 
 
 My kindling fancy down the future flows ; 
 
 I see the glory of the coming days 
 
 O'er Time's horizon shoot its streaming rays ; 
 
 Near and more near the radiant morning draws 
 
 In living lustre (rapturous applause) j 
 
A MO DUST BEQUEST. 
 
 187 
 
 From east to west the blazing heralds run, 
 
 Loosed from the chariot of the ascending sun, 
 
 Through the long vista of uncounted years 
 
 In cloudless splendour (three tremendous cheers). 
 
 My eye prophetic, as the depths unfold, 
 
 Sees a new advent of the age of gold ; 
 
 While o'er the scene new generations press. 
 
 New heroes rise the coming time to bless, — 
 
 Not such as Homer's, who, we read in Pope, 
 
 Dined without forks and never heard of soap, — 
 
 Not such as May to Marlborough Chapel brings. 
 
 Lean, hungry, savage, anti- every things. 
 
 Copies of Luther in the pasteboard style,— 
 
 But genuine articles — the true Carlyle ; 
 
 While far on high the blazing orb shall shed 
 
 Its central light on Harvard's holy head. 
 
 And learning's ensigns ever float unfurled 
 
 Here in the focus of the new-born world I 
 
 The speaker stops, and, trampling down the pause, 
 
 Roars through the hall the thunder of applause, 
 
 One stormy gust of long suspended Ahs ! 
 
 One whirlwind chaos of insane hurrahs 1 
 
 The Song, But this demands a briefer line, — 
 A shorter muse, and not the old long Nine ; — 
 
BUMOBOUS P0EM8, 
 
 Long metre answers for a common song, 
 Thougli common metre does not answer long. 
 
 She came beneath the forest dome 
 
 To seek its peaceful shade, 
 An exile from her ancient home — 
 
 A poor forsaken maid ; 
 No banner flaunting high above, 
 
 No blazoned cross, she bore ; 
 One holy book of light and love 
 
 Was all her worldly store. 
 
 The dark brown shadows passed away, 
 
 And wider spread the green. 
 And where the savage used to stray. 
 
 The rising mart was seen ; 
 So, when the laden winds had brought 
 
 Their showers of golden rain, 
 Her lap some precious gleanings caught. 
 
 Like Euth's amid the grain. 
 
 But wrath soon gathered uncontrolled 
 
 Among the baser churls. 
 To see her ancles red with gold, 
 
 Her forehead white with pearls ; 
 
A MODEST BEQUEST. 
 
 189 
 
 Who gave to thee the glittering bands 
 That lace thine azure veins ? 
 Who bade thee lift those snow-white hands 
 We bound in gilded chains ?" 
 
 These are the gems my children gave, 
 
 The stately dame replied j 
 The wise, the gentle, and the brave, 
 
 I nurtured at my side ; 
 If envy still your bosom stings. 
 
 Take back their rims of gold ; 
 My sons will melt their wedding rings, 
 
 And give a hundredfold I 
 
 The Toast. Oh, tell me, ye who thoughtless ask 
 
 Exhausted nature for a threefold task. 
 
 In wit or pathos if one share remains, 
 
 A safe investment for an ounce of brains ? 
 
 Hard is the job to launch the desperate pun, 
 
 A pun-job dangerous as the Indian one. 
 
 Turned by the current of some stronger wit 
 
 Back from the object that you mean to hit, 
 
 Like the strange missile which the Australian throws, 
 
 Your verbal boomerang slaps you on the nose. 
 
 One vague inflection spoils the whole with doubt, 
 
 One trivial letter ruins all, left out j 
 
190 
 
 HUMOB 0 US POEMS. 
 
 A knot can choke a felon into clay, 
 A not will save him, spelt without the k ; 
 The smallest word has some unguarded spot, 
 And danger lurks in i without a dot. 
 
 Thus great Achilles, who had shown his zeal 
 In healing wounds, died of a wounded heel ; 
 Unhappy chief, who, when in childhood doused, 
 Had saved his bacon had his feet been soused ! 
 Accursed heel that killed a hero stout ! 
 Oh, had your mother known that you were out, 
 Death had not entered at the trifling part 
 That still defies the small chirurgeon's art 
 With corns and bunions, — not the glorious John 
 Who wrote the book we all have pondered on, — 
 But other bunions, bound in fleecy hose, 
 To " Pilgrim's Progress" unrelenting foes ! 
 
 A health, unmingled with the reveller's wine, 
 To him whose title is indeed divine ; 
 Truth's sleepless watchman on her midnight tower, 
 Whose lamp burns brightest when the tempests lower 
 Oh, who can tell with what a leaden flight 
 Drag the long watches of his weary night ; 
 While at his feet the hoarse and blinding gale 
 Strews the torn wreck and bursts the fragile sail, 
 
A M0DE8T BEQUEST. 
 
 191 
 
 When stars have faded, when the wave is dark, 
 When rocks and sands embrace the foundering bark, 
 And still he pleads with unavailing crj, 
 Behold the light, O wanderer, look or die ! 
 
 A health, fair Themis ! Would the enchanted vine 
 
 Wreathed its green tendrils round this cup of thine ! 
 
 If Learning's radiance fill thy modern court. 
 
 Its glorious sunshine streams through Blackstone's port ! 
 
 Lawyers are thirsty, and their clients too — 
 
 Witness at least, if memory serve me true. 
 
 Those old tribunals, famed for dusty suits. 
 
 Where men sought justice ere they brushed their boots ; 
 
 And what can match, to solve a learned doubt, 
 
 The warmth within that comes from " cold without" ? 
 
 Health to the art whose glory is to give 
 The crowning boon that makes it life to live. 
 Ask not her home ; — the rock where nature flings 
 Her arctic lichen, last of living things, 
 The gardens, fragrant with the orient's balm, 
 From the low jasmine to the star-like palm, 
 Hail her as mistress o'er the distant waves. 
 And yield their tribute to her wandering slaves. 
 Wherever, moistening the ungrateful soil. 
 The tear of suffering tracks the path of toil. 
 
192 
 
 HUMOROUS POEMS. 
 
 There, in the anguish of his fevered hours, 
 Her gracious finger points to healing flowers ; 
 Where the lost felon steals away to die, 
 Her soft hand waves before his closing eye ; 
 % Where hunted misery finds his darkest lair, 
 
 The midnight taper shows her kneeling there ! 
 
 ViETUE — the guide that men and nations own ; 
 And Law — the bulwark that protects her throne ; 
 And Health— -to all its happiest charm that lends,— 
 These and their servants, man's untiring friends ; 
 Pour the bright lymph that Heaven itself lets fall,— 
 In one fair bumper let us toast them all ! 
 
 tONDOlf : 
 
 UEVX7 AND CO., PEINTEES, GEEAT NEW STEMET, 
 yXTTEB LANE^ B.C. 
 
NEW LIST 
 
 OP 
 
 POPUIAE AND IFTEEESTIFa BOOKS 
 
 PUBLISHED OR SOLD BY 
 
 JOH]sr CAMDElSr HOTTEN. 
 
 l^QTE.— order to insure the correct delivery of the actual works. 
 or PARTICULAR EDITIONS, speciiied in this list, it is necessary that the 
 
 NAME OF THE PUBLISHER SHOULD BE DISTINCTLY GIVEN Otherwise 
 
 the purchaser will probably receive books of a different character from 
 those which were ordered. 
 
 In a few days, in 2 vols., very handsomely printed, price 16s., 
 THE HOUSEHOLD STOHIES OF ENGLAi^D^ 
 
 . POP.ULAE ROMAICES 
 
 OP 
 
 THU WBST OF BHGLAmBj 
 
 OR, THE 
 
 DROLLS OF OLD COHIfWALL/ ' . 
 Collected and Edited hy EOBERT HUKT, F.E.S. 
 
 \* For an Analysis of this important work see printed description, which 
 may be obtained gratis at the Publisher's, 
 
 The Work is in Two Series. The First embraces the Fabulous 
 Age, or Pre-historic Period : the Second, The Romances and 
 SUPERSTITIONS OF HISTORIC TiMES. Many of these Stories are 
 remarkabie\for their wild poetic beauty ; others surprise us by their 
 quamtness ; whilst others again show forth a tragic force, which can 
 only be associated with those rude ages which existed lone before the 
 period of authentic history. 
 
 John Camden Uotten, 74 and 75, Ficcadilli/, W, 
 
BOOKS READY AND IN PREPARATION 
 
 This day, pp. 328, in 8vo, price 6s. 6d., by post 7s., 
 HEW DICTIONAKY OF COLLOQUIAL ENGLISH. 
 
 SLANG BICTIONARY; 
 
 The Vulgar Words, Street Phrases, and "Past'^' 
 Expressions of High and Low Society: 
 
 Many with their Etymology, and a few imih their Sistory traced. 
 
 WITH CURIOUS ILLUSTRATIONS.! 
 
 Egyptian hieroglyphic ver\ 
 fo be drttnk, showing the ampu- 
 tation of a man's leg. See 
 under Breaky Lbg- (viz. 
 Strong Drink) in the Diction- 
 ary, p. 81. 
 
 Wedge and Wooden Spoon. 
 See p. 272. 
 
 See Two tipok Tew, in 
 the Dictionary y p. 264.. 
 
 * * WUTi tTiis worlris incorporated Tl^e Dictionary of Modern Slang CaM. and 
 
 * * WitH tnis woriv la , Antinnarv" in 1859. The first editioa ot tbnt 
 Tulgar ^^''^^^^liilo^^^^ ^^^^^^^ later gave 
 ^vork contanied about 3000 N cro^s i^^^^ reviewed by the critical press with an 
 upwards of 5000. Both eddion^weje^ ^^^^^^^^ ^ the four years that 
 approval seldom accorM ^^^^ of unrecognised English once 
 have elapsed, the conipilei nas gone uv . out-lying terms and phrases 
 xnore The entire ^^bject has b en r^^^^^^^^ ^y^ g ^^^^^^ iilustratio.s of 
 have been ^>7«-^t^in ;iew s^^^^^^^ "^^fresult is the volume before the reader, which 
 old colloquial expressions given, ine r^ ^^^^^^ commonly 
 
 ^sjrras well as the worst and most ignorant of society. . 
 
 John Camden 
 
 Sotfen, 74 and 75, FiccadiUy, W. 
 
BOOKS READY AND IJV PREPARATION. 
 
 IJow ready, 4to, beautifully printed, in handsome binding, price 7s, dd,, 
 DOGS IN THE OLDEJ^T TIME. 
 
 TAEIETIES OE BOGS, 
 
 AS THEY ARE FOITSTB IN OLD SCULPTUEES, 
 PICTURES, ENGRAVINGS, AND BOOKS. 
 
 With the names of the Artists by whom they are represented, showing 
 liow long many of the numerous Breeds now existing have been knowa^ 
 
 By Ph. CHAELES BERJEATJ. 
 
 *** The Tolume forms a handsome small 4to, is printed on hnf^^ r^«««^ o«a 
 contams m^merous admirable facsimiles by Mr. Berjeau Some of the ^dX%^^^^^ 
 the engTav^np by Albert Durer, .ire the veritable Scotch toiers of Lleeh ^lS 
 famiJiar to all readers of Punch. The book is a most pleas^'^^ S sftis^Ltorv o^m 
 JA^'^^i'''/'^ "'^^®^^ antiquarian interest. The regrlL mrice of ihl ifonH: 
 10s. 6d., but Mr. Hotten can sell a copy for 6s 6d ^ the book is.. 
 
 John Camden Rotten, 74> and 75, Ficcadilly, W, 
 
BOOKS READY AND IN PREPARATION. 
 
 TENTH THOUSAND, 
 This day, Popular Edition, price Is., by post Is. 2d., 
 THE CHOICEST HUMOEOUS POETRY OF THE AGE, 
 
 Tp:E BIGLOW PAPERS, 
 
 By JAMES EUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 V The only Coekect Edition, with Notes for the English 
 Reader. 
 
 The Times of 25tli July, 1864, says:-" To associate the names of eminent 
 persons with ludicrous images* * * keen and cau.tic political satire America has 
 produced an excellent specimen of this kind of writing m the celebrated Btglow 
 papers of Mr. Lowell." 
 
 The work has frequently been alluded to in the House of Commons, and is 
 acknowledged by the most fastidious of our English critics, to be the keenest piece 
 of satire and the best humorous poetry of the present century. 
 
 John Camden JloUen, 74 and 75, Piccadilly, W, 
 
BOOKS READY AND IN PREPARATION 
 
 #r A New Book by the late Mr. Thackeray will be published in a few 
 days, 8vo, price 7s. 6d,, 
 
 THE 
 
 STUDENT'S QUARTER; 
 
 OK, 
 
 PAEIS LIFE 
 
 riVE-AND-TWENTY YEAES SINCE. 
 
 BT THE LATE 
 
 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 WITS OltmiNAL COLOUBJED ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 V I'or these interesting sketches of French Literature and Art, 
 made immediately after the Eevolution of 1830, the reading world is 
 indebted to a gentleman in Paris, who has carefully preserved the 
 original papers up to the present time. 
 
 John Camden Rotten, 74 and 75, Piccadilly ^ W, 
 
Very Recently Published. 
 
 AN ENTIRELY NEW BOOK OF DELIGHTFUL FAIRY TALES. 
 Kow ready, square 12mo, handsomely printed, on toned paper, in cloth 
 green and gold, price 4s. 6d. plain, — 5s. 6d. coloured (by post 6d. 
 extra), 
 
 FAMILY FAIRY TALES; 
 
 OR, 
 
 GLIMPSES OF ELFLAND AT HEATHEESTON HALL. 
 
 Edited by CHOLMONDELEY PENNELL, Author of "The 
 Naturalist Angler," ''Puck on Pegasus," &c. ; adorned with beautiful 
 Pictures of *'My Lord Lion," ** King Uggermuggek," and other 
 ^reat folks. 
 
 CONTENTS: 
 
 The Great Forest. 
 The Legend of the Little Flower, 
 " Patch ;" or, The Smile Fairy. 
 
 My Lord Lion. 
 The Blue i^ish. 
 
 King Uggermugger ; or, The 
 
 pj-incess Silver-Silk. 
 See Me. 
 
 The Story of the Spring Fairies. 
 A Fable with a Moral. 
 
 This charming volume of Original Tales has beeii 
 universally praised by the critical press. From a great many 
 reviews the following notices are selected : — - 
 Athenceum, 
 
 When children have grown weary of boisterous play, and settled 
 down on chair and footstool and rug, round the brightly-glowing ffire, 
 Mr. Cholmondeley Pennell's 'Fairy Tales' will make their influence 
 felt; cheering them up to renew their joyous laughter, and eventually 
 fending them to bed with a store of droll fancies and pretty thoughts- 
 thoughts and fancies which they will think about as they fall asleep, and 
 dream about as they wake up on the following morning." 
 
 London Review, 
 
 *'They fully deserve the care w^iich has preserved them, and in their 
 present dress will afford amusement at the fireside at which they niay 
 Reread. We may instance in particular the story of ' The Blue Fish/ 
 Jts one of the best Fairy Tales we have seen. The collection is excellent; 
 the illustrations good." 
 
 Reader. 
 
 •* The tales are of the most charming kind we have read for a lon^g 
 time, and, we have no doubt, will cheer many a fireside. Our author is 
 us tender as he is quaint and humorous, and seems to have imbibed the 
 true spirit of fairy and legendary lore. The illustrations have our 
 heartiest admiration. Miss Edwards works with a pencil as graceful as 
 It is facile." 
 
 Bee Specimen Illustration on opposite page. 
 
 John Camden Jlotten, 74 and 75, Ficcadilli/, W. 
 
FAMILY FAI RY TALES. 
 
 4f 
 
BOOKS HEADY AND IN PREPARATION. 
 
 This day, on Toned Paper, price 6d., 
 
 K O B S O N ; 
 
 By GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. 
 
 An interesting Biography of the great Serio-Comic 
 Actor, with sketches of his famous characters, "Jem Eaggs," 
 Boots at the Swan," "The Yellow Dwarf," "Daddy 
 Hardacre," &c. 
 
 Anecdotes of the old Olympic Theatre are also given. 
 
 John Camden Ilottent 74 and 75, Ficcadillyy W, 
 
BOOKS READY AND IN PREPARATION. 
 
 This day, on Toned Paper, price 6d., 
 
 P A N S I E ; 
 
 THE LAST LITERARY EFFORT OF 
 
 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 All that remains of Hawthorne's unfinished Eomance- 
 — a little Sketch full of that quaint and delightful genius^ 
 which gave to the world "The House with the Seven 
 Gables/' and " Twice-told Tales." 
 
 John Camden HoUen, 74 and 75, Piccadilly W, 
 
USEFUL AND SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 
 
 Now ready. Second Edition, in binding ornamented with postage 
 stamps, price Is., by stamps, post Is. 2d. 
 
 POSTAGE-STAMP COLLECTING, 
 
 A Standard Guide to; 
 
 Or a Complete List of all the Postage Stamps known to exist, with 
 their Values and Degrees of Rarity. 
 BY MESSRS. BELLARS AND DAVIE. 
 This Second Edition gives upwards of 300 Stamps not in the 
 previous issue. 
 
 **Anew Handbook is about to appear, with the title, * The Standard Guide to 
 .Toitage-Slamp Collecting, with their Values and Degrees of Rarity,' a work upon 
 which the authors, Messrs. Bellars and Davie, have been engaged for three years. 
 It will include an account of the Mormon Stamp issued by Brigham Young in 1852. 
 —London Review. . xr, j 
 
 , " Unexceptionable in the quality of the paper, clearness of prmt, &c., it affords an 
 addition to the scientific knowledge attainable by means of the study of postage 
 stamps. A table of characters affords the possessor an opportunity of obtainmg an 
 acquaintance with the shape and comparative rarity of stamps. This insight into 
 the marketable value and scarcity of postage stamps is a new feature in books on the 
 subject. The exact words of the inscription on the stamps is greatly conducive to 
 facility of identification, and the queer characters on the Moldavian, Kussian, &c., 
 stamps, copied without error, demonstrate the extreme care with which the work 
 must have been got up. The index and money table appended will be found very 
 convenient."— r/ie ASiawp Collectors* Magazine. 
 
 THE STANDAED WOEK ON CONFECTIONEEY AND DESSEETS. 
 
 USED IN HEE MAJESTY'S HOUSEHOLD. 
 Now ready, Second Edition, with numerous Illustrations, price 
 6s. 6d., by post 7s. 
 
 THE MODERN CONFECTIONER: 
 
 A Practical Guide to the latest and most improved Methods for 
 Making the Various Kinds of Confectionery; 
 
 Wltli the Manner of Preparing and Laying out Desserts; adapted for 
 Private Families or Large Establishments. 
 By WILLIAM JEANES, 
 Ciiief Confectioner at Messrs. Curiters' (Confectioners to Her Majesty), 
 Berkeley-square. 
 A new^ and reliable work on the making of Confectionery and the 
 laying out of Desserts has long been wanted. No pains have been 
 spared to make the present book a useful and safe guide to all Cooks 
 and Housekeepers in private families or large establishments. The name 
 of the chief confectioner at the justly-celebrated house of Gunter k Co., 
 in Berkeley-square, is a sufficient guarantee of the usefulness of the 
 book. 
 
 " The most important work which has been published for many years upon the art 
 of making Confectionery, Pastry, and on the arrangement and general ordermg of 
 Desserts." — Daily JSews. 
 
 "The language is so simple that a child can with ease understand the longest 
 Tecipes." — Observer. 
 
 " All housekeepers should have it."— DatZy Telegraph. ^ 
 
 John Camden Ilotten, 74t and 75, Piccadilly, W, 
 
<5UNTER^S CONFECTIONERY. 
 
 See opposite page for description and price. 
 
 Specimen Illustrations. 
 
 No, 17. Scyde's Machine for Passing | No. 24. Freezing-Pots and Ice Tubs. 
 Pulps of Fruits. „ 25. Bomba Ice Mould, 
 
 lb. J unneJ, with Stop Stick. | „ 2t>. Flower Modelling. 
 
BOOKS READY AND IN PREPARATION. 
 
 This day, handsomely bound, pp. 550, price 7s, 6d. 
 
 History of Playing Cards, with Anecdotes of their 
 
 Use in Ancient and Modeen Games, Conjtieing, !FoETUTrB-TELLiN&, ancK^ 
 Cakd-sharping. Edited by the late Rev. Ed. S. Tayloe, B.A., and otbersk 
 With Fifty cttrious Illustrations on toned paper. 
 
 This most amusing work, introducing the reader to a curiona chapter of our social', 
 history, gives an interesting account, replete with anecdotes, of the most popular 
 and widely-known pastime which has ever been invented by man for his amnsement.. 
 A more instructive and entertaining book could not be taken in hand for a pleasant 
 hour's reading. 
 
 THE EARLIEST KNOWIf LONDON DIRECTORY. 
 
 Now ready, 12mo, in binding after a pattern of the period, very choicely printed' 
 by Whittingham and Wilkins, price 63. 6d. ; by post, 6s. lOd. 
 
 London Directory of 1677. A Collection of the^ 
 
 NAMES OF THE MERCHANTS LIVING IN AND ABOUT THE CITY 
 OF LONDON; very useful and necessary. Carefully collected for the^ 
 Benefit of all Dealers that shall have occasion with any of them ; directing them, 
 at the first sight of their name to the place of their abode. — London : Prii^te^ 
 for Sam. Lee, 1677. 
 
 This curious little volume has been reprinted verbatim from one of the only two^ 
 copies known to be in existence. It contains a short Introduction pointing out 
 some of the principal persons mentioned in the list. For historical and genealogical 
 purposes the little book is of the greatest value. 
 
 It is really no bad comment on several brilliant passages of Lord Macaiday. 
 Few readers can have forgotten his vivid description of the City of London in the- 
 old time, before it was wholly forsaken by its natural chiefs, when it was not merely 
 a place to make money in, but a place to live in and fight for." — Saturday M&siew 
 (in a review of two columns). 
 
 ** Of very considerable interest for historical purposes, and the tracing of old familj - 
 uames." — London Review, 
 
 ** A little volume of the highest importance in tracing out the biography of old^ 
 London residents. "—^^AeM^Mwt. 
 
 ** It is a long time since such a valuable antiquarian volume has been republished,** 
 — Citi/ Fress (in an article of three columns) . 
 
 EVERY HOUSEKEEPER SHOULD POSSESS A COPY. 
 Now ready, in cloth, price 23. 6d., by post 2s. 8d., The 
 
 Housekeeper's Assistant : a Collection of the most 
 
 valuable Recipes, carefully written down for future use, by Mrs. B , during^ 
 
 her forty years* active service. 
 
 %* As much as two guineas has been paid for a copy of this invaluable little work. 
 
 ** Truly a • Housekeeper's Assistant.* "We should think the little book would very 
 quickly find a place in all the housekeepers* rooms in the country. No instructions 
 appear to be given but those which are of the greatest service to persons in the • 
 charge of family arrangements." — Illustrated News. 
 
 John Camden Hotten, 74 and 75, Ficcadilli/, W. 
 
HISTORY OF PLAYING CARDS/ 
 
 THE VAEIOOS GAMES CONNECTED WITH T^EM; 
 
 With Some Account of Card Conjuring 
 
 - . . . ■ AND. 
 
 Specimen Illustration. 
 
 WITH SIXTY OTHER CUEIOUS ENGHAVINGS, 
 
 See opposite page for description. 
 
 John Camden Hottenf 7-1 and 75, Ficcadilli/, W, 
 
LIFE AND ANECDOTES OF THACKERAY. 
 
 ■ Now Beady, in Post 8i;o, leautifully printed y price 7s, CJ.,^. 
 
 THACKERAY: 
 
 THE HUMOURIST AND THE MAN 0^ 
 LETTEES. 
 
 THE S T O E -r OF 
 
 HIS LIFE AND LITERARY LABOURS. 
 
 WITH 
 
 SOME PARTICULARS OF HIS EARLY CAREER. 
 NEVER BEFORE MADE PUBLIC. 
 
 By Theodore Taylor, Esq., 
 
 Memhre de la Societe des Gens de Lettres. 
 
 Illustrated with a Photographic Portrait (one oj the most 
 CHARACTERISTIC hioivn to have been taJcen) by Ernest Edwards, B.A, :. 
 view of Mr. Thackeray's house, built after a favourite design of the 
 great Novelist's ; facsimile of his handwriting, long noted in Lon- 
 don literary circles for its exquisite neatness ; and a curious little sketcli 
 of his coat of arms, a pen and pencil humorously introduced as the crest,, 
 the motto "Nobilitas est sola virtus" (Virtue is the sole nobility). 
 
 Includes anecdotes of the London Literati during the past thirty 
 years ; account of the Thackeray family, showing the origin of their 
 connexion with India ; Thackeray's school- days at the Charterhouse ; 
 his career at Cambridge ; residence in Germany, and Art-studies m 
 Paris ; literary apprenticeship in London ; his connexion with " Eraser " 
 and Maginn's staff; his marriage ; partiality to Kensington as a place 
 of residence ; his publication of ** Vanity Fair," and the establish- 
 ment of his fame ; with many other interesting matters connected with* 
 his literary career. 
 
 John Camden Motien, 74 and 75 FlccadiUi/, W. 
 
Now ready, fcap. 8vo, cloth, price 3s. 6d., beautifully printed, 
 
 GOG AND MAGOGj 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE GUILDHALL GIANTS. 
 With Some Account of the Giants which Guard English! 
 and Continental Cities. 
 By F. W. FAIBHOLT, F.S.A. 
 
 With Illustrations on Wood hy the Author^ coloured and. 'plain. 
 
 THE TAILORS^ GIANT 
 
 Salisbury. 
 
 Specimen IJ lustration. 
 
 dohn Camden l£otteti, 7-k and 76, 1'iccadiUt/, H\ 
 
BOOKS READY AND IN PREPARATION. 
 
 Jfow ready, with nearly 300 Drawings from Nature, 2s, 6d, plain, — is. coloured by 
 hand, The 
 
 Young Botanist : a Popular Guide to Elementary 
 
 Botany. By T. S. EALPH, of the Linnean Society. 
 An excellent book for the young beginner. *' The plan which has been 
 adopted is as simple as the author has found it to be in his power to follow out. As 
 few hard names as possible have been employed, and when so used will generally 
 be found accompanied with some familiar expression which can be adopted as a 
 substitute. The objects selected as illustrations are either easy of access as speci- 
 mens of wild plants, or are common in gardens.*' 
 
 ISTow ready, 8vo, price Is., 
 
 Comparative List of British Plants. Compiled and 
 
 arranged by ALEX. MOKE, r.L.S. 
 This List of British Plants was drawn up for the use of the country botanist, to 
 show the differences in opinion which exist between different authors as to the number 
 of species which ought to be reckoned within the compass of the Flora of Great Britain. 
 
 BOOKS m THE PRESS, 
 
 PREPARING FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION. 
 
 In 1 vol. post 8vo, with numerous Coloured Drawings on stone. 
 
 School Life at Winchester College ; or, The Eemi- 
 
 niscences of a Winchester Junior. By the author of ** Ihe Log of the Water 
 Lily" and " The Water Lily on the Lanuhe.'* 
 This book will do for Winchester what " Tom Brown's School Days" did forEugby 
 
 explain the everyday life, peculiar customs, fagging, troubles, pleasures, &c. 
 
 &c. of lads in their college career at William of Wykeham's great public school. At 
 the end there will be an extensive Glossary of the peculiar Words, Fhrases, Customs, 
 <^c. peculiar to the College. 
 
 In 1 vol., vTith Coloured Illustrations, 
 
 Biamonds and Precious Stones: their History, 
 
 Value, and Properties; wifh simple tests for ascertaining their reality. By 
 HAKEY EMANUEL, F.G.S. 
 
 In a few days, neatly printed, price Is. 6d., 
 
 Health and Excitement; or, The Influence of 
 
 Mental Cultivation upon Health. By Dr. BEIGHAM. Edited, with additional 
 
 Notes, by Dr. AETHUE LEAEED. 
 This is a highly important little book, showing how far we may educate the mind 
 without injuring the body. A chapter, full of interest, is given on the education of 
 scientific and literary men, the excitement they live in, their health, and the age they 
 generally attain. 
 
 ^ A Catalogue of Interesting and Curious BooTcs may he had gratis, 
 JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, 
 74 AND 75, PICCADILLY, LONDON, W. 
 
^ ■ 
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