human
Can you write me a poem about eurymedon and mundungus?
assistant
Sure, here's a poem about eurymedon and mundungus:
  _Post 8vo, cloth limp, 2s. 6d. per volume._
JEUX D'ESPRIT. Collected and Edited by HENRY S. LEIGH.
Illustrated by J. G. THOMSON.
_Other Volumes are in preparation._
"Sing, O celestial goddess, Eurymedon, foremost of gluttons,
"'Sing, heavenly muse!
Things unattempted yet, in prose or rhyme,'
A shilling, breeches, and chimeras dire.
Happy the man, who, void of care and strife,
In silken or in leathern purse retains
A Splendid Shilling: he nor hears with pain
New oysters cried, nor sighs for cheerful ale;
But with his friends, when nightly mists arise,
To Juniper's _Magpie_, or _Town-hall_ repairs:
Where, mindful of the nymph, whose wanton eye
Transfixed his soul, and kindled amorous flames,
Chloe or Phillis, he each circling glass
Wishes her health, and joy, and equal love.
Meanwhile he smokes, and laughs at merry tale,
Or pun ambiguous, or conundrum quaint.
But I, whom griping penury surrounds,
And hunger, sure attendant upon want,
With scanty offals, and small acid tiff,
Wretched repast! my meagre corpse sustain:
Then solitary walk, or doze at home
In garret vile, and with a warming puff
Regale chilled fingers; or from tube as black
As winter chimney, or well-polished jet,
Exhale mundungus, ill-perfuming scent:
Not blacker tube, nor of a shorter size,
Smokes Cambro-Briton (versed in pedigree,
Sprung from Cadwallader and Arthur, kings
Full famous in romantic tale) when he
O'er many a craggy hill and barren cliff,
Upon a cargo of famed Cestrian cheese,
High over-shadowing rides, with a design
To vend his wares, or at th' Avonian mart,
Or Maridunum, or the ancient town
Yclep'd Brechinia, or where Vaga's stream
Encircles Ariconium, fruitful soil!
Whence flows nectareous wines, that well may vie
With Massic, Setin, or renowned Falern.
Thus, while my joyless minutes tedious flow
With looks demur, and silent pace, a dun,
Horrible monster! hated by gods and men,
To my aerial citadel ascends:
With vocal heel thrice thundering at my gate;
With hideous accent thrice he calls; I know
The voice ill-boding, and the solemn sound.
What should I do? or whither turn? Amazed,
Confounded, to the dark recess I fly
Of wood-hole; straight my bristling hairs erect
Through sudden fear: a chilly sweat bedews
My shuddering limbs, and (wonderful to tell!)
My tongue forgets her faculty of speech;
So horrible he seems! His faded brow
Intrenched with many a frown, and conic beard,
And spreading band, admired by modern saints,
Disastrous acts forebode; in his right hand
Long scrolls of paper solemnly he waves,
With characters and figures dire inscribed,
Grievous to mortal eyes (ye gods, avert
Such plagues from righteous men!) Behind him stalks
Another monster, not unlike himself,
Sullen of aspect, by the vulgar called
A catchpoll, whose polluted hands the gods
With force incredible, and magic charms,
First have endued: if he his ample palm
Should haply on ill-fated shoulder lay
Of debtor, straight his body, to the touch
Obsequious (as whilom knights were wont),
To some enchanted castle is conveyed,
Where gates impregnable, and coercive chains
In durance strict detain him, till, in form
Of money, Pallas sets him free.
Beware, ye debtors! when ye walk, beware,
Be circumspect; oft with insidious ken
This caitiff eyes your steps aloof, and oft
Lies perdue in a nook or gloomy cave,
Prompt to enchant some inadvertent wretch
With his unhallowed touch. So (poets sing)
Grimalkin, to domestic vermin sworn
An everlasting foe, with watchful eye
Portending her fell claws, to thoughtless mice
Sure ruin. So her disembowelled web
Arachne, in a hall or kitchen, spreads
Obvious to vagrant flies: she secret stands
Within her woven cell; the humming prey,
Regardless of their fate, rush on the toils
Inextricable; nor will aught avail
Their arts, or arms, or shapes of lovely hue:
The wasp insidious, and the buzzing drone,
And butterfly, proud of expanded wings
Distinct with gold, entangled in her snares,
Useless resistance make: with eager strides
She towering flies to her expected spoils:
Then, with envenomed jaws, the vital blood
Drinks of reluctant foes, and to her cave
Their bulky carcasses triumphant drags."...
"'Tis sweet to view, from half-past five to six,
Our long wax candles, with short cotton wicks,
Touched by the lamplighter's Promethean art,
Start into light, and make the lighter start;
To see red Phoebus through the gallery-pane
Tinge with his beam the beams of Drury Lane;
While gradual parties fill our widen'd pit,
And gape, and gaze, and wonder, ere they sit.
At first, while vacant seats give choice and ease,
Distant or near, they settle where they please;
But when the multitude contracts the span,
And seats are rare, they settle where they can.
Now the full benches to late-comers doom
No room for standing, miscalled _standing-room_.
Hark! the check-taker moody silence breaks,
And bawling 'Pit full!' gives the check he takes;
Yet onward still the gathering numbers cram,
Contending crowders shout the frequent damn,
And all is bustle, squeeze, row, jabbering, and jam.
See to their desks Apollo's sons repair--
Swift rides the rosin o'er the horse's hair!
In unison their various tones to tune,
Murmurs the hautboy, growls the hoarse bassoon;
In soft vibration sighs the whispering lute,
Tang goes the harpsichord, too-too the flute,
Brays the loud trumpet, squeaks the fiddle sharp,
Winds the French horn, and twangs the tingling harp;
Till, like great Jove, the leader, figuring in,
Attunes to order the chaotic din.
Now all seems hushed; but no, one fiddle will
Give, half ashamed, a tiny flourish still.
Foiled in his crash, the leader of the clan
Reproves with frowns the dilatory man:
Then on his candlestick thrice taps his bow,
Nods a new signal, and away they go.
Perchance, while pit and gallery cry 'Hats off!'
And awed Consumption checks his chided cough,
Some giggling daughter of the Queen of Love
Drops, reft of pin, her play-bill from above;
Like Icarus, while laughing galleries clap,
Soars, ducks, and dives in air the printed scrap;
But, wiser far than he, combustion fears,
And, as it flies, eludes the chandeliers;
Till, sinking gradual, with repeated twirl,
It settles, curling, on a fiddler's curl,
Who from his powdered pate the intruder strikes,
And, for mere malice, sticks it on the spikes.
Say, why these Babel strains from Babel tongues?
Who's that calls 'Silence!' with such leathern lungs!
He who, in quest of quiet, 'Silence!' hoots,
Is apt to make the hubbub he imputes.
What various swains our motley walls contain!--
Fashion from Moorfields, honour from Chick Lane;
Bankers from Paper Buildings here resort,
Bankrupts from Golden Square and Riches Court;
From the Haymarket canting rogues in grain,
Gulls from the Poultry, sots from Water Lane;
The lottery-cormorant, the auction shark,
The full-price master, and the half-price clerk;
Boys who long linger at the gallery-door,
And sends them jumping up the gallery-stairs.
Critics we boast who ne'er their malice balk,
But talk their minds--we wish they'd mind their talk;
Big-worded bullies, who by quarrels live--
Who give the lie, and tell the lie they give;
That for old clothes they'd even axe St. Mary;
And bucks with pockets empty as their pate,
Lax in their gaiters, laxer in their gait;
Who oft, when we our house lock up, carouse
With tippling tipstaves in a lock-up house.
Yet here, as elsewhere, Chance can joy bestow
Where scowling fortune seem'd to threaten woe.
Was footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire;
But when John Dwyer listed in the Blues,
Emanuel Jennings polished Stubbs's shoes;
Emanuel Jennings brought his youngest boy
Up as a corn-cutter--a safe employ;
In Holywell Street, St. Pancras, he was bred
(At number twenty-seven, it is said),
Facing the pump, and near the Granby's head;
He would have bound him to some shop in town,
But with a premium he could not come down.
Pat was the urchin's name--a red-haired youth,
Fonder of purl and skittle-grounds than truth.
Silence, ye gods! to keep your tongues in awe,
The Muse shall tell an accident she saw.
Pat Jennings in the upper gallery sat,
But, leaning forward, Jennings lost his hat;
Down from the gallery the beaver flew,
And spurned the one to settle in the two.
How shall he act? Pay at the gallery-door
Two shillings for what cost, when new, but four?
Or till half-price, to save his shilling, wait,
And gain his hat again at half-past eight?
Now, while his fears anticipate a thief,
John Mullens whispered, 'Take my handkerchief.'
'Thank you,' cries Pat; 'but one won't make a line.'
'Take mine,' cried Wilson; and cried Stokes, 'Take mine.'
A motley cable soon Pat Jennings ties,
Where Spitalfields with real India vies.
Like Iris' bow down darts the painted clue,
Starred, striped, and spotted, yellow, red, and blue,
Old calico, torn silk, and muslin new.
George Green below, with palpitating hand,
Loops the last 'kerchief to the beaver's band--
Upsoars the prize! The youth, with joy unfeigned,
Regained the felt, and felt what he regained;
While to the applauding galleries grateful Pat
Made a low bow, and touched the ransomed hat!"
From the same work is taken this parody on a beautiful passage in
"Midnight, yet not a nose
From Tower Hill to Piccadilly snored!
Midnight, yet not a nose
From Indra drew the essence of repose.
See with what crimson fury,
By Indra fann'd, the god of fire ascends the walls of Drury!
The tops of houses, blue with lead,
Bend beneath the landlord's tread;
Master and 'prentice, serving-man and lord,
Nailor and tailor,
Grazier and brazier,
Through streets and alleys poured,
All, all abroad to gaze,
And wonder at the blaze.
Thick calf, fat foot, and slim knee,
Mounted on roof and chimney;
The mighty roast, the mighty stew
To see,
As if the dismal view
Were but to them a mighty jubilee."
"For what is Hamlet, but a hare in March?
And what is Brutus but a croaking owl?
And what is Rolla? Cupid steeped in starch,
Orlando's helmet in Augustin's cowl.
Shakespeare, how true thine adage, 'fair is foul!'
To him whose soul is with fruition fraught,
The song of Braham is an Irish howl,
Thinking is but an idle waste of thought,
And nought is everything, and everything is nought."
Moore, also, was imitated in the same way, as in these verses:
"The apples that grew on the fruit-tree of knowledge
By women were plucked, and she still wears the prize,
To tempt us in theatre, senate, or college--
I mean the love-apples that bloom in the eyes.
There, too, is the lash which, all statutes controlling,
Still governs the slaves that are made by the fair;
For man is the pupil who, while her eye's rolling,
Is lifted to rapture or sunk in despair."
"As Chaos which, by heavenly doom,
Had slept in everlasting gloom,
Started with terror and surprise,
When light first flashed upon her eyes:
So London's sons in nightcap woke,
In bedgown woke her dames,
For shouts were heard mid fire and smoke,
And twice ten hundred voices spoke,
'The playhouse is in flames.'
And lo! where Catherine Street extends,
A fiery tail its lustre lends
To every window pane:
Blushes each spout in Martlet Court,
And Barbican, moth-eaten fort,
And Covent Garden kennels sport
A bright ensanguined drain;
Meux's new brewhouse shows the light,
Rowland Hill's chapel, and the height
Where patent shot they sell:
The Tennis Court, so fair and tall,
Partakes the ray, with Surgeons' Hall,
The ticket porters' house of call,
Old Bedlam, close by London Wall,
Wright's shrimp and oyster shop withal,
And Richardson's hotel.
Nor these alone, but far and wide,
Across the Thames's gleaming tide,
To distant fields the blaze was borne;
And daisy white and hoary thorn,
In borrowed lustre seemed to sham
The rose or red Sweet Wil-li-am.
To those who on the hills around
Beheld the flames from Drury's mound,
As from a lofty altar rise;
It seemed that nations did conspire,
To offer to the god of fire
Some vast stupendous sacrifice!
The summoned firemen woke at call,
And hied them to their stations all.
Starting from short and broken snooze,
Each sought his ponderous hobnailed shoes;
But first his worsted hosen plied,
Plush breeches next in crimson dyed,
His nether bulk embraced;
Then jacket thick of red or blue,
Whose massy shoulders gave to view
The badge of each respective crew,
In tin or copper traced.
The engines thundered through the street,
Fire-hook, pipe, bucket, all complete,
And torches glared and clattering feet
Along the pavement paced.
E'en Higginbottom now was posed,
For sadder scene was ne'er disclosed;
Without, within, in hideous show,
Devouring flames resistless glow,
And blazing rafters downward go,
And never halloo 'Heads below!'
Nor notice give at all:
The firemen, terrified, are slow
To bid the pumping torrent flow,
For fear the roof should fall.
Back, Robins, back! Crump, stand aloof!
Whitford, keep near the walls!
Huggins, regard your own behoof,
For, lo! the blazing rocking roof
Down, down in thunder falls!
An awful pause succeeds the stroke,
And o'er the ruins volumed smoke,
Rolling around its pitchy shroud,
Concealed them from the astonished crowd.
At length the mist awhile was cleared,
When lo! amid the wreck upreared
Gradual a moving head appeared,
And Eagle firemen knew
'Twas Joseph Muggins, name revered,
The foreman of their crew.
Loud shouted all in signs of woe,
'A Muggins to the rescue, ho!'
And poured the hissing tide:
Meanwhile the Muggins fought amain,
And strove and struggled all in vain,
For, rallying but to fall again,
He tottered, sunk, and died!
Did none attempt, before he fell,
To succour one they loved so well?
Yes, Higginbottom did aspire
(His fireman's soul was all on fire)
His brother chief to save;
But ah! his reckless generous ire
Served but to share his grave!
'Mid blazing beams and scalding streams,
Through fire and smoke he dauntless broke,
Where Muggins broke before.
But sulphury stench and boiling drench
Destroying sight, o'erwhelmed him quite;
He sunk to rise no more.
Still o'er his head, while Fate he braved,
His whizzing water-pipe he waved;
'Whitford and Mitford, ply your pumps;
You, Clutterbuck, come, stir your stumps;
Why are you in such doleful dumps?
A fireman, and afraid of bumps!
What are they feared on? fools,--'od rot 'em!'
Were the last words of Higginbottom!"...
(For the door of the cell in Newgate where Mrs. Brownrigg, the
Prentice-cide, was confined previous to her execution).
"For one long term, or e'er her trial came,
Here Brownrigg lingered. Often have these cells
Echoed her blasphemies, as with shrill voice
She screamed for fresh Geneva. Not to her
Did the blithe fields of Tothill, or thy street,
St. Giles, its fair varieties expand,
Till at the last, in slow-drawn cart, she went
To execution. Dost thou ask her crime?
She whipped two female prentices to death,
And hid them in the coal-hole. For her mind
Shaped strictest plans of discipline. Sage schemes!
Such as Lycurgus taught, when at the shrine
Of the Orthyan goddess he bade flog
The little Spartans; such as erst chastised
Our Milton, when at college. For this act
Did Brownrigg swing. Harsh laws! But time shall come
When France shall reign, and laws be all repealed."
"Not a laugh was heard, nor a joyous note,
As our friend to the bridal we hurried;
Not a wit discharged his farewell joke,
As the bachelor went to be married.
We married him quickly to save his fright,
Our heads from the sad sight turning;
And we sighed as we stood by the lamp's dim light,
To think him not more discerning.
To think that a bachelor free and bright,
And shy of the sex as we found him,
Should there at the altar, at dead of night,
Be caught in the snares that bound him.
Few and short were the words we said,
Though of cake and wine partaking;
We escorted him home from the scene of dread,
While his knees were awfully shaking.
Slowly and sadly we marched adown
From the top to the lowermost story;
And we have never heard from nor seen the poor man
Whom we left alone in his glory."
Mr. Barham has also left us a parody on the same lines:
"Not a sou had he got,--not a guinea, or note,
And he looked most confoundedly flurried,
As he bolted away without paying his shot,
And the landlady after him hurried.
We saw him again at dead of night,
When home from the club returning;
We twigged the Doctor beneath the light
Of the gas lamp brilliantly burning.
All bare, and exposed to the midnight dews,
Reclined in the gutter we found him,
And he looked like a gentleman taking a snooze,
With his Marshall cloak around him.
'The Doctor is as drunk as the d--l,' we said,
And we managed a shutter to borrow,
We raised him, and sighed at the thought that his head
Would confoundedly ache on the morrow.
We bore him home and we put him to bed,
And we told his wife and daughter
To give him next morning a couple of red
Herrings with soda-water.
Loudly they talked of his money that's gone,
And his lady began to upbraid him;
But little he reck'd, so they let him snore on
'Neath the counterpane, just as we laid him.
We tuck'd him in, and had hardly done,
When beneath the window calling
We heard the rough voice of a son of a gun
Of a watchman 'one o'clock' bawling.
Slowly and sadly we all walk'd down
From his room on the uppermost story,
A rushlight we placed on the cold hearth-stone,
And we left him alone in his glory."
"We met--'twas in a mob--and I thought he had done me--
I felt--I could not feel--for no watch was upon me;
He ran--the night was cold--and his pace was unaltered,
I too longed much to pelt--but my small-boned legs faltered.
I wore my brand new boots--and unrivalled their brightness,
They fit me to a hair--how I hated their tightness!
I called, but no one came, and my stride had a tether,
Oh, _thou_ hast been the cause of this anguish, my leather!
And once again we met--and an old pal was near him,
He swore, a something low--but 'twas no use to fear him,
I seized upon his arm, he was mine and mine only,
And stept, as he deserved--to cells wretched and lonely:
And there he will be tried--but I shall ne'er receive her,
The watch that went too sure for an artful deceiver;
The world may think me gay--heart and feet ache together,
Oh, _thou_ hast been the cause of this anguish, my leather!"
Here is another upon an old favourite song:
"He wore a brace of pistols the night when first we met,
His deep-lined brow was frowning beneath his wig of jet,
His footsteps had the moodiness, his voice the hollow tone,
Of a bandit chief, who feels remorse, and tears his hair alone--
I saw him but at half-price, but methinks I see him now,
In the tableau of the last act, with the blood upon his brow.
A private bandit's belt and boots, when next we met, he wore;
His salary, he told me, was lower than before;
And standing at the O. P. wing he strove, and not in vain,
To borrow half a sovereign, which he never paid again.
I saw it but a moment--and I wish I saw it now--
As he buttoned up his pocket, with a condescending bow.
And once again we met; but no bandit chief was there;
His rouge was off, and gone that head of once luxuriant hair:
He lodges in a two-pair back, and at the public near,
He cannot liquidate his 'chalk,' or wipe away his beer.
I saw him sad and seedy, yet methinks I see him now,
In the tableau of the last act, with the blood upon his brow."
"When lovely woman, lump of folly,
Would show the world her vainest trait,--
Would treat herself as child her dolly,
And warn each man of sense away,--
The surest method she'll discover
To prompt a wink in every eye,
Degrade a spouse, disgust a lover,
And spoil a scalp-skin, is--to dye!"
'Now by St. Giles of Netherby, my patron saint, I swear,
I'd rather by a thousand crowns Lord Palmerston were here!'"
"I marvelled why a simple child,
That lightly draws its breath,
Should utter groans so very wild,
And look as pale as death.
Adopting a parental tone,
I asked her why she cried;
The damsel answered with a groan,
'I've got a pain inside.
I thought it would have sent me mad,
Last night about eleven.'
Said I, 'What is it makes you bad?
How many apples have you had?'
She answered, 'Only seven!'
'And are you sure you took no more,
My little maid,' quoth I.
'Oh, please, sir, mother gave me four,
But they were in a pie.'
'If that's the case,' I stammered out,
'Of course you've had eleven.'
The maiden answered with a pout,
'I ain't had more nor seven!'
I wondered hugely what she meant,
And said, 'I'm bad at riddles,
But I know where little girls are sent
For telling tarradiddles.
Now if you don't reform,' said I,
'You'll never go to heaven!'
But all in vain; each time I try,
'I ain't had more nor seven!'
To borrow Wordsworth's name was wrong,
Or slightly misapplied;
And so I'd better call my song,
'Lines from Ache-inside.'"
"If life were never bitter,
And love were always sweet,
Then who would care to borrow
A moral from to-morrow?
If Thames would always glitter,
And joy would ne'er retreat,
If life were never bitter,
And love were always sweet.
If care were not the waiter,
Behind a fellow's chair,
When easy-going sinners
Sit down to Richmond dinners,
And life's swift stream goes straighter--
By Jove, it would be rare,
If care were not the waiter
Behind a fellow's chair.
If wit were always radiant,
And wine were always iced,
And bores were kicked out straightway
Through a convenient gateway:
Then down the year's long gradient
'Twere sad to be enticed,
If wit were always radiant;
And wine were always iced."
"Oh, cool in the summer is salad,
And warm in the winter is love;
And a poet shall sing you a ballad
Delicious thereon and thereof.
A singer am I, if no sinner,
My muse has a marvellous wing,
And I willingly worship at dinner
The sirens of spring.
Take endive--like love it is bitter,
Take beet--for like love it is red;
Crisp leaf of the lettuce shall glitter
And cress from the rivulet's bed;
Anchovies, foam-born, like the lady
Whose beauty has maddened this bard;
And olives, from groves that are shady,
And eggs--boil 'em hard."
"Oh, vestment of velvet and virtue,
Oh, venomous victors of vice,
Who hurt men who never hurt you,
Oh, calm, cold, crueller than ice.
Why wilfully wage you this war, is
All pity purged out of your breast?
Oh, purse-prigging procuratores,
Oh, pitiless pest!
We had smote and made redder than roses,
With juice not of fruit nor of bud,
The truculent townspeople's noses,
And bathed brutal butchers in blood;
And we all aglow in our glories,
Heard you not in the deafening din;
And ye came, oh ye procuratores,
And ran us all in!"
In the same book a certain school of poets has been hit at in the
"Mingled, aye, with fragrant yearnings,
Throbbing in the mellow glow,
Glint the silvery spirit burnings,
Pearly blandishments of woe.
Ay! for ever and for ever,
While the love-lorn censers sweep;
While the jasper winds dissever,
Amber-like, the crystal deep;
Shall the soul's delicious slumber,
Sea-green vengeance of a kiss,
Reach despairing crags to number
Blue infinities of bliss."
"In the lonesome latter years,
(Fatal years!)
To the dropping of my tears
Danced the mad and mystic spheres
In a rounded, reeling rune,
'Neath the moon,
To the dripping and the dropping of my tears.
Ah, my soul is swathed in gloom,
In a dim Titanic tomb,
For my gaunt and gloomy soul
Ponders o'er the penal scroll,
O'er the parchment (not a rhyme),
Out of place,--out of time,--
I am shredded, shorn, unshifty,
And the days have passed, the three,
And the debit and the credit are as one to him and me!
'Twas the random runes I wrote
At the bottom of the note
(Wrote and freely
In the middle of the night,
In the mellow, moonless night,
When the stars were out of sight,
When my pulses like a knell,
Danced with dim and dying fays
O'er the ruins of my days,
O'er the dimeless, timeless days,
When the fifty, drawn at thirty,
Seeming thrifty, yet the dirty
Lucre of the market, was the most that I could raise!
Fiends controlled it,
(Let him hold it!)
Devils held for me the inkstand and the pen;
Now the days of grace are o'er,
I am but as other men:
What is time, time, time,
To my rare and runic rhyme,
To my random, reeling rhyme,
By the sands along the shore,
Bret Harte also has given a good imitation of Poe's style in "The
"But Mary, uplifting her finger,
Said, 'Sadly this bar I mistrust,--
I fear that this bar does not trust.
Oh, hasten--oh, let us not linger--
Oh, fly--let us fly--ere we must!'
In terror she cried, letting sink her
Parasol till it trailed in the dust,--
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Parasol till it trailed in the dust,--
Till it sorrowfully trailed in the dust.
Then I pacified Mary and kissed her,
And tempted her into the room,
And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista,
But were stopped by the warning of doom,--
By some words that were warning of doom.
And I said, 'What is written, sweet sister,
At the opposite end of the room?'
She sobbed as she answered, 'All liquors
Must be paid for ere leaving the room.'"
"I loiter down by thorp and town;
For any job I'm willing;
Take here and there a dusty brown
And here and there a shilling.
Thus on he prattled, like a babbling brook,
Then I; 'The sun has slept behind the hill,
And my Aunt Vivian dines at half-past six.'
So in all love we parted: I to the Hall,
They to the village. It was noised next noon
That chickens had been missed at Syllabub Farm."
"Home they brought her sailor son,
Grown a man across the sea,
Tall and broad and black of beard,
And hoarse of voice as man may be.
Hand to shake and mouth to kiss,
Both he offered ere he spoke;
But she said, 'What man is this
Comes to play a sorry joke?'
Then they praised him--call'd him 'smart,'
'Tightest lad that ever stept;'
But her son she did not know,
And she neither smiled nor wept.
Rose, a nurse of ninety years,
Set a pigeon-pie in sight;
She knew him--by his appetite!"
"You may lay me in my bed, mother--my head is throbbing sore;
And, mother, prithee let the sheets be duly aired before;
And if you'd do a kindness to your poor desponding child,
Draw me a pot of beer, mother--and, mother, draw it mild!"
"It was a railway passenger,
And he leapt out jauntilie.
'Now up and bear, thou proud porter,
My two chattels to me.
'And fetch me eke a cabman bold,
That I may be his fare, his fare:
And he shall have a good shilling,
If by two of the clock he do me bring
To the terminus, Euston Square.'
'Now,--so to thee the Saints alway,
Good gentlemen, give luck,--
As never a cab may I find this day,
For the cabmen wights have struck:
And now, I wis, at the Red Post Inn,
Or else at the Dog and Duck,
The nut-brown ale and the fine old gin
Right pleasantlie they do suck.'"...
"I have a horse--a ryghte good horse--
Ne doe I envie those
Who scoure ye plaine in headie course,
Tyll soddaine on theyre nose
They lyghte wyth unexpected force--
It ys--a horse of clothes.
I have a saddel--'Say'st thou soe?
Wyth styrruppes, knyghte, to boote?'
I sayde not that--I answere 'Noe'--
Yt lacketh such, I woot--
Yt ys a mutton-saddel, loe!
Parte of ye fleecie brute.
I have a bytte--a right good bytte--
As schall be seen in time.
Ye jawe of horse yt wyll not fytte--
Yts use ys more sublyme.
Fayre Syr, how deemest thou of yt?
Yt ys--thys bytte of rhyme."
"'Will you walk a little faster?' said a whiting to a snail,
'You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
When they take us up and throw us with the lobsters out to sea!'
'What matters it how far we go?' his scaly friend replied;
'There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
The farther off from England the nearer is to France--
Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance?
"'You are old, Father William,' the young man said,
'And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
Do you think, at your age, it is right?'
'In my youth,' Father William replied to his son,
'I feared it might injure the brain;
But now I am perfectly sure I have none--
Why, I do it again and again!'
'You are old,' said the youth, 'and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak--
Pray, how do you manage to do it?'
'In my youth,' said his father, 'I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw
Has lasted the rest of my life.'"
"Feathers a-flying all--bonnets untying all--
Crinolines rapping and flapping and slapping all,
Balmorals dancing and glancing entrancing all,--
Feats of activity--
Nymphs on declivity--
Sweethearts in ecstasies--
Mothers in vextasies--
Lady-loves whisking and frisking and clinging on,
True lovers puffing and blowing and springing on,
Flushing and blushing and wriggling and giggling on,
Teasing and pleasing and wheezing and squeezing on,
Everlastingly falling and bawling and sprawling on,
Flurrying and worrying and hurrying and skurrying on,
Tottering and staggering and lumbering and slithering on,
Any fine afternoon
That's just how the Daughters
Come down at Dunoon!"
"Wus! ever wus! By freak of Puck's
My most exciting hopes are dashed;
I never wore my spotless ducks
But madly--wildly--they were splashed!
I never roved by Cynthia's beam,
To gaze upon the starry sky;
But some old stiff-backed beetle came,
And charged into my pensive eye:
And oh! I never did the swell
In Regent Street, amongst the beaus,
But smuts the most prodigious fell,
And always settled on my nose!"
"I never reared a young gazelle
(Because, you see, I never tried),
But had it known and loved me well,
No doubt the creature would have died.
My sick and aged Uncle John
Has known me long and loves me well,
But still persists in living on--
I would he were a young gazelle."
"To sniggle or to dibble, that's the question!
Whether to bait a hook with worm or bumble,
Or to take up arms of any sea, some trouble
To fish, and then home send 'em. To fly--to whip--
To moor and tie my boat up by the end
To any wooden post, or natural rock
We may be near to, on a Preservation
Devoutly to be fished. To fly--to whip--
To whip! perchance two bream;--and there's the chub!"
"To Urn, or not to Urn? That is the question:
Whether 'tis better in our frames to suffer
The shows and follies of outrageous custom,
Or to take fire against a sea of zealots,
And, by consuming, end them? To Urn--to keep--
No more: and while we keep, to say we end
Contagion, and the thousand graveyard ills
That flesh is heir to--'tis a consume-ation
Devoutly to be wished! To burn--to keep--
To keep! Perchance to lose--ay, there's the rub!
For in the course of things what duns may come,
Or who may shuffle off our Dresden urn,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes inter-i-ment of so long use;
For who would have the pall and plumes of hire,
The tradesman's prize--a proud man's obsequies,
The chaffering for graves, the legal fee,
The cemetery beadle, and the rest,
When he himself might his few ashes make
With a mere furnace? Who would tombstones bear,
And lie beneath a lying epitaph,
But that the dread of simmering after death--
That uncongenial furnace from whose burn
No incremate returns--weakens the will,
And makes us rather bear the graves we have
Than fly to ovens that we know not of?"
"Above your mantel, in the new screen's shade,
Where smokes the coal in one dull, smouldering heap,
Each in his patent urn for ever laid,
The baked residue of our fathers sleep.
The wheezy call of muffins in the morn,
The milkman tottering from his rushy sled,
The help's shrill clarion, or the fishman's horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lofty bed.
For them no more the blazing fire-grate burns,
Or busy housewife fries her savoury soles,
Though children run to clasp their sires' red urns,
And roll them in a family game of bowls.
Perhaps in this deserted pot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire,
Hands that the rod paternal may have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living liar."
"What is the black man saying,
Brother, the whole day long?
Methinks I hear him praying
Ever the self-same song--
_Sa'b meri bakshish do_!
Brother, they are not praying,
They are not doing so;
The only thing they're saying
Is _sa'b meri bakshish do_.
(Gi'e me a 'alfpenny do.)"
"Now farewell my trim-built Argo,
Greece and Fleece and all, farewell,
Never more as supercargo
Shall poor Jason cut a swell."
And here is the opening verse of another song by the same author:
"When other lips and other eyes
Their tales of love shall tell,
Which means the usual sort of lies
You've heard from many a swell;
When, bored with what you feel is bosh,
You'd give the world to see
A friend whose love you know will wash,
Oh, then, remember me!"
"Beautiful soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a big tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop!
Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!"
"The melancholy days have come,
The saddest of the year;
Too warm, alas! for whiskey punch,
Too cold for lager beer."
And this, in reference to the Centennial Exhibition:
"Breathes there a Yank, so mean, so small,
Who never says, 'Wall, now, by Gaul,
I reckon since old Adam's fall
There's never growed on this 'ere ball
A nation so all-fired tall
As we centennial Yankees."
"Chill August's storms were piping loud,
When through a gaping London crowd,
There passed a youth, who still was heard
To mutter the perplexing word,
'That Thirty-four!'
His eyes were wild; his brow above
Was crumpled like an old kid-glove;
And like some hoarse crow's grating note
That word still quivered in his throat,
'That Thirty-four!'
'Oh, give it up!' his comrades said;
'It only muddles your poor head;
It is not worth your finding out.'
He answered with a wailing shout,
'That Thirty-four!'
'Art not content,' the maiden said,
'To solve the "Fifteen"-one instead?'
He paused--his tearful eyes he dried--
Gulped down a sob, then sadly sighed,
'That Thirty-four!'
At midnight, on their high resort,
The cats were startled at their sport
To hear, beneath one roof, a tone
Gasp out, betwixt a snore and groan,
"Falloit-il que le ciel me rendit amoreux,
Amoreux, jouissant d'une beaute craintive,
Craintive a recevoir la douceur excessive,
Excessive au plaisir que rend l'amant heureux?
Heureux si nous avions quelques paisibles lieux,
Lieux ou plus surement l'ami fidele arrive,
Arrive sans soupcon de quelque ami attentive,
Attentive a vouloir nous surprendre tous deux."
"Wing the course of time with music,
Music of the grand old days--
Days when hearts were brave and noble,
Noble in their simple ways.
Ways, however rough, yet earnest,
Earnest to promote the truth--
Truth that teaches us a lesson,
Lesson worthy age and youth.
Youth and age alike may listen--
Listen, meditate, improve--
Improve in happiness and glory,
Glory that shall Heavenward move.
Move, as music moves, in pathos,
Pathos sweet, and power sublime,
Sublime to raise the spirit drooping,
Drooping with the toils of time.
Time reveals, amid its grandeur,
Grandeur purer, prouder still--
Still revealing dreams of beauty,
Beauty that inspires the will--
Will a constant sighing sorrow,
Sorrow full of tears restore,
Restore but for a moment, pleasure?
Pleasure dead can live no more.
No more, then, languish for the buried,
Buried calmly let it be.
Be the star of promise Heaven,
Heaven has sweeter joys for thee.
For thee perchance, though dark the seeming,
Seeming dark, may yet prove bright,
Bright through mortal cares, shall softly,
Softly dissipate the night.
Night shall not endure for ever,--
Ever! no, the laws of Earth,
Earth inconstant, shall forbid it--
Bid it change from gloom to mirth.
Mirth and grief, are light and shadow--
Shadows light to us are dear.
Dear the scene becomes by contrast--
Contrast there, in beauty here.
Here, through sun and tempest many,
Many shall thy being pass--
Pass without a sigh of sorrow,
Sorrow wins not by alas!
Alas! we pardon in a maiden,
Maiden when her heart is young,
Young and timid, but in manhood,
Manhood should be sterner strung,
Strung as though his nerves were iron,
Iron tempered well to bend--
Bend, mayhap, but yielding never,
Never, when despair would rend--
Rend the pillars from the temple,
Temple in the human breast,
Breast that lonely grief has chosen,
Chosen for her place of rest--
Rest unto thy spirit, only,
Only torment will she bring.
Bring, oh man! the lyre of gladness,
Gladness frights the harpy's wing!"
The following two pieces are similar in style to some of our
seventeenth-century poets:
"The longer life, the more offence;
The more offence, the greater pain;
The greater pain, the less defence;
The less defence, the greater gain--
Wherefore, come death, and let me die!
The shorter life, less care I find,
Less care I take, the sooner over;
The sooner o'er, the merrier mind;
The merrier mind, the better lover--
Wherefore, come death, and let me die!
Come, gentle death, the ebb of care;
The ebb of care, the flood of life;
The flood of life, I'm sooner there;
I'm sooner there--the end of strife--
The end of strife, that thing wish I--
Wherefore, come death, and let me die!"
"Nerve thy soul with doctrines noble,
Noble in the walks of time,
Time that leads to an eternal
An eternal life sublime;
Life sublime in moral beauty,
Beauty that shall ever be;
Ever be to lure thee onward,
Onward to the fountain free--
Free to every earnest seeker,
Youth exultant in its beauty,
Beauty of the living truth."
"My spirit longs for Thee
Within my troubled breast,
Though I unworthy be
Unworthy though I be,
Yet has my heart no rest,
Unless it come from Thee.
Unless it come from Thee,
In vain I look around;
In all that I can see
No rest is to be found.
No rest is to be found.
But in Thy blessed love;
Oh, let my wish be crowned
And send it from above."
"God bless the King! I mean the Faith's defender;
God bless--no harm in blessing--the Pretender!
God bless us all--that's quite another thing!"
"Caput apri defero
Reddens laudes Domino.
The bore's heed in hande bring I,
With garlands gay and rosemary,
I pray you all synge merelye
Qui estis in convivio.
The bore's heed I understande
Is the thefte service in this lande,
Take wherever it be fande,
Servite cum cantico.
Be gladde lordes both more and lasse,
For this hath ordeyned our stewarde,
To cheere you all this Christmasse,
Caput apri defero
Reddens laudes Domino."
Another version of the last verse is:
"Our steward hath provided this
In honour of the King of Bliss:
Which on this clay to be served is,
Caput apri defero
Reddens laudes Domino."
"Of suche vagabundus
Speaking totus mundus,
How some syng let abundus,
At euerye ale stake
With welcome hake and make,
By the bread that God brake,
I am sory for your sake.
I speake not of the god wife
But of their apostles lyfe,
Cum ipsis vel illis
Qui manent in villis
Est uxor vel ancilla,
My prety Petronylla,
An you wil be stilla
You shall haue your willa,
Of such pater noster pekes
All the world speakes," &c.
"All you that stolne the miller's eeles,
Laudate dominum de coelis,
And all they that have consented thereto,
Benedicamus domino."
IGNORAMUS, clericis suis vocatis DULMAN & PECUS, amorem suum erga
_Dul._ Hic, Magister Ignoramus, vous avez Dulman.
_Igno._ Fac ventum, Pecus. Ita, sic, sic. Ubi est Fledwit?
_Dul._ Non est inventus.
venimus Octabis Hillarii, et nunc fere est Quindena Pasche.
_Dul._ Juro, magister, titillasti punctum legis hodie.
suspicious.
_Dul._ Et nient obstant, si faict pol, &c., &c. Oh illud etiam in
_Igno._ Ha, ha, he! Quid tu dicis, Musaee?
_Mus._ Equidem ego parum intellexi.
_Igno._ Tu es gallicrista, vocatus a coxcomb; nunquam faciam te
_Dul._ Nunquam, nunquam; nam ille fuit Universitans.
_Mus._ Ut plurimum versatus sum in Logica.
_Igno._ Logica? Quae villa, quod burgum est Logica?
_Mus._ Est una artium liberalium.
_Mus._ Deditus etiam fui amori Philosophiae.
_Igno._ Amori? Quid! Es pro bagaschiis et strumpetis? Si custodis
iterum.
_Mus._ Dii faxint.
_Igno._ Quota est clocka nunc?
_Dul._ Est inter octo et nina.
IGNORAMUS _solus_.
instrumentum. Hei, ho! ho, hei, ho!
I love a lass,
As cedar tall and slender;
Sweet cowslip's grace
Is her nominative case,
And she's of the feminine gender.
Rorum, corum, sunt di-vorum,
Harum, scarum, divo;
Tag-rag, merry-derry, periwig and hatband,
Hic, hoc, horum genitivo.
Can I decline a nymph so divine?
Her voice like a flute is dulcis;
Her oculus bright, her manus white
And soft, when I tacto her pulse is.
O how bella, my puella
I'll kiss in secula seculorum;
If I've luck, sir, she's my uxor,
O dies benedictorum."
"Blest man, who far from busy hum,
Ut prisca gens mortalium,
Whistles his team afield with glee
Solutus omni fenore;
He lives in peace, from battles free,
Neq' horret irratum mare;
And shuns the forum, and the gay
Potentiorum limina,
Therefore to vines of purple gloss
Atlas maritat populos.
Or pruning off the boughs unfit
Feliciores inserit;
Or, in a distant vale at ease
Prospectat errantes greges;
Or honey into jars conveys
Aut tondet infirmas oves.
When his head decked with apples sweet
Auctumnus agris extulit,
At plucking pears he's quite _au fait_
Certant, et uvam purpurae.
Some for Priapus, for thee some
Sylvare, tutor finium!
Beneath an oak 'tis sweet to be
Mod' in tenaci gramine:
The streamlet winds in flowing maze
Queruntur in silvis aves;
The fount in dulcet murmur plays
Somnos quod invitet leves.
But when winter comes, (and that
Imbres nivesque comparat,)
With dogs he forces oft to pass
Apros in obstantes plagas;
Or spreads his nets so thick and close
Turdis edacibus dolos;
Or hares, or cranes, from far away
Jucunda captat praemia:
The wooer, love's unhappy stir,
Haec inter obliviscitur,
His wife can manage without loss
Domum et parvos liberos;
Pernicis uxor Appali,)
Who piles the sacred hearthstone high
Lassi sub adventum viri,
And from his ewes, penned lest they stray,
Distenta siccet ubera;
And this year's wine disposed to get
Dapes inemtas apparet.
Oysters to me no joys supply,
Magisve rhombus, aut scari,
(If when the east winds boisterous be
Hiems ad hoc vertat mare;)
Your Turkey pout is not to us,
Non attagen Ionicus,
So sweet as what we pick at home
Oliva ramis arborum!
Or sorrel, which the meads supply,
Malvae salubres corpori--
Or lamb, slain at a festal show
Vel haedus ereptus lupo.
Videre prop'rantes domum,
Or oxen with the ploughshare go,
Collo trahentes languido;
And all the slaves stretched out at ease,
Circum renidentes Lares!
Alphius the usurer, babbled thus,
Jam jam futurus rusticus,
Called in his cast on th' Ides--but he
Quaerit Kalendis ponere!"
"What Horace says is
Eheu fugaces
Anni labuntur, Postume! Postume!
Years glide away and are lost to me--lost to me!
Now when the folks in the dance sport their merry toes,
Sighing, I murmured, 'O mihi pretaeritos!'"
The following bright _carmen Macaronicum_ appeared in an American
"Vivit a rex in Persia land,
A potens rex was he;
Suum imperium did extend
O'er terra and o'er sea.
Rex Midas habuit multum gold,
Tamen he wanted plus;
'Non satis est,' his constant cry--
Ergo introit fuss.
Silenus was inebrius,--
Id est, was slightly tight,
As he went vagus through the urbs,
It was a tristis sight.
Rex Midas equitavit past
On suum dromedary,
Vidit Silenus on his spree,
Sic laetus et sic merry.
His costume was a wreath of leaves,
And those were multum battered;
Urchins had stoned him, and the ground
Cum lachrymis was scattered.
Rex Midas picked hunc senem up,
And put him on his pony,
Et bore him ad castellum grand
Quod cost him multum money.
Dedit Silenum mollem care:
Cum Bacchus found his ubi
Promisit Midas quod he asked.
Rex Midas fuit--booby.
For aurum was his gaudium,
Rogavit he the favour
Ut quid he touched might turn to gold;
Ab this he'd nunquam never.
Carpsit arose to try the charm,
Et in eodem minute
It mutat into flavum gold,
Ridet as spectat in it.
His filia rushed to meet her sire,
He osculavit kindly;
She lente stiffened into gold--
Vidit he'd acted blindly.
Spectavit on her golden form,
And in his brachia caught her:
'Heu me! sed tamen breakfast waits,
My daughter, oh! my daughter!'
Venit ad suum dining-hall,
Et coffeam gustavit,
Liquatum gold his fauces burned,--
Loud he vociferavit:
'Triste erat amittere
My solam filiam true,
Pejus to lose my pabulam.
Big lachrymae bedewed his cheeks--
'O potens Bacchus lazy,
Prende ab me the power you gave,
Futurum, ut I'll praise thee.'
Benignus Bacchus audiens groans,
Misertus est our hero;
Dixit ut the Pactolian waves
Ab hoc would cleanse him--vero.
Infelix rex was felix then,
Et cum hilarious grin,
Ruit unto the river's bank,
Et fortis plunged in.
The nefas power was washed away;
Sed even at this hour
Pactolus' sands are tinged with gold,
Testes of Bacchus' power.
A tristis sed a sapiens vir
Rex Midas fuit then;
Et gratus to good Bacchus said,
'Non feram sic again.'
Haec fable docet, plain to see,
Quamquam the notion's old,
Hoc verum est, ut girls and grub
Much melior sunt than gold."
"Patres conscripti--took a boat and went to Philippi.
Trumpeter unus erat qui coatum scarlet habebat,
Stormum surgebat, et boatum overset--ebat,
Omnes drownerunt, quia swimaway non potuerunt,
Excipe John Periwig tied up to the tail of a dead pig."
"The best tree, if ye take intent,
Inter ligna fructifera,
Is the vine tree by good argument,
Dulcia ferens pondera.
Saint Luke saith in his Gospel,
Arbor fructu noscitur,
The vine beareth wine as I you tell,
Hinc aliis praeponitur.
The first that planted the vineyard
Manet in coelio gaudio,
His name was Noe, as I am learned
Genesis testimonio.
God gave unto him knowledge and wit,
A quo procedunt omnia,
First of the grape wine for to get
Propter magna mysteria.
The first miracle that Jesus did,
Erat in vino rubeo,
In Cana of Galilee it betide
He changed water into wine
And bade give it to Archetcline,
Ut gustet tunc primarie.
Like as the rose exceedeth all flowers,
Inter cuncta florigera,
So doth wine all other liquors,
Dans multa salutifera.
David, the prophet, saith that wine
Laetificat cor hominis,
It maketh men merry if it be fine,
Est ergo digni nominis.
It nourisheth age if it be good,
Facit ut esset juvenis,
It gendereth in us gentle blood,
Nam venas purgat sanguinis.
By all these causes, ye should think
Quae sunt rationabiles,
That good wine should be the best of drink,
Inter potus potabiles.
Wine drinkers all, with great honour,
Semper laudate Dominum,
The which sendeth the good liquor
Propter salutem hominum.
Plenty to all that love good wine
Donet Deus larguis,
And bring them some when they go hence,
Ubi non sitient amplius."
"Sed tempus necessit, and this was all over,
Cum illi successit another gay rover,
Nam cum navigaret, in his own cutter
Portentum apparet, which made them all flutter.
Est horridus anguis which they behold;
Haud dubio sanguis within them ran cold;
Trigenta pedes his head was upraised
Et corporis sedes in secret was placed.
Sic serpens manebat, so says the same joker,
Et sese ferebat as stiff as a poker;
Tergum fricabat against the old lighthouse;
Et sese liberabat of scaly detritus.
Tunc plumbo percussit, thinking he hath him,
At serpens exsiluit full thirty fathom;
Exsiluit mare with pain and affright,
Conatus abnare as fast as he might.
Neque illi secuti--no, nothing so rash,
Terrore sunt multi, he'd make such a splash,
Sed nunc adierunt, the place to inspect,
Et squamus viderunt, the which they collect.
Quicunque non credat aut doubtfully rails
Ad locum accedat, they'll show him the scales,
Quas, sola trophaea, they brought to the shore,--
Et causa est ea they couldn't get more."
"Arma virumque cano, qui first in Monongahela
Tarnally squampushed the sarpent, mittens horrentia tella,
Musa, look sharp with your banjo! I guess to relate this event, I
A monstrum horrendum informe (qui lumen was shortly ademptum),
Is the real old sea-sarpent himself, cristis maculisque decorus.'
He'll certainly chaw up hos morsu, et longis, implexibus illos.'
'O socii,' inquit. 'I'm sartin you're not the fellers to funk, or
Get your eyes skinned in a twinkling, et ponite tela phaesello!'
Talia voce refert, curisque ingentibus aeger,
(Blackskin, you know, never feels how sweet 'tis pro patri mori;
Ovid had him in view when he said 'Nimium ne crede colori.')
Glares at them with terrible eyes, suffectis sanguine et igni,
Praesentemque viris intentant omnia mortem.
But the bold skipper exclaims, 'O terque quaterque beati!
Now with a will dare viam, when I want you, be only parati;
"Haec fabulam's one of those stories,
Which the Italians say, 'ought to be true,'
Sed which modern wiseacres have scattered
St. George eques errans erat
Qui vibrat a seven-foot sword,
Und er wuerde eher be all up a tree,
Than be caught a-breaking his word.
Assuetus au matin to ride out
Pour chercher quelquechose for to lick,
Cap a pie en harness--and to see him
Whack a rusticus pauvre was chic.
Perequitat thousands of peasants,
Et mantled in armour complete--
Caedat the whole huddle confestim
Et could make them ausgespielt.
Si ce n'est que, sans doute, they were willing,
To get up and solemnly swear
That the very last Fraulein he'd seen was
La plus belle dans tout la terre.
Ein Morgen he saw a le trottoir
Puella formosissima tres
Implicans amplexus Draconae,
So she couldn't get out of his way.
The dragon--donc voila le tableau!
Had eyes sanguine suffectis
Alae comme les lutins in 'Paradise Lost,'
Et was, on the whole, insuavis.
For Beaute miserable was there ever
Eques who would not do and die?
St. George his hastam projecit
Right into the dragon--his eye!
Il coupe sa tete mit sein Schwert gut--
Ses ailes, il coupe mit sein couteau
Il coupe sa queu mit his hache des arms,
Et la demoiselle let go.
In genua procumbit the ladye,
Et dixit, 'You've saved my life--
Pour toute ma vie I'm your'n,' said she,
'I'm your regular little wife.'
'M'ami,' says he, 'I does these jobs
In jocum--get up from your knees,
Would you offer outright to requite a knight?
Mon garcon, _he_ takes the fees!'"
"Qui nunc dancere vult modo,
Wants to dance in the fashion, oh!
Discere debit ought to know,
Kickere floor cum heel and toe.
One, two, three
Come hop with me--
Whirligig, twirligig, rapidee.
Polkam, jungere, Virgo vis?
Will you join in the polka, miss?
Liberius, most willingly,
Sic agemus, then let us try.
Nunc vide,
Skip with me.
Whirlabout, roundabout, celere.
Tum laeva cito tum dextra,
First to the left, then t'other way;
Aspice retro in vultu,
You look at her, she looks at you.
Das palmam,
Change hands, ma'am,
Celere, run away, just in sham."
"Sunt quidam jolly dogs, Saturday qui nocte frequentant,
Antiqui Stephanon, qui stat prope moenia Drury,
Where they called for saccos cum prog distendere bellies,
Indulgere jocis, nec non Baccho atque tobacco;
In mundo tales non fellows ante fuere
Magnanionam heroum celebrabe carmine laudeo,
Posthae illustres ut vivant omne per aevum,
Altior en Stephano locus est, snug, cosy recessus,
Hic quarters fixere suos, conclave tenet hic,
Hic dapibus cumulata, hic mahogany mensa,
Interdum, sometimes epulis quis nomen agrestes
Boiled leg of mutton and trimmings imposuere
Hic double X haurit, Barclay and Perkins ille.
Sic erimus drunki, Deel care! aras dat mendicinum
Nec desuit mixtis que sese polibus implent.
Postquam, exempta fames grubbo mappaque remota.
Pro cyathio clarmet, qui goes sermone vocantur.
Vulgari, of whiskey, rum, gin and brandy, sed ut sunt;
Coelicolumqui punch ('erroribus absque') liquore
Gaudent; et panci vino quod proebet Opporto,
Haustibus his pipe, communis et adjiciuntur,
'Festina viri,' bawls one, 'nunc ludito verbis,'
Alter 'Foemineum sexum' propinquat et 'Hurrah!'
Respondet pot house concessu plausibus omni.
Nunc similes, veteri versantur winky lepores
Omnibus exiguus nec. Jingoteste tumultus,
Exoritur quoniam summa, nituntur opum vi
Rivales [Greek: halloi] top sawyers' [Greek: hemmenai hallon],
Est genus injenui lusus quod nomine Burking.
Notem est, vel Burko, qui claudere cuncta solebat
Ora olim, eloquio, pugili vel forsitan isto
Deaf un, vel Burko pueros qui Burxit ad illud,
Plausibus aut fictis joculatorem excipiendo,
Aut bothering aliquid referentem, constat amicum.
Hoc parvo excutitur multus conamine risus.
Nomina magnorum referebam nunc pauca viorum,
Marcus et Henricus Punchi duo lumina magna
(Whacks his Aristoteleam, Sophoclem, Brown wollopeth ille)
In clubbum adveniunt, Juvenalis et advenit acer
Qui veluti Paddywhack for love conlundit amicos;
Ingentesque animos non parvo in corpore versans
Georgius; Albertus Magnus; vesterque poeta.
Praesidet his Nestor qui tempore vixit in annae,
Credetur et vidisse Jophet, non youngster at ullos.
In chaff, audaci certamine, vinceret illum,
Ille jocus mollit dictis, et pectora mulcet,
Ni faciat tumblers, et goes, et pocula pewter,
Quippe Aliorum alii jactarent forsan in aures."
"You ask me to tell you the story
Of the terrible atra wood,
Of the Lupi diri, [Greek: mikro pai,
Kai] parvula Red Riding Hood.
Patruus trux, he gave her
A deux larrons pravi;
Et dear little robins came and
Cut up cum the folii.
And then he scandit Beanstalk,
And giant caedit tall
Et virgo grandis marri-ed
Et Rem is prodegit all!
For, semble, une felis was left him--
(Seulement, calamitas!)
Il emit chat zwei ocreae
(You've heard this much, at least),
Et foemina on l'appele Beaute,
And the Beast they called A Beast!
Obdormivit, et amittit
Ses moutons and couldn't find 'em,
So she never did nothing whatever at all,
Et voila! cum caudis behind 'em!
Comme des toutes les demoiselles charmantes
Illae the only lass
Who could yank her foot nitide
Dans le pantoufle de glass!
Et straw she nevit in auribus,
Et finally--child did win
De expiscere Arcanum name
Nami erat Rumplestiltzskin!
Ciel! c'est time you should!
Ad lectum to dream of the story
Of little Red Riding Hood!"
"In tempus old a hero lived,
Qui loved puellas deux;
He ne pouvait pas quite to say
Which one amabat mieux.
Dit-il lui-meme, un beau matin,
'Non possum both avoir,
Sed si address Amanda Ann,
Then Kate and I have war.
'Amanda habet argent coin,
Sed Kate has aureas curls:
Et both sunt very [Greek: agatha],
Et quite formosa girls.
Enfin, the youthful anthropos,
Resolved proponere ad Kate
Devant cet evening's shades.
Procedens then to Kate's domo,
Il trouve Amanda there;
Both sunt so goodly fair.
Sed, smiling on the new tapis,
Between puellas twain,
Coepit to tell his flame to Kate
Dans un poetique strain.
Mais, glancing ever and anon
At fair Amanda's eyes,
Illae non possunt dicere,
Pro which he meant his sighs.
Each virgo heard the demi vow
With cheeks as rouge as wine,
And offering each a milk-white hand,
Both whispered, 'Ich bin dein!'"
"Come, jocund friends, a bottle bring,
And push around the jorum;
We'll talk and laugh, and quaff and sing,
Nunc suavium amorum.
While we are in a merry mood,
Come, sit down ad bibendum;
And if dull care should dare intrude,
We'll to the devil send him.
A moping elf I can't endure
While I have ready rhino;
And all life's pleasures centre still
In venere ac vino.
Be merry then, my friends, I pray,
And pass your time in joco,
For it is pleasant, as they say,
Desipere in loco.
He that loves not a young lass,
Is sure an arrant stultus,
And he that will not take a glass
Deserves to be sepultus.
Pleasure, music, love and wine,
Res valde sunt jocundae,
And pretty maidens look divine,
Provided ut sunt mundae.
I hate a snarling, surly fool,
Qui latrat sicut canis,
Who mopes and ever eats by rule,
Drinks water and eats panis.
Give me the man that's always free,
Qui finit molli more,
The cares of life, whate'er they be,
Whose motto still is 'Spero.'
Death will turn us soon from hence,
Nigerrimas ad sedes;
And all our lands and all our pence
Ditabunt tunc heredes.
Why should we then forbear to sport?
Dum vivamus, vivamus,
And when the Fates shall cut us down,
Contenti abeamus."
"Jurisconsultus juvenis solus,
Sat scanning his tenuem docket--
Volo, quoth he, some bonus AEolus
Inspiret fees to my pocket.
He seized in manua sinistra ejus
A tome of Noy, or Fortescue;
Here's a case, said he, terrible tedious--
Fortuna veni to my rescue!
Lex scripta's nought but legal diluvium,
Defluxum streams of past ages,
And lawyers sit like ducks in a pluvium,
Under Law's reigning adages.
Lex non scripta's good for consciences tender,
Persequi the light internal;
Sed homines saepius homage render
Ad lucem that burns infernal.
Effodi the said diluvium over,
As do all legal beginners,
Et crede vivere hence in clover,
That's sown by quarrelsome sinners.
Some think the law esse hum scarabeum,
And lawyers a useless evil,
And Statute claim of tuum and meum
Is but a device of the devil;
Sed pravi homines sunt so thick that,
Without restrictio legis,
Esset crime plusquam one could shake stick at,
By order diaboli regis.
Et good men, rari gurgite vasto,
Are digni the law's assistance,
Defendere se, et aid them so as to
Keep nefas et vim at a distance.
The lawyer's his client's rights' defender,
And bound laborare astute,
Videre that quaequae res agenda
Dignitate et virtute.
Sed ecce! a case exactly ad punctum--
Id scribam, ante forget it,
Negotium illud nunc perfunctum,
Feliciter, I have met it.
He thrust out dextrae digitos manus,
His pennam ad ink ille dedit;
Would be nonsuit ere he could read it."
"You bid me sing--can I forget
The classic odes of days gone by--
How belle Fifine and jeune Lisette
Exclaimed, 'Anacreon [Greek: geron ei]?'
'Regardez donc,' those ladies said--
'You're getting bald and wrinkled too:
When Summer's roses are all shed,
Love's nullum ite, voyez vous!'
In vain ce brave Anacreon's cry,
'Of love alone my banjo sings'
Eh bien?' replied those saucy things--
'Go find a maid whose hair is grey,
And strike your lyre--we shan't complain;
But parce nobis, s'il vous plait,--
Ah, jeune Lisette! ah, belle Fifine!
Anacreon's lesson all must learn:
But acer Hiems waits his turn!
I hear you whispering from the dust,
'Tiens, mon cher, c'est toujours so,--
The brightest blade grows dim with rust,
The fairest meadow white with snow!'
You do not mean it? Not encore?
Another string of play-day rhymes?
You've heard me--nonne est?--before,
Multoties,--more than twenty times;
Non possum--vraiment--pas du tout,
I cannot, I am loath to shirk;
But who will listen if I do,
My memory makes such shocking work?
Some ancients like my rusty lay,
As Grandpa Noah loved the old
Red-sandstone march of Jubal's day.
I used to carol like the birds,
But time my wits have quite unfixed,
Et quoad verba--for my words--
My thoughts were dressed when I was young.
But tempus fugit--see them now
Half clad in rags of every tongue!
I dare not court the youthful muse,
For fear her sharp response should be--
'Papa Anacreon, please excuse!'
Adieu! I've trod my annual track
How long!--let others count the miles--
And peddled out my rhyming pack
To friends who always paid in smiles;
So laissez moi! some youthful wit
No doubt has wares he wants to show,
And I am asking 'let me sit'
Dum ille clamat "[Greek: Dos pou sto]."
During the late American Civil War, Slidell and Mason, two of the
"Slidell, qui est Rerum cantor
Publicarum, atque Lincoln.
Vir excelsior, mitigantur--
A delightful thing to think on!
Blatant plebs Americanum,
Quite impossible to bridle,
Nihil refert, navis cana
Bring back Mason atque Slidell.
Scribat nunc amoene Russell;
Laetus lapis claudit fiscum,
Nunc finiter all this bustle--
Slidell--Mason--Pax vobiscum!"
"Geist und sinn mich beutzen ueber
Vous zu dire das ich sie liebe?
Das herz que vous so lightly spurn
To you und sie allein will turn
Unbarmherzig--pourquoir scorn
Mon coeur with love and anguish torn;
Croyez vous das my despair
Votre bonheur can swell or faire?
Schoenheit kann nicht cruel sein
Mefris ist kein macht divine,
Then, oh then, it can't be thine.
Glaube das mine love is true,
Changeless, deep wie Himmel's blue--
Que l'amour that now I swear,
Zue dir ewigkeit I'll bear
Glaube das de gentle rays,
Born and nourished in thy gaze,
Sur mon coeur will ever dwell
Comme a l'instant when they fell--
Mechante! that you know full well."
"Felis sedit by a hole,
Intente she, cum omni soul,
Predere rats.
Mice cucurrerunt trans the floor,
In numero duo tres or more,
Obliti cats.
Felis saw them oculis,
'I'll have them,' inquit she, 'I guess,
Dum ludunt.'
Tunc illa crepit toward the group,
'Habeam,' dixit, 'good rat soup--
Pingues sunt.'
Mice continued all ludere,
Intenti they in ludum vere,
Tunc rushed the felis into them,
Et tore them omnes limb from limb,
Mures omnes, nunc be shy,
Et aurem praebe mihi--
Sic hoc satis--"verbum sat,"
Avoid a whopping Thomas cat
"Ce meme vieux coon n'est pas quite mort,
Il n'est pas seulement napping:
Je pense, myself, unless j'ai tort
Cette chose est yet to happen.
En dix huit forty-four, je sais,
Vous'll hear des curious noises;
He'll whet ces dents against some Clay,
Et scare des Loco--Bois-es!
You know que quand il est awake,
Et quand il scratch ces clawses,
Les Locos dans leurs souliers shake,
Et, sheepish, hang leurs jaws-es.
Ce meme vieux coon, je ne sais pas why,
Le mischief's come across him,
Il fait believe he's going to die,
Quand seulement playing possum.
Mais wait till nous le want encore,
Nous'll stir him with une pole;
He'll bite as mauvais as before
Nous pulled him de son hole!"
"Prope ripam fluvii solus
A senex silently sat;
Super capitem ecce his wig,
Et wig super, ecce his hat.
Blew Zephyrus alte, acerbus,
Dum elderly gentleman sat;
Et a capite took up quite torve
Et in rivum projecit his hat.
Tunc soft maledixit the old man,
Tunc stooped from the bank where he sat,
Et cum scipio poked in the water,
Conatus servare his hat.
Blew Zephyrus alte, acerbus,
The moment it saw him at that;
Et whisked his novum scratch wig
In flumen, along with his hat.
Ab imo pectore damnavit
In coeruleus eye dolor sat;
Tunc despairingly threw in his cane
Nare cum his wig and his hat.
Contra bonos mores, don't swear,
It est wicked, you know (verbum sat),
Si this tale habet no other moral,
Mehercle! you're gratus to that!"
"Terry, leave us, sumus weary:
Jam nos taedet te videre,
Si vis nos with joy implere,
Terry in hac terra tarry,
Diem nary.
For thy domum long'st thou nonne?
Habes wife et filios bonny?
Socios Afros magis ton-y?
Haste thee, Terry, mili-terry,
Pedem ferre.
Forte Thaddeus may desire thee,
Sumner, et id. om., admire thee,
Nuisance nobis, not to ire thee,
We can spare thee, magne Terry,
Freely, very.
Hear the Prex's proclamation,
Nos fideles to the nation,
Gone est nunc thy place and station
Terry-sier momen-terry
Sine query.
Yes, thy doom est scriptum--'Mene,'
Longer ne nos naso tene,
Thou hast dogged us, diu bene,
Loose us, terrible bull terry-er,
We'll be merrier.
But the dulces Afros, vale,
Seek some back New Haven alley,
Terry, quit this territory
Con amore.
Sed verbum titi, abituro,
Pay thy rent-bills, et conjuro,
Tecum take thy precious bureau
Terry, Turner, blue-coat hom'nes
Abhinc omnes!"
There nunquam was seen
Puella pulchrior,
Fascinans quam bellis
Vel lilium, et id.,
Was 'ladles' on Lyd.
Semel Lydia, loquitur:
'Si fidem violaris,
I'd lay down and die, sir.'
'Si my Lydia dear
I should ever forget'--
Tum respondit: 'I hope
To be roasted and ate.'
Sed, though Jacob had sworn
Pro aris et focis,
He went off and left Lydia
Deserta, lachrymosis.
In lachrymis solvis
She sobbed and she sighed;
And at last, corde fracta,
Turned over and died.
Se expedire pains
That gnawed his chords cordis,
Went out on the plains,
And quum he got there.
Accenderunt ignem
Et roasted et ate him."
Comme c'est beau! wie schoen, che bello!
He who quaffs thy Lust and Wein,
Morbleu! is a lucky fellow.
How I love thy rushing streams,
Groves and ash and birch and hazel,
From Schaffhausen's rainbow beams
Jusqu'a l'echo d'Oberwesel!
Oh, que j'aime thy Bruechen, when
The crammed Dampfschiff gaily passes!
Love the bronzed pipes of thy men,
And the bronzed cheeks of thy lasses!
Oh! que j'aime the 'oui,' the 'bah!'
From the motley crowd that flow,
With the universal 'ja,'
And the Allgemeine 'so!'"
"'Eh! dancez-vous?' dixit Mein Herr.
'Oui, oui!' the charming maid replied:
Vidit ille at once the snare,
Looked downas quick, et etiam sighed.
Das Maedchen knew each bona art
Stat ludicrans superba sweet;
Declares eros ad ejus feet.
'Mein Liebchen,' here exclaims de Herr,
'Lux of mein life, ein rayum shed,
Dein oscula let amor share,
Si non, alas! meum be dead.'
Ludit das girlus gaily then,
Cum scorna much upon her lip:
Quid stultuses sunt all you men,
Funus to give you omnes slip.
Mein Herr uprose cum dignas now,
Et melius et wiser man,
Der nubis paina on his brow,
To his dark domus cito ran.
Nunc omnes you qui eager hear
Meas tell of cette falsa maid,
Of fascinatus girl beware
Lest votre folly sic be paid."
"I often wished I had a friend,
Dem ich mich anvertraun Koennt,
A friend in whom I could confide,
Der mit mir theilte Freud und Leid;
Had I the riches of Girard--
Ich theilte mit ihm Haus und Heerd:
For what is gold? 'Tis but a passing metal,
Der Henker hol' fuer mich den ganzen Bettel.
Could I purchase the world to live in it alone,
Ich gaeb', daefur nich eine noble Bohn';
I thought one time in you I'd find that friend,
Und glaubte schon mein Sehnen haet ein End;
Alas! your friendship lasted but in sight,
Doch meine grenzet an die Ewigkeit."
"Oh why now sprechen Sie Deutsch?
What pleasure say can Sie haben?
You cannot imagine how much
You bother unfortunate Knaben.
Liebster Freund! give bessere work,
Nicht so hard, ein kurtzerer lesson,
Oh then we will nicht try to shirk
Und unser will geben Sie blessin'.
Oh, ask us nicht now to decline
'Meines Bruders groessere Haeuser;'
'Die Fasser' of 'alt rother Wein'
Can give us no possible joy, sir.
Der Mueller may tragen ein Rock
Eat schwartz Brod und dem Kaese,
Die Gans may be haengen on hoch,
But what can it matter to me, sir?
Return zu Ihr own native tongue,
And seek not to teach to the young
The Sprache belonging to such men.
Und now 'tis my solemn belief
That if you nicht grant this petition,
Sie must schreiben mein Vater ein Brief,
To say that ich hab' ein Condition.'"
And 'twas nox most opportuna
To catch a possum or a coona;
For nix was scattered o'er this mundus,
A shallow nix, et non profundus.
On sic a nox with canis unus,
Two boys went out to hunt for coonus.
Unis canis, duo puer,
Nunquam braver, nunquam truer,
Quam hoc trio unquam fuit,
If there was I never knew it.
The corpus of this bonus canis,
Was full as long as octo span is,
But brevior legs had canis never
Quam had hic dog; et bonus clever
Some used to say, in stultum jocum,
Quod a field was too small locum
For sic a dog to make a turnus
Circum self from stem to sternus.
This bonus dog had one bad habit,
Amabat much to tree a rabbit--
Amabat plus to chase a rattus,
Amabat bene tree a cattus.
But on this nixy moonlight night,
This old canis did just right.
Nunquam treed a starving rattus,
Nunquam chased a starving cattus,
But cucurrit on, intentus
On the track and on the scentus,
Till he treed a possum strongum,
In a hollow trunkum longum;
Loud he barked, in horrid bellum,
Seemed on terra venit pellum;
Quickly ran the duo puer,
Mors of possum to secure;
Quum venerit, one began
To chop away like quisque man;
Soon the axe went through the truncum,
Soon he hit it all kerchunkum;
Combat deepens; on ye braves!
Canis, pueri et staves;
As his powers non longuis tarry,
Possum potest non pugnare,
On the nix his corpus lieth,
Down to Hades spirit flieth,
Joyful pueri, canis bonus,
Think him dead as any stonus.
Now they seek their pater's domo,
Knowing, certe, they will blossom
Into heroes, when with possum
They arrive, narrabunt story,
Plenus blood et plenior glory.
Tell me where est now the gloria,
Where the honours of Victoria?
Quum ad domum narrent story,
Plenus sanguine, tragic, gory.
Pater praiseth, likewise mater,
Wonders greatly younger frater.
Possum leave they on the mundus,
Go themselves to sleep profundus,
Somniunt possums slain in battle,
Strong as ursae, large as cattle.
When nox gives way to lux of morning--
Albam terram much adorning,--
Up they jump to see the varmen,
Of the which this is the carmen.
Lo! possum est resurrectum!
Ecce pueri dejectum.
Ne relinquit track behind him,
Et the pueri never find him.
Cruel possum! bestia vilest,
How the pueros thou beguilest;
Pueri think non plus of Caesar,
Take your laurels, cum the honour,
Since ista possum is a goner!"
"Lady, very fair are you,
And your eyes are very blue,
And your nose;
And your brow is like the snow;
And the various things you know
Goodness knows.
And the rose-flush on your cheek,
And your Algebra and Greek
Perfect are;
And that loving lustrous eye
Every star.
You have pouting, piquant lips,
You can doubtless an eclipse
But for your cerulean hue,
I had certainly from you
Met my fate.
If by an arrangement dual
I were Adams mixed with Whewell,
The same day
I, as wooer, perhaps may come
To so sweet an Artium
"Lady! formosissima tu!
Caeruleis oculis have you,
Ditto nose!
Et vous n'avez pas une faute--
And that you are going to vote,
Goodness knows!
And the roseus on your cheek,
And your Algebra and Greek,
Are parfait!
And your jactus oculi
Knows each star that shines in the
You have pouting, piquant lips,
Sans doute vous pouvez an eclipse
Ne caerulum colorantur,
I should have in you, instanter,
Met my fate!
Si, by some arrangement dual,
I at once were Kant and Whewell;
It would pay--
Procus noti then to come
To so sweet an Artium
Si possem clear-starch, cookere,
Votre learning
Might the leges proscribere--
Do the pro patria mori,
I, the churning!"
"I had four brothers over the sea,
Perrimerri dictum, Domine:
And each one sent a present to me;
Partum quartum, peredecentum,
Perrimerri dictum, Domine.
The first sent a cherry without any stone;
Perrimerri dictum, Domine:
The second a chicken without any bone,
Partum quartum, peredecentum,
Perrimerri dictum, Domine.
The third sent a blanket without any thread;
Perrimerri dictum, Domine:
The fourth sent a book that no man could read;
Partum quartum, peredecentum,
Perrimerri dictum, Domine.
When the cherry's in the blossom, it has no stone;
Perrimerri dictum, Domine:
When the chicken's in the egg, it has no bone;
Partum quartum, peredecentum,
Perrimerri dictum, Domine.
When the blanket's in the fleece, it has no thread;
Perrimerri dictum, Domine:
When the book's in the press, no man can it read;
Partum quartum, peredecentum,
Perrimerri dictum, Domine."
"Parvula Bo-peep
Amisit her sheep,
Et nescit where to find 'em;
Desere alone,
Et venient home,
Cum omnibus caudis behind 'em."
"Jack cum amico Jill,
Ascendit super montem;
Johannes cecedit down the hill,
Ex forte fregit frontem."
"Fresh from his books, an arch but studious boy,
Twirl'd with resilient glee his mobile toy;
And while on single pivot foot it set,
Whisk'd round the board in whirring pirouette,
Shriek'd, as its figures flew too fast to note 'em,
_Te totum amo, amo te, Teetotum_."
"Si quisquis furetur,
This little libellum,
I'll kill him, I'll fell him;
In venturum illius
I'll stick my scalpellum,
And teach him to steal
My little libellum."
(_On the road from Cape Town to Simon's Bay, Cape of Good Hope._)
"Multum in parvo, pro bono publico;
Entertainment for man or beast all of a row.
Lekker host as much as you please;
Excellent beds without any fleas;
Nos patrum fugimus--now we are here,
Vivamus, let us live by selling beer
On donne a boire et a manger ici;
Come in and try it, whoever you be."
"Tres fratres stolidii,
Took a boat at Niagri;
Stormus arose et windus erat,
Magnum frothum surgebat,
Et boatum overturnebat,
Et omnes drowndiderunt
Quia swimmere non potuerunt!"
"Sic itur ad astra, together;
But much as we aspire,
No purse of gold, this summer weather,
Could hire us to go higher!"
The following epitaph is to be found in Northallerton Churchyard:
"Hic jacet Walter Gun,
Sometime landlord of the _Sun_,
Sic transit gloria mundi!
He drank hard upon Friday,
That being an high day,
Took his bed and died upon Sunday!"
"He _et super_ with us last evening, and is a terrible fellow. He
In a similar dialect to this, Dean Swift and Dr. Sheridan used to
"Is his honor sic? Prae letus felis pulse."
The Dean once wrote to the Doctor:
"Mollis abuti,     No lasso finis,
Has an acuti,      Molli divinis."
To which the Doctor responded:
"I ritu a verse o na Molli o mi ne,
Asta lassa me pole, a laedis o fine;
I ne ver neu a niso ne at in mi ni is,
A manat a glans ora sito fer diis.
De armo lis abuti, hos face an hos nos is
As fer a sal illi, as reddas aro sis,
Ac is o mi Molli is almi de lite,
Illo verbi de, an illo verbi nite."
At this the Dean settles the whole affair by--
"Apud in is almi de si re,
Mimis tres I ne ver re qui re;
Alo' ver I findit a gestis,
His miseri ne ver at restis."
"_Gravi jam_dudum _saucia_ cura."
"_Poen_ia perire potest; _Culpa per_ennis est."
And Dr. Johnson wrote the following epitaph on his cat:
Victor Hugo was once asked if he could write English poetry.
"Pour chasser le spleen
J'entrai dans un inn;
O, mais je bus le gin,
God save the queen!"
"'MONSIEUR LE LANDLORD: Sir--_Pourquoi_ don't you _mettez_ some
terrifficatus est most to death. Big Ingin removit Johannem ad
tentem, ad campum, ad marshy placem, papoosem, pipe of peacem,
Youth; and also to persons of other nations that wish to know the
translation; translation what only will be for to accustom the
proverbs, and to second a coin's index.
Do Mundo.     Of the world.            Ove thi Ueurlde.
Os astros.    The stars.               Thi esters.
Moca.         Young girl.              Yeun-gue guerle.
O relampago.  The flash of lightning.  Thi flax ove lait eningue.
abstain."
"One eyed was laied against a man which had good eyes that he saw
indemnified.' 'Not quit, because my house where i was disposed my
"The walls have hearsay."
"Four eyes does see better than two."
"There is not any ruler without a exception."
"The mountain in work put out a mouse."
"He is like the fish into the water."
"To buy a cat in a pocket."
"To come back at their muttons."
"He is not so devil as he is black."
"Keep the chestnut of the fire with the hand of the cat."
"What come in to me for an ear yet out for another."
"Take out the live coals with the hand of the cat."
"These roses do button at the eyesight."
"I don't know any greatest treat
As sit him in a gay parterre,
And sniff one up the perfume sweet
Of every roses buttoning there.
It only want my charming miss
Who make to blush the self red rose;
Oh! I have envy of to kiss
The end's tip of her splendid nose.
Oh! I have envy of to be
What grass neath her pantoffle push,
And too much happy seemeth me
The margaret which her vestige crush.
But I will meet her nose at nose,
And take occasion for the hairs,
And indicate her all my woes,
That she in fine agree my prayers.
I don't know any greatest treat
As sit him in a gay parterre,
With Madame who is too more sweet
Than every roses buttoning there."
"That nightee teem he come chop chop
One young man walkee, no can stop;
Colo maskee, icee maskee;
He got flag; chop b'long we_ll_y cu_l_io, see--
Topside-galow!
He too muchee so_ll_y; one piecee eye
Looksee sharp--so fashion--alla same my:
He talkee largee, talkee st_l_ong,
Too muchee cu_l_io; alla same gong--
Topside-galow!
Inside any housee he can see light,
Any piecee _l_oom got fire all _l_ight;
He looksee plenty ice more high,
Inside he mouf he plenty c_l_y--
Topside-galow!
'No can walkee!' olo man speakee he;
'Bimeby _l_ain come, no can see;
Hab got water we_ll_y wide!'
Maskee, my must go topside--
Topside-galow!
'Man-man,' one galo talkee he;
'What for you go topside look-see?'
'Nother teem,' he makee plenty c_l_y,
Maskee, alla teem walkee plenty high--
Topside-galow!
'Take care that spilum t_l_ee, young man,
Take care that icee!' he no man-man,
That coolie chin-chin he 'Good-night;'
He talkee, 'My can go all _l_ight'--
Topside-galow!
Joss-pidgin-man chop chop begin,
Morning teem that Joss chin-chin,
No see any man, he plenty fear,
Cause some man talkee, he can hear--
Topside-galow!
Young man makee die; one largee dog see
Too muchee bobbe_l_y, findee hee.
Hand too muchee colo, inside can stop
Alla same piecee flag, got cu_l_io chop--
Topside-galow!
You too muchee laugh! What for sing?
I think so you no savey t'hat ting!
Supposey you no b'long clever inside,
More betta _you_ go walk topside!
Topside-galow!"
'Wrinkles, wrinkles, solar star,
I obtain of what you are,
When unto the noonday sky
I the spectroscope apply;
For the spectrum renders clear
Gaps within your photosphere,
Also sodium in the bar
Which your rays yield, solar star.'
Of Latin no scorner,
In the second declension did spy
How nouns there are some
Which ending in _um_
Do _not_ make their plural in _i_.'
Have studied Mill,
And all that sage has taught, too.
Now both promote
Jill's claim to vote,
As every good girl ought too.'
'I did an idyl on Joachim's fiddle,
At a classical soiree in June,
While jolly dogs laughed at themes from Spoehr,
And longed for a popular tune.'
Sat at a buffet
Eating a _bonbon sucre_;
A younger son spied her,
And edged up beside her,
But she properly frowned him away.'"
"Mary had a little lamb,
Whose fleece was white as snow,
And every place that Mary went,
The lamb it would _not_ go.
So Mary took that little lamb,
And beat it for a spell;
The family had it fried next day,
And it went very well."
"Mary possessed a diminutive sheep,
And everywhere Mary peregrinated
"Petit Bo-peep
A perdu ses moutons
Et ne sait pas que les a pris,
O laisses les tranquilles
Ill viendront en ville
Et chacun sa que apres lui."
"Ba, ba, mouton noir,
Avez vous de laine?
Trois sacs pleine.
Un pour mon maitre, un pour ma dame,
Pas un pour le jeune enfant que pleure dan le chemin."
Here is a song of Mahoney's, which is given complete:
"Quam pulchra sunt ova
Cum alba et nova,
In stabulo scite leguntur;
Et a Margery bella,
Quae festiva puella!
Pinguis lardi cum frustris coquuntur.
Ut belles in prato,
Aprico et lato
Sub sole tam lacte renident;
Ova tosta in mensa
Mappa bene extensa,
Nittidissima lanse consident."
Which, put into English, is:
"Oh! 'tis eggs are a treat,
When so white and so sweet
From under the manger they're taken;
And by fair Margery
(Och! 'tis she's full of glee!)
They are fried with fat rashers of bacon.
Just like daisies all spread,
O'er a broad sunny mead,
In the sunbeams so gaudily shining,
Are fried eggs, when displayed
On a dish, when we've laid
The cloth, and are thinking of dining!"
The last of these we give is from the "Arundines Cami":
"Mica, mica, parva Stella,
Miror, quaenam sis tam bella!
Splendens eminus in illo
Alba velut gemma, coelo."
"Shine with irregular, intermitted light, sparkle at intervals,
diminutive, luminous, heavenly body.
region surrounding the earth."
"I like the native names, as Parramatta,
The following _jeu d'esprit_, in which many of the absurd and
A man from Wittequergaugaum came
One evening in the rain.
'I am a traveller,' said he,
'Just started on a tour,
To-morrow morn at four.'
He took a tavern-bed that night,
And with the morrow's sun,
By way of Sekledobskus went,
With carpet-bag and gun.
A week passed on; and next we find
Our native tourist come
To that sequester'd village called
From thence he went to Absequoit,
And there--quite tired of Maine--
He sought the mountains of Vermont,
Upon a railroad train.
Was his first stopping-place,
And then Skunk's Misery displayed
Its sweetness and its grace.
By easy stages then he went
To visit Devil's Den;
And Scrabble Hollow, by the way,
Did come within his ken.
Then _via_ Nine Holes and Goose Green,
He travelled through the State,
And to Virginia, finally,
Was guided by his fate.
Within the Old Dominion's bounds,
He wandered up and down;
To-day at Buzzard Roost ensconced,
To-morrow at Hell Town.
At Pole Cat, too, he spent a week,
Till friends from Bull Ring came,
And made him spend the day with them
In hunting forest game.
Then, with his carpet-bag in hand,
To Dog Town next he went;
Where half a day he spent.
From thence, into Negationburg
His route of travel lay,
Which having gained, he left the State
And took a southward way.
North Carolina's friendly soil
He trod at fall of night,
And, on a bed of softest down,
He slept at Hell's Delight.
Morn found him on the road again,
To Lousy Level bound;
At Bull's Tail, and Lick Lizard too,
Good provender he found.
The country all about Pinch Gut
So beautiful did seem,
That the beholder thought it like
A picture in a dream.
But the plantations near Burnt Coat
Were even finer still,
And made the wond'ring tourist feel
A soft delicious thrill.
At Tear Shirt, too, the scenery
Most charming did appear,
With Snatch It in the distance far,
And Purgatory near.
But spite of all these pleasant scenes,
The tourist stoutly swore
That home is brightest after all,
And travel is a bore.
So back he went to Maine, straightway
A little wife he took;
And now is making nutmegs at
"Men once were surnamed for their shape or estate
(You all may from history learn it),
But now, when the doorplates of misters and dames
Are read, each so constantly varies;
From the owner's trade, figure, and calling, surnames
Seem given by the rule of contraries.
Mr. Wise is a dunce, Mr. King is a whig,
Mr. Coffin's uncommonly sprightly,
And huge Mr. Little broke down in a gig,
While driving fat Mrs. Golightly.
At Bath, where the feeble go more than the stout,
(A conduct well worthy of Nero,)
Over poor Mr. Lightfoot, confined with the gout,
Mr. Heavyside danced a bolero.
Miss Joy, wretched maid, when she chose Mr. Love,
Found nothing but sorrow await her;
She now holds in wedlock, as true as a dove,
That fondest of mates, Mr. Hayter.
Mr. Oldcastle dwells in a modern-built hut;
Miss Sage is of madcaps the archest;
Of all the queer bachelors Cupid e'er cut,
Old Mr. Younghusband's the starchest.
Mr. Child, in a passion, knock'd down Mr. Rock;
Mr. Stone like an aspen-leaf shivers;
Miss Pool used to dance, but she stands like a stock
Ever since she became Mrs. Rivers.
Mr. Swift hobbles onward, no mortal knows how,
He moves as though cords had entwined him;
Mr. Metcalf ran off upon meeting a cow,
With pale Mr. Turnbull behind him.
Mr. Barker's as mute as a fish in the sea,
Mr. Miles never moves on a journey,
Mr. Gotobed sits up till half after three,
Mr. Makepeace was bred an attorney.
Mr. Gardener can't tell a flower from a root,
Mr. Wild with timidity draws back;
Mr. Ryder performs all his journeys on foot,
Mr. Foot all his journeys on horseback.
Mr. Penny, whose father was rolling in wealth,
Consumed all the fortune his dad won;
Large Mr. Le Fever's the picture of health;
Mr. Goodenough is but a bad one.
Mr. Cruikshank stept into three thousand a year
By showing his leg to an heiress:
Now I hope you'll acknowledge I've made it quite clear
Surnames ever go by contraries."
"Tis curious to find, in this overgrown town,
While through its long streets we are dodging,
That many a man is in trade settled down,
Whose name don't agree with his lodging!
For instance, Jack Munday in Friday Street dwells,
Mr. Pitt in Fox Court is residing;
Mr. White in Black's Buildings green-grocery sells,
While East in West Square is abiding!
Mr. Lamb in Red Lion Street perks up his head,
To Lamb's, Conduit Street, Lyon goes courting;
Mr. Boxer at Battle Bridge hires a bed,
While Moon is in Sun Street disporting.
Bill Brown up to Green Street to live now is gone,
In Stanhope mews Dennet keeps horses;
Doctor Low lives in High Street, Saint Mary-le-Bone,
In Brown Street one Johnny White's door sees.
But still much more curious it is, when the streets
Accord with the names of their tenants;
And yet with such curious accordance one meets,
In taking a town-tour like Pennant's.
For instance, in Crown Street George King you may note,
To Booth, in Mayfair, you go shopping;
And Porter, of Brewer Street, goes in a boat
Mr. Sparrow in Bird Street has feathered his nest,
Mr. Archer in Bow Street wooes Sally:
Mr. Windham in Air Street gets zephyr'd to rest,
Mr. Dancer resides in Ball Alley.
Mr. Fisher on Finsbury fixes his views,
Mrs. Foote in Shoe Lane works at carding;
Mr. Hawke has a residence close to the Mews,
And Winter puts up at Spring Gardens!
In Orange Street, Lemon vends porter and ale,
In Hart Street, Jack Deer keeps a stable;
In Hill Street located you'll find Mr. Dale,
In Knight-Rider Street, you've both Walker and Day,
In Blackman Street, Lillywhite makes a display,
In Cheapside lives sweet Mrs. Dearman.
In Paradise Row, Mr. Adam sells figs,
Eve, in Apple Tree Yard, rooms has taken;
Mr. Coltman, in Foley Street, fits you with wigs,
In Hog Lane you call upon Bacon.
Old Homer in Greek Street sells barrels and staves,
While Pope, in Cross Lane, is a baker;
In Liquorpond Street, Mr. Drinkwater shaves,
In Cow Lane lives A. Veal, undertaker."
"A pretty deer is dear to me,
A hare with downy hair;
I love a hart with all my heart,
But barely bear a bear.
'Tis plain that no one takes a plane
To pare a pair of pears;
A rake, though, often takes a rake
To tear away the tares.
All rays raise thyme, time razes all;
And, through the whole, hole wears.
A writ, in writing 'right,' may write
It 'wright,' and still be wrong--
For 'wright' and 'rite' are neither 'right,'
And don't to 'write' belong.
Beer often brings a bier to man,
Coughing a coffin brings;
And too much ale will make us ail,
As well as other things.
The person lies who says he lies
When he is but reclining;
And when consumptive folks decline,
They all decline declining.
A quail don't quail before a storm--
A bough will bow before it;
We cannot rein the rain at all--
No earthly powers reign o'er it;
The dyer dyes awhile, then dies;
To dye he's always trying,
Until upon his dying bed
He thinks no more of dyeing.
A son of Mars mars many a sun;
All deys must have their days,
And every knight should pray each night
To Him who weighs his ways.
'Tis meet that man should mete out meat
To feed misfortune's son;
The fair should fare on love alone,
Else one cannot be won.
A lass, alas! is something false;
Of faults a maid is made;
Her waist is but a barren waste--
Though stayed she is not staid.
The springs spring forth in spring, and shoots
Shoot forward one and all;
Though summer kills the flowers, it leaves
The leaves to fall in fall.
I would a story here commence,
But you might find it stale;
So let's suppose that we have reached
The tail end of our tale."
"With tragic air the love-lorn heir
Once chased the chaste Louise;
She quickly guessed her guest was there
To please her with his pleas.
Now at her side he kneeling sighed,
His sighs of woeful size;
'Oh, hear me here, for lo, most low
I rise before your eyes.
'This soul is sole thine own, Louise--
'Twill never wean, I ween,
The love that I for aye shall feel,
Though mean may be its mien!'
'You know I cannot tell you no,'
The maid made answer true;
'I love you aught, as sure I ought--
To you 'tis due I do!'
'Since you are won, Oh fairest one,
The marriage rite is right--
The chapel aisle I'll lead you up
This night,' exclaimed the knight."
"In vain I lament what is past,
And pity their woe-begone looks,
Though they grin at the credit they gave,
I know I am in their best books.
To my _tailor_ my _breaches_ of faith,
On my conscience now but lightly sit,
For such lengths in his _measures_ he's gone,
He has given me many a _fit_.
My bootmaker, finding at _last_
That my _soul_ was too stubborn to suit,
_Waxed_ wroth when he found he had got
Anything but the _length of my foot_.
My hatmaker cunningly _felt_
He'd seen many like me before,
So _brimful_ of insolence, vowed
On credit he'd crown me no more.
My baker was _crusty_ and _burnt_,
When he found himself quite _overdone_
By a _fancy-bred_ chap like myself,--
Ay, as _cross_ as a _Good Friday's bun_.
Next, my laundress, who washed pretty clean,
In behaviour was dirty and bad;
For into hot water she popped
Then my butcher, who'd little at _stake_,
Most surlily opened his _chops_,
And swore my affairs out of _joint_,
So on to my carcase he pops.
In my lodgings exceedingly high,
Though low in the rent to be sure,
Without warning my landlady seized,
Took my things and the key of the door.
Thus cruelly used by the world,
In the Bench I can smile at its hate;
For a time I must alter my _style_,
For I cannot get out of the _gate_."
"He struggled to kiss her. She struggled the same
To prevent him, so bold and undaunted;
But, as smitten by lightning, he heard her exclaim,
'Avaunt, sir!' and off he avaunted.
But when he returned, with the fiendishest laugh,
Showing clearly that he was affronted,
And threatened by main force to carry her off,
She cried 'Don't!' and the poor fellow donted.
When he meekly approached, and sat down at her feet,
Praying aloud, as before he had ranted,
That she would forgive him and try to be sweet,
And said, 'Can't you!' the dear girl recanted.
Then softly he whispered, 'How could you do so?
I certainly thought I was jilted;
But come thou with me, to the parson we'll go;
Say, wilt thou, my dear?' and she wilted."
"A wandering tribe, called the Siouxs,
Wear moccasins, having no shiouxs.
They are made of buckskin,
With the fleshy side in,
Embroidered with beads of bright hyiouxs.
When out on the war-path, the Siouxs
March single file--never by tiouxs--
And by 'blazing' the trees
Can return at their ease,
And their way through the forests ne'er liouxs.
All new-fashioned boats he eschiouxs,
And uses the birch-bark caniouxs;
These are handy and light,
And, inverted at night,
Give shelter from storms and from dyiouxs.
The principal food of the Siouxs
Is Indian maize, which they briouxs
And hominy make,
Or mix in a cake,
And eat it with fork, as they chiouxs."
"If for a stomach ache you tache
Each time some whisky, it will break
You down and meak you sheak and quache,
And you will see a horrid snache.
Much whisky doth your wits beguile,
Your breath defuile, yourself make vuile;
You lose your style, likewise your pyle,
If you erewhyle too often smuile.
But should there be, like now, a drought,
When water and your strength give ought,
None will your good name then malign
If you confign your drink to wign."
"There was a young man in Bordeaux,
He said to himself--'Oh, heaux!
The girls have gone back on me seaux,
What to do I really don't kneaux.'"
"Mourn, Ammonites, mourn o'er his funeral urn,
Whose neck ye must grace no more;
Gneiss, Granite, and Slate!--he settled your date,
And his ye must now deplore.
Weep, Caverns, weep! with infiltering drip,
Your recesses he'll cease to explore;
For mineral veins or organic remains
No Stratum again will he bore.
Oh! his wit shone like crystal!--his knowledge profound
From Gravel to Granite descended;
No Trap could deceive him, no Slip could confound,
Nor specimen, true or pretended.
He knew the birth-rock of each pebble so round,
And how far its tour had extended.
His eloquence rolled like the Deluge retiring,
Which Mastodon carcases floated;
To a subject obscure he gave charms so inspiring
Young and old on Geology doated.
He stood forth like an Outlier; his hearers admiring
In pencil each anecdote noted.
Where shall we our great professor inter,
That in peace may rest his bones?
If we hew him a rocky sepulchre,
He'll rise up and break the stones,
And examine each Stratum that lies around,
For he's quite in his element underground.
In the common Alluvial soil;
He'll start up and snatch those tools away
Of his own geological toil;
In a Stratum so young the professor disdains
That embedded should be his Organic Remains.
Then, exposed to the drip of some case-hard'ning spring,
His carcase let Stalactite cover;
And to Oxford the petrified sage let us bring,
When he is encrusted all over,
There, mid Mammoths and Crocodiles, high on a shelf,
Let him stand as a Monument raised to himself."
The following is by Jacob F. Henrici, and appeared originally in
"Oh come, my love, and seek with me
A realm by grosser eye unseen,
Where fairy forms will welcome thee,
And dainty creatures hail thee queen.
In silent pools the tube I'll ply,
Where green conferva-threads lie curled,
And proudly bring to thy bright eye
The trophies of the protist world.
We'll rouse the stentor from his lair,
And gaze into the cyclops' eye;
In chara and nitella hair
The protoplasmic stream descry,
For ever weaving to and fro
With faint molecular melody;
And curious rotifers I'll show,
And graceful vorticellidae.
Where melicertae ply their craft
We'll watch the playful water-bear,
And no envenomed hydra's shaft
Shall mar our peaceful pleasure there;
But while we whisper love's sweet tale
We'll trace, with sympathetic art,
Within the embryonic snail
The growing rudimental heart.
Where rolls the volvox sphere of green,
And plastids move in Brownian dance--
If, wandering 'mid that gentle scene,
Two fond amoebae shall perchance
Be changed to one beneath our sight
By process of biocrasis,
We'll recognise, with rare delight,
A type of our prospective bliss.
Oh dearer thou by far to me
In thy sweet maidenly estate
Than any seventy-fifth could be,
Of aperture however great!
Come, go with me, and we will stray
Through realm by grosser eye unseen,
Where protophytes shall homage pay,
And protozoa hail thee queen."
Here lieth to digest, macerate, and amalgamate with clay,
Stratum super stratum,
A man who in this earthly Laboratory
Pursued various processes to obtain
Or the secret to Live;
Or the art of getting, rather than making, Gold.
Alchemist like,
All his labour and propition,
As Mercury in the fire, evaporated in fumo.
When he dissolved to his first principles,
He departed as poor
As the last drops of an alembic;
For riches are not poured
On the Adepts of this world.
Not Solar in his purse,
Neither Lunar in his disposition,
Nor Jovial in his temperament;
Being of Saturnine habit,
Venereal conflicts had left him,
And Martial ones he disliked.
With nothing saline in his composition,
All Salts but two were his Nostrums.
The Attic he did not know,
And that of the Earth he thought not Essential;
But, perhaps, his had lost its savour.
Though fond of news, he carefully avoided
The fermentation, effervescence,
And decupilation of this life.
Full seventy years his exalted essence
Was hermetically sealed in its terrene matrass;
But the radical moisture being exhausted,
The Elixir Vitae spent,
Inspissated and exsiccated to a cuticle,
He could not suspend longer in his vehicle,
But precipitated gradatim
Per companum
To his original dust.
May that light, brighter than Bolognian Phosphorus,
Preserve him from the Incineration and Concremation
Furnace of the other world,
Depurate him, like Tartarus Regeneratus,
From the Foeces and Scoria of this;
Highly rectify and volatilize
Bring it over the helm of the Retort of this Globe,
Place in a proper Recipient,
Among the elect of the Flowers of Benjamin,
Never to be saturated
Till the general Resuscitation,
When all the reguline parts
Of his comminuted substance
Shall be again concentrated,
Revivified, alcoholized,
And imbibe its pristine Archeses;
Undergo a new transmutation,
Eternal fixation,
And combination of its former Aura;
Be coated over and decorated in robes more fair
Than the majestie of Bismuth,
More sparkling than Cinnabar,
And being found Proof Spirit,
Then to be exalted and sublimed together
Of the highest Aludel in Paradise."
"Oh, lovely Clara, hie with me
Where Cryptogams in beauty spore,
Corticiums creep on trunk and tree,
And fairy rings their curves restore;
Mycelia there pervade the ground,
And many a painted pileus rear,
Agarics rend their veils around
The ranal overture to hear.
Where gay Pezizae flaunt their hues,
A microscopic store we'll glean,
To sketch with camera the views
In which the ascus may be seen.
Beneath our millemetric gaze
Sporidia's length will stand revealed,
And eyes like thine will trace the maze
In each hymenium concealed.
AEstivum tubers we shall dig,
And many a Sphaeria-sheltering twig
Will in our vascula be laid.
For hard Sclerotia we shall peer,
In barks and brassicaceous leaves,
And trace their progress through the year,
Like Bobbies on the track of thieves.
While sages deem Solanum sent
We'll prize it for development
Of swelling Peronospora.
We'll mount the Myxogastre's threads
To watch Plasmodium's vital flow,
While Capillitia lift their heads
Generic mysteries to show.
I'll bring thee where the Chantarelles
Inspire a mycologic theme,
Where Phallus in the shadow smells,
And scarlet Amanita gleam;
And lead thee where M'Moorlan's rye
Is waving black with ergot spurs,
And many a Trichobasian dye
Gives worth to corn and prickly burs.
And when the beetle calls us home,
We'll gather on our lingering way
The violaceous Inolome
And russet Alutacea,
The brown Boletus edulis
Our fishing baskets soon will fill--
We'll dine on fungi fried in bliss,
Nor dread the peck of butcher's bill."
"'Speak, O man, less recent! Fragmentary fossil!
Primal pioneer of pliocene formation,
Hid in lowest drifts below the earliest stratum
Of volcanic tufa!
'Older than the beasts, the oldest Palaeotherium;
Older than the trees, the oldest Cryptogami;
Older than the hills, those infantile eruptions
Of earth's epidermis!
That those vacant sockets filled with awe and wonder,--
Whether shores Devonian or Silurian beaches,--
Tell us thy strange story!
'Or has the professor slightly antedated
By some thousand years thy advent on this planet,
Giving thee an air that's somewhat better fitted
For cold-blooded creatures?
'Wert thou true spectator of that mighty forest
When above thy head the stately Sigillaria
Reared its columned trunks in that remote and distant
Carboniferous epoch?
'Tell us of that scene,--the dim and watery woodland,
Songless, silent, hushed, with never bird or insect,
Veiled with spreading fronds and screened with tall club-mosses,
'When beside thee walked the solemn Plesiosaurus,
And around thee crept the festive Ichthyosaurus,
While from time to time above thee flew and circled
'Tell us of thy food,--those half-marine refections,
Crinoids on the shell and Brachiopods _au naturel_,--
Cuttlefish to which the _pieuvre_ of Victor Hugo
Seems a periwinkle.
'Speak, thou awful vestige of the earth's creation,--
Solitary fragment of remains organic!
Tell the wondrous secret of thy past existence,--
Speak! thou oldest primate!'
Even as I gazed, a thrill of the maxilla,
And a lateral movement of the condyloid process,
With post-pliocene sounds of healthy mastication,
Ground the teeth together.
And, from that imperfect dental exhibition,
Stained with express juices of the weed Nicotian,
Came these hollow accents, blent with softer murmurs
Of expectoration:
'Which my name is Bowers, and my crust was busted
Falling down a shaft in Calaveras County,
But I'd take it kindly if you'd send the pieces
"Ye fair injured nymphs, and ye beaus who deceive 'em,
Who with passion engage, and without reason leave 'em,
Draw near and attend how the Hero I sing
Was foiled by a Girl, though at Arms he was King.
_Crest_, _mottoes_, _supporters_, and _bearings_ knew he,
And deeply was studied in old pedigree.
He would sit a whole evening, and, not without rapture,
Tell who begat who to the end of the Chapter.
In forming his _tables_ nought grieved him so sorely
That the man died _Coelebs_, or else _sine prole_.
At last, having traced other families down,
He began to have thoughts of increasing his own.
A Damsel he chose, not too slow of belief,
And fain would be deemed her admirer _in chief_.
He _blazoned_ his suit, and the sum of his tale
Was his _field_ and her _field_ joined _party per pale_.
In different style, to tie faster the noose,
He next would attack her in soft _billet doux_.
His _argent_ and _sable_ were laid aside quite,
Plain _English_ he wrote, and in plain black and white.
Against such _atchievements_ what beauty could fence?
Or who would have thought it was all but _pretence_?--
His pain to relieve, and fulfil his desire,
The lady agreed to join hands with the squire.
The squire, in a fret that the jest went so far,
Considered with speed how to put in a _bar_.
His words bound not him, since hers did not confine her:
And that is plain law, because Miss is a _minor_.
Miss briskly replied that the law was too hard,
If she, who's a _minor_, may not be a _ward_.
In law then confiding, she took it upon her,
By justice to mend those foul breaches of honour.
She handled him so that few would, I warrant,
Have been in his _coat_ on so _sleeveless_ an errant.
She made him give bond for stamped _argent_ and _or_,
And _sabled_ his shield with _gules_ blazoned before.
Ye heralds produce, from the time of the Normans,
In all your Records such a _base_ non-performance;
Or if without instance the case is we touch on,
Let this be set down as a _blot_ in his _scutcheon_."
"You that have charge of wedded love, take heed
To keep the vessel which contains it air-tight;
So that no oxygen may enter there!
Lest (like as in a keg of elder wine,
The which, when made, thy careless hand forgot
To bung securely down) full soon, alas!
Acetous fermentation supervene
And winter find thee wineless, and, instead
Of wine, afford thee nought but vinegar.
Thus hath it been with me: there was a time
When neither rosemary nor jessamine,
Cloves or verbena, marechale, resede,
Or e'en great Otto's self, were more delicious
Unto my nose, than Betsy to mine eyes;
And, in our days of courtship, I have thought
That my career through life, with her, would be
Bright as my own show-bottles; but, ah me!
It was a vision'd scene. From what she _was_
To what she _is_, is as the pearliness
Of Creta Praep. compared with Antim. Nig.
There was a time she was all Almond-mixture
(A bland emulsion; I can recommend it
To him who hath a cold), but now, woe! woe!
She is a fierce and foaming combination
Of turpentine with vitriolic oil.
Oh! name not Sulphur, when you speak of her,
For she is Brimstone's very incarnation,
She is the Bitter-apple of my life,
The Scillae oxymel of my existence,
That knows no sweets with her.
What shall I do?--where fly?--What Hellebore
Can ease the madness that distracts my brain!
What aromatic vinegar restore
The drooping memory of brighter days!
They bid me seek relief in Prussic acid;
They tell me Arsenic holds a mighty power
To put to flight each ill and care of life:
They mention Opium, too; they say its essence,
Called Battley's Sedative, can steep the soul
Chin-deep in blest imaginings; till grief
Changed by its chemic agency, becomes
One lump of blessed Saccharum;--these things
They tell to _me_--_me_, who for twelve long years
Have triturated drugs for a subsistence,
From seven i' th' morn until the midnight hour.
I have no faith in physic's agency
E'en when most 'genuine,' for I have seen
And analysed its nature, and I know
Its ultimate and Elemental Basis.
What then is left? No more to Fate I'll bend:
I will rush into chops! and Stout shall be--my end!!"
"Charming chaos, glorious puddle,
Ethics opaque, book of bliss;
Through thy platitudes I waddle,
O thou subtle synthesis!
To thy soft consideration,
Give I talents, give I time;
Though 'perpetual occultation'
Shuts me from thy balmy clime.
As unto the sea-tossed trader,
Is the guiding Polar Star;
Thou'rt my 'zenith' and my 'nadir,'
Still 'so near and yet so far.'
Sancho never loved his gravies
As I love thy sunny face;
Sheep-bound master-piece of Davies,
Benefactor of his race!
Man nor god, not even 'ox-eyed
Juno,' could me from thee part;
My 'enthymeme,' my sweet 'protoxide,'
Thou'rt the 'zeugma' of my heart.
When were built the rocks azoic,
Sat'st thou on the granite hill;
And with constancy heroic,
To _me_ thou art azoic still.
My 'syzygy,' I'll ne'er leave thee,
Thou shalt ne'er from me escheat;
I will cherish thee, believe me,
Pythagorean obsolete.
Bless me in the midnight watches,
Ever by my pillow keep
Ruler, chalk, and black-board scratches,
Lovely nightmare, while I sleep.
Be 'co-ordinate' for ever,
For ever my 'abscissa' be;
The Fates can overwhelm me never,
Whilst _thou_ art in 'perigee.'"
"The Ancestor remote of Man,
Says D--w--n, is th' Ascidian,
A scanty sort of water-beast
Before Gorillas came to be,
Went swimming up and down the sea.
Their ancestors the pious praise,
And like to imitate their ways
How, then, does our first parent live,
What lesson has his life to give?
Th' Ascidian tadpole, young and gay,
Doth Life with one bright eye survey,
His consciousness has easy play.
He's sensitive to grief and pain,
Has tail, and spine, and bears a brain,
And everything that fits the state
Of creatures we call vertebrate.
But age comes on; with sudden shock
He sticks his head against a rock!
His tail drops off, his eye drops in,
His brain's absorbed into his skin;
He does not move, nor feel, nor know
The tidal water's ebb and flow,
But still abides, unstirred, alone,
A sucker sticking to a stone.
And we, his children, truly we
In youth are, like the Tadpole, free.
And where we would we blithely go,
Have brain and hearts, and feel and know.
Then Age comes on! To Habit we
Affix ourselves and are not free;
Th' Ascidian's rooted to a rock,
And we are bond-slaves of the clock;
Our rock is Medicine--Letters--Law,
From these our heads we cannot draw:
Our loves drop off, our hearts drop in,
And daily thicker grows our skin.
We scarcely live, we scarcely know
The wide world's moving ebb and flow,
The clanging currents ring and shock,
But we are rooted to the rock.
And thus at ending of his span,
Blind, deaf, and indolent, does Man
"I have found out a gift for my fair;
I know where the fossils abound,
Where the footprints of _Aves_ declare
The birds that once walked on the ground;
Oh, come, and--in technical speech--
We'll walk this Devonian shore,
Or on some Silurian beach
We'll wander, my love, evermore.
I will show thee the sinuous track
By the slow-moving Annelid made,
Or the Trilobite that, farther back,
In the old Potsdam sandstone was laid;
Thou shalt see in his Jurassic tomb,
The Plesiosaurus embalmed;
In his Oolitic prime and his bloom
Iguanodon safe and unharmed!
You wished--I remember it well,
And I loved you the more for that wish--
For a perfect cystedian shell
And a _whole_ holocephalic fish.
And oh, if Earth's strata contains
In its lowest Silurian drift,
Or palaeozoic remains
The same--'tis your lover's free gift.
Then come, love, and never say nay,
But calm all your maidenly fears;
We'll note, love, in one summer's day
The record of millions of years;
And though the Darwinian plan
Your sensitive feelings may shock,
We'll find the beginning of man--
Our fossil ancestors, in rock!"
"Will she thy linen wash and hosen darn?"--GAY.
"I'm utterly sick of this hateful alliance
Which the ladies have formed with impractical Science!
They put out their washing to learn hydrostatics,
And give themselves airs for the sake of pneumatics.
They are knowing in muriate, and nitrate, and chlorine,
While the stains gather fast on the walls and the flooring--
And the jellies and pickles fall woefully short,
With their chemical use of the still and retort.
Our expenses increase (without drinking French wines),
For they keep no accounts, with their tangents and sines?--
And to make both ends meet they give little assistance,
With their accurate sense of the squares of the distance.
They can name every spot from Peru to El Arish,
Except just the bounds of their own native parish;
And they study the orbits of Venus and Saturn,
While their home is resigned to the thief and the slattern.
Chronology keeps back the dinner two hours,
The smoke-jack stands still while they learn motive powers;
Flies and shells swallow up all our everyday gains,
And our acres are mortgaged for fossil remains.
They cease to reflect with their talk of refraction--
They drive us from home by electric attraction--
And I'm sure, since they've bothered their heads with affinity
I'm repulsed every hour from my learned divinity.
When the poor stupid husband is weary and starving,
Anatomy leads them to give up the carving;
And we drudges the shoulder of mutton must buy,
While they study the line of the _os humeri_.
If we 'scape from our troubles to take a short nap,
We awake with a din about limestone and trap;
And the fire is extinguished past regeneration,
For the women were wrapt in the deep-coal formation.
'Tis an impious thing that the wives of the laymen
Should use Pagan words 'bout a pistil and stamen;
Let the heir break his head while they foster a Dahlia,
And the babe die of pap as they talk of mammalia.
The first son becomes half a fool in reality,
While the mother is watching his large ideality;
And the girl roars unchecked, quite a moral abortion,
For we trust her benevolence, order, and caution.
I sigh for the good times of sewing and spinning,
Ere this new tree of knowledge had set them a sinning;
The women are mad, and they'll build female colleges,--
So here's to plain English!--a plague on their 'ologies!"
"Take a robin's leg
(Mind! the drumstick merely),
Put it in a tub
Filled with water nearly;
Set it out of doors,
In a place that's shady,
Let it stand a week
(Three days if for a lady).
Drop a spoonful of it
In a five-pail kettle,
Which may be made of tin
Or any baser metal;
Fill the kettle up,
Set it on a boiling,
Strain the liquor well,
To prevent its oiling;
One atom add of salt,
For the thickening one rice kernel,
And use to light the fire
Let the liquor boil
Half an hour or longer
(If 'tis for a man,
Of course you'll make it stronger).
Should you now desire
That the soup be flavoury,
Stir it once around
With a stalk of Savory.
When the broth is made,
Nothing can excel it:
Then three times a day
Let the patient _smell_ it.
If he chance to die,
Say 'twas Nature did it;
If he chance to live,
Give the soup the credit."
"Accept, dear Miss, this _article_ of mine,
(For what's _indefinite_, who can _define_?)
My _case_ is singular, my house is rural,
Wilt thou, indeed, consent to make it _plural_?
Something, I feel, pervades my system through,
I can't describe, yet _substantively_ true.
Thy form so _feminine_, thy mind reflective,
Where all's _possessive_ good, and nought _objective_,
I'm _positive_ none can _compare_ with thee
In wit and worth's _superlative_ degree.
_First person_, then, _indicative_ but prove,
Let thy soft _passive_ voice exclaim, 'I LOVE!'
_Active_, in cheerful _mood_, no longer _neuter_,
I'll leave my cares, both _present_, _past_, and _future_.
But ah! what torture must I undergo
Till I obtain that little 'Yes' or 'No!'
Spare me the _negative_--to save compunction,
Oh, let my _preposition_ meet _conjunction_.
What could excite such pleasing recollection,
At hearing thee pronounce this _interjection_,
'I will be thine! thy joys and griefs to share,
Till Heaven shall please to _point_ a _period_ there'!"
An Arab came to the river side,
With a donkey bearing an obelisk;
But he would not try to ford the tide,
For he had too good an *.
So he camped all night by the river side,
And remained till the tide had ceased to swell,
For he knew should the donkey from life subside,
He never would find its ||.
When the morning dawned, and the tide was out,
The pair crossed over 'neath Allah's protection;
And the Arab was happy, we have no doubt,
For he had the best donkey in all that Sec..
You are wrong, they were drowned in crossing over,
Though the donkey was bravest of all his race;
He luxuriates now in horse-heaven clover,
And his master has gone to the Prophet's _em_[Symbol]
These assinine poets deserved to be "blowed,"
Their rhymes being faulty and frothy and beery;
What really befell the ass and its load
Will ever remain a desolate ?.
Our Yankee friends, with all their ----
For once, we guess, their mark have missed;
And with poetry _Paper and Print_ is rash
In damming its flow with its editor's [Symbol]
In parable and moral leave a [Symbol] between,    [_Space_]
For reflection, or your wits fall out of joint;
The "Arab," ye see, is a printing machine,
And the donkey is he who can't see the .
An Ohio poet thus sings of the beginning of man:
"O sing a song of phosphates,
Fibrine in a line,
Four and twenty follicles
In the van of time.
When the phosphorescence
Evoluted brain,
Superstition ended,
Man began to reign."
"'_Morituri te salutant!_' say the soldiers as they pass;
Not in uttered words they say it, but we feel it as they pass--
'We, who are about to perish, we salute thee as we pass!'
Brazen clangours shake the welkin, as the manly squadrons pass.
Oh, our comrades! gone before us, in the last review to pass,
Never more to earthly chieftain dipping colours as you pass,
"That Roman nose! that Roman nose!
Has robbed my bosom of repose;
For when in sleep my eyelids close,
It haunts me still, that Roman nose!
Between two eyes as black as sloes
The bright and flaming ruby glows:
That Roman nose! that Roman nose!
And beats the blush of damask rose.
I walk the streets, the alleys, rows;
I look at all the Jems and Joes;
And old and young, and friends and foes,
But cannot find a Roman nose!
Then blessed be the day I chose
That nasal beauty of my beau's;
And when at last to Heaven I goes,
I hope to spy his Roman nose!"
"Oft in danger, yet alive,
We are come to thirty-five;
Long may better years arrive,
Better years than thirty-five.
Could philosophers contrive
Life to stop at thirty-five,
Time his hours should never drive
O'er the bounds of thirty-five.
High to soar, and deep to dive,
Nature gives at thirty-five;
Ladies, stock and tend your hive,
Trifle not at thirty-five;
For, howe'er we boast and strive,
Life declines from thirty-five;
He that ever hopes to thrive,
Must begin by thirty-five;
And all who wisely wish to wive,
Must look on Thrale at thirty-five."
exhausted," a task which must have required great patience and
"Have you heard, my dear Anne, how my spirits are sunk?
Have you heard of the cause? Oh, the loss of my trunk!
From exertion or firmness I've never yet slunk,
But my fortitude's gone with the loss of my trunk!
Stout Lucy, my maid, is a damsel of spunk,
Yet she weeps night and day for the loss of my trunk!
I'd better turn nun, and coquet with a monk,
For with whom can I flirt without aid from my trunk?
Accursed be the thief, the old rascally hunks,
Who rifles the fair, and lays hold on their trunks!
He who robs the king's stores of the least bit of junk,
Is hanged--while he's safe who has plundered my trunk!
There's a phrase among lawyers when _nunc_'s put for _tunc_;
But _nunc_ and _tunc_ both, must I grieve for my trunk!
Huge leaves of that great commentator, old Brunck,
Perhaps was the paper that lined my poor trunk!" &c. &c.
"Muse, assist me to complain,
While I grieve for Lady Jane;
I ne'er was in so sad a vein,
Lord Petre's house was built by Payne,
No mortal architect made Jane.
If hearts had windows, through the pane
Of mine, you'd see Lady Jane.
At breakfast I could scarce refrain
From tears at missing Lady Jane;
Nine rolls I ate, in hope to gain
The roll that might have fallen to Jane."
As midsummer flower,
Gentle as falcon,
Or hawk of the tower,
With solace and gladness,
Much mirth and no madness,
All good and no badness,
So joyously,
So maidenly,
So womanly,
Her demeaning,
In everything
Far, far passing
That I can indite
Or suffice to write
Of merry Margaret,
As midsummer flower,
Gentle as falcon,
Or hawk of the tower."
"A Skeltonical salutation
Or condign gratulation,
At the just vexation
Of the Spanish nation,
That in a bravado
Spent many a crusado
In setting forth an Armado
England to invado.
Pro cujus memoria
Ye may well be soria,
Full small may be your gloria
When ye shall hear this storia,
Then will ye cry and roria,
We shall see her no moria.
O king of Spaine!
Is it not a paine
To thy hearte and braine,
And every vaine,
To see thy traine
For to sustaine
Withouten gaine,
The world's disdaine;
Which despise
As toies and lies,
With shoutes and cries,
Thy enterprise;
As fitter for pies
And butterflies
Then men so wise?
O waspish king!
Where's now thy sting.
The darts or sling,
Or strong bowstring,
That should us wring,
And under bring?
Who every way
Thee vexe and pay
And beare the sway
By night and day,
To thy dismay
In battle array,
And every fray?
O pufte with pride!
What foolish guide
Made thee provide
To over-ride
This land so wide,
From side to side;
And then untride,
Away to slide,
And not to abide;
But all in a ring
Away to fling?"
"Here, early to bed, lies kind William Maginn,
Who with genius, wit, learning, life's trophies to win,
Had neither great lord, nor rich cit of his kin,
Nor discretion to set himself up as to tin;
So his portion soon spent, like the poor heir of Lynn,
He turned author, ere yet there was beard on his chin;
And whoever was out, or whoever was in,
For your Tories his fine Irish brains he would spin;
Who received prose and verse with a promising grin,
'Go a-head, you queer fish, and more power to your fin!'
But to save from starvation stirr'd never a pin.
Light for long was his heart, tho' his breeches were thin,
Else his acting, for certain, was equal to Quin:
But at last he was beat, and sought help of the bin:
(All the same to the doctor, from claret to gin!)
Which led swiftly to gaol, with consumption therein.
It was much, when the bones rattled loose in the skin,
He got leave to die here, out of Babylon's din.
Barring drink and the girls, I ne'er heard of a sin,--
Many worse, better few, than bright, broken Maginn!"
"The fable which I now present,
Occurred to me by accident:
And whether bad or excellent,
Is merely so by accident.
A stupid ass this morning went
Into a field by accident:
And cropped his food, and was content,
Until he spied by accident
A flute, which some oblivious gent
Had left behind by accident;
When, sniffing it with eager scent,
He breathed on it by accident,
And made the hollow instrument
Emit a sound by accident.
'Hurrah, hurrah!' exclaimed the brute,
'How cleverly I play the flute!'
A fool, in spite of nature's bent,
May shine for once,--by accident."
"I hate the very name of box;
It fills me full of fears;
It minds me of the woes I've felt
Since I was young in years.
They sent me to a Yorkshire school,
Where I had many knocks;
For there my schoolmates box'd my ears,
Because I could not box.
I packed my box; I picked the locks,
And ran away to sea;
And very soon I learnt to box
The compass merrily.
I came ashore; I called a coach
And mounted on the box:
The coach upset against a post,
And gave me dreadful knocks.
I soon got well; in love I fell,
And married Martha Box;
To please her will, at famed Box Hill
I took a country box.
I had a pretty garden there,
All bordered round with box;
But ah! alas! there lived next door
A certain Captain Knox.
He took my wife to see the play;--
They had a private box:
I jealous grew, and from that day
I hated Captain Knox.
I sold my house; I left my wife;
And went to Lawyer Fox,
Who tempted me to seek redress
All from a jury-box.
I went to law, whose greedy maw
Soon emptied my strong box;
I lost my suit, and cash to boot,
All through that crafty Fox.
The name of box I therefore dread,
I've had so many shocks;
They'll never end; for when I'm dead
They'll nail me in a box."
Bright and yellow, hard and cold,
Molten, graven, hammered, and rolled;
Heavy to get, and light to hold;
Hoarded, bartered, bought and sold,
Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled;
Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old,
To the very verge of the churchyard mould;
Price of many a crime untold;
Good or bad, a thousandfold!"
"Just eighteen years ago this day,
Attired in all her best array--
For she was airy, young, and gay,
And loved to make a grand display,
While I the charges would defray--
My _Cara Sposa_ went astray;
By night eloping in a sleigh,
With one whose name begins with J,
Resolved with me she would not stay,
And be subjected to my sway;
Because I wish'd her to obey,
Without reluctance or delay,
And never interpose her nay,
Nor any secrets e'er betray.
But wives will sometimes have their way,
And cause, if possible, a fray;
Then who so obstinate as they?
She therefore left my house for aye,
Before my hairs had turned to gray,
Or I'd sustained the least decay,
Which caused at first some slight dismay:
For I considered it foul play.
Now where she's gone I cannot say,
For I've not seen her since the day
When Johnston took her in his sleigh,
To his seductive arts a prey,
And posted off to Canada.
Now when her conduct I survey,
And in the scale of justice weigh,
Who blames me, if I do inveigh
Against her to my dying day?
But live as long as live I may,
I've always purposed not to pay
(Contract whatever debts she may)
A shilling for her; but I pray
That when her body turns to clay,
If mourning friends should her convey
To yonder graveyard, they'll not lay
Her body near to Nahum Fay."
"Are you anxious to bewitch?
You must learn the Radenovitch!
Would you gain of fame a niche?
You must dance the Radenovitch!
'Mong the noble and the rich,
All the go's the Radenovitch!
It has got to such a pitch,
All must dance the Radenovitch!
If without a flaw or hitch
You can dance the Radenovitch,
Though you've risen from the ditch
(Yet have learned the Radenovitch),
You'll get on without a hitch,
If for glory you've an itch,
Learn to dance the Radenovitch;
And, though corns may burn and twitch,
While you foot the Radenovitch;
In your side though you've a stitch,
All along o' the Radenovitch,
You will gain an eminence which
You will owe the Radenovitch!
Therefore let the Maitre's switch
Teach your toes the Radenovitch!"
"Would you see a man that's slow?
Come and see our footman Joe:
Most unlike the bounding roe,
Or an arrow from a bow,
Or the flight direct of crow,
Is the pace of footman Joe;
Crabs that hobble to and fro,
In their motions copy Joe.
Snails, contemptuous as they go,
Look behind and laugh at Joe.
An acre any man may mow,
Ere across it crawleth Joe.
Trip on light fantastic toe,
Ye that tripping like, for Joe;
Measured steps of solemn woe
Better suit with solid Joe.
Backward to their source will flow
Ere despatch be made by Joe.
Send not by our footman Joe.
Would you Job's full merit know,
Ring the bell, and wait for Joe;
Whether it be king or no,
'Tis just alike to lazy Joe.
Legal process none can show,
If your lawyer move like Joe.
Death, at last, our common foe,
Must trip up the heels of Joe;
And a stone shall tell--'Below,
Hardly changed, still sleepeth Joe.
Loud shall the final trumpet blow,
But the last corner will be Joe!'"
"Task a horse beyond his strength
And the horse will fail at length;
Whip a dog, the poor dog whines--
Yet you ask for ninety lines.
Though you give me ninety quills,
Built me ninety paper-mills,
Showed me ninety inky Rhines,
I could not write ninety lines.
Ninety miles I'd walk for you,
Till my feet were black and blue;
Climb high hills, and dig deep mines,
But I can't write ninety lines.
Though my thoughts were thick as showers,
Plentiful as summer flowers,
Clustering like Italian vines,
I could not write ninety lines.
When you have drunk up the sea,
Floated ships in cups of tea,
Plucked the sun from where it shines,
Then I'll write you ninety lines.
Even the bard who lives on rhyme,
Teaching silly words to chime,
Seldom sleeps, and never dines,--
He could scarce write ninety lines.
Well you know my love is such,
You could never ask too much;
Yet even love itself declines
Such a work as ninety lines.
Though you frowned with ninety frowns,
Bribed me with twice ninety towns,
Offered me the starry signs,
I could not write ninety lines.
Many a deed I've boldly done
Since my race of life begun;
But my spirit peaks and pines
When it thinks of ninety lines.
Long I hope for thee and me
Will our lease of this world be;
But though hope our fate entwines,
Death will come ere ninety lines.
Ninety songs the birds will sing,
Ninety beads the child will string;
But his life the poet tines,
If he aims at ninety lines.
Ask me for a thousand pounds,
Ask me for my house and grounds;
Levy all my wealth in fines,
But don't ask for ninety lines.
I have ate of every dish--
Flesh of beast, and bird, and fish;
Briskets, fillets, knuckles, chines,
But eating won't make ninety lines.
I have drunk of every cup,
Till I drank whole vineyards up;
German, French, and Spanish wines,
But drinking won't make ninety lines.
Since, then, you have used me so,
To the Holy Land I'll go;
And at all the holy shrines
I shall pray for ninety lines.
Ninety times a long farewell,
All my love I could not tell,
Though 'twas multiplied by nines,
Ninety times these ninety lines."
"The elderly gentleman's here,
With his cane, his wig, and his hat;
A good-humoured man all declare,
But then he's o'erloaded with fat.
By the side of a murmuring stream
This elderly gentleman sat
On the top of his head was his wig,
And a-top of his wig was his hat.
The wind it blew high and blew strong,
As this elderly gentleman sat,
And bore front his head in a trice
And plunged in the river his hat.
The gentleman then took his cane,
Which lay on his lap as he sat,
And dropped in the river his wig
In attempting to get out his hat.
Cool reflection at length came across,
While this elderly gentleman sat;
So he thought he would follow the stream,
And look for his fine wig and hat.
His breast it grew cold with despair,
And full in his eye madness sat;
So he flung in the river his cane,
To swim with his wig and his hat.
His head, being thicker than common,
O'er-balanced the rest of his fat,
And in plunged this son of a woman
To follow his wig, cane, and hat.
A Newfoundland dog was at hand--
No circumstance could be more pat--
The old man he brought safe to land,
Then fetched out his wig, cane, and hat.
The gentleman, dripping and cold,
Seem'd much like a half-drowned rat,
But praised his deliverer so bold,
Then adjusted his cane, wig, and hat.
Now homeward the gentleman hied,
But neither could wear wig or hat;
The dog followed close at his side,
Fawn'd, waggled his tail, and all that.
The gentleman, filled with delight,
The dog's master hastily sought;
Two guineas set all things to right,
For that sum his true friend he bought.
From him the dog never would part,
But lived much caressed for some years;
Till levelled by Death's fatal dart,
When the gentleman shed many tears.
Then buried poor Tray in the Green.
And placed o'er the grave a small stone,
Whereon a few lines may be seen,
Expressive of what he had done."
_Bonus orbi_;    or    _Orbus boni_;
_O alte vir_.
"To purchase fame,
In keen iambics and mild anagram."
_Ego Regem reduxi, anno sa_ MDCLVV.
In this anagram the _c_ takes the place of the _k_.
_Carmelo se devolvit_.
"_They reap well_,
That Heaven obtain;
Who sow like thee,
Ne'er sow in vain."
In this sermon Peter Whalley is also anagrammatised into _A Whyte
"A _toast_ is like _a sot_; or what is most
Comparative, _a sot_ is like a _toast_;
For when their substances in liquor sink,
Both properly are said to be in drink."
"His brows with laurel need not to be bound,
Since in his _name_ with _laurel_ he is crowned."
_A calm holy rest_.
The following are additional instances.
_Is born and elect for a rich speaker_.
A good one is--
_Only the Tiverton M.P. can help in our mess_.
Napoleon Bonaparte {_Bona rapta, leno, pone._
{_No, appear not at Elba._
_Arouse, Albion, an open plot._
"If you transpose what ladies wear,      _Veil._
'Twill plainly show what bad folks are;  _Vile._
Again if you transpose the same,
You'll see an ancient Hebrew name;       _Levi._
Change it again, and it will show
What all on earth desire to do;          _Live._
Transpose the letters yet once more,
What bad men do you'll then explore."    _Evil._
The following are very apposite--
_It's in charity_.
_O sour hope_.
_A question sender_.
_I mean to rend it_.
_Into my arm_.
_Spare him not_.
Radical reform,
_Rare mad frolic_.
_Made moral_.
_Truly he'll see war_.
_The Duke shall arm the field_.
_Go (D. V.) and visit the Nile_.
Arktos    = north,
Dusis     = west,
Anatole   = east,
Mesembria = south;
"_T_he longer lyfe that man on earth enjoyes,
_H_is God so much the more hee dooth offende;
_O_ffending God, no doubt, mannes soule destroyes;
_M_annes soule destroyed, his torments have no ende;
_A_nd endles torments sinners must endure,
_S_ith synne Gods wrath agaynst us doth procure.
_B_eware, therefore, O wretched sinfull Wight,
_U_se well thy toongue, doo well, think not amysse;
_T_o God praye thou to guyde thee by his spright,
_T_hat thou mayest treade the path of perfect blisse.
_E_mbrace thou Christe, by faythe and fervent love,
_S_o shalt thou reyne with hym in heaven above.
havying the first letter of everie lyne
begynnyng with a letter of his name."
"G Geve laude unto the Lorde,
And prayse His holy name
O O let us all with one accorde
Now magnifie the same
D Due thanks unto Him yeeld
Who evermore hath beene
S So strong defence buckler and shielde
To our most Royall Queene.
A And as for her this daie
Each where about us rounde
V Up to the skie right solemnelie
The bells doe make a sounde
E Even so let us rejoice
T To him let us now frame our voyce
With chearefull hearts to sing.
H Her Majesties intent
By thy good grace and will
E Ever O Lorde hath bene most bent
Thy lawe for to fulfil
Q Quite Thou that loving minde
With love to her agayne
U Unto her as Thou hast beene kinde
O Lord so still remaine.
E Extende Thy mightie hand
Against her mortall foes
E Expresse and shewe that Thou wilt stand
With her against all those
N Nigh unto her abide
Upholde her scepter strong
E Eke graunt us with a joyfull guide
She may continue long.
The next is from Planche's "Songs and Poems:"
"_B_eauty to claim, amongst the fairest place,
_E_nchanting manner, unaffected grace,
_A_rch without malice, merry but still wise,
_T_ruth ever on her lips as in her eyes;
_R_eticent not from sullenness or pride,
_I_ntensity of feeling but to hide;
_C_an any doubt such being there may be?
_E_ach line I pen, points, matchless maid, to thee!"
_R_uby,          _R_oxana,
_A_methyst,      _A_menaide,
_C_ornelian,     _C_amille,
_H_ematite,      _H_ermione,
_E_merald,       _E_milie,
_L_apis lazuli,  _L_aodice.
"_U_nite and untie are the same--so say yo_u_
_N_ot in wedlock, I ween, has the unity bee_n_
_I_n the drama of marriage, each wandering gou_t_
_T_o a new face would fly--all except you and _I_
_E_ach seeking to alter the _spell_ in their scen_e_."
"For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that nestling lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines!--they hold a treasure
Divine--a talisman--an amulet
That must be worn _at heart_. Search well the measure--
The words--the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labour!
And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre,
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
Eye's scintillating soul, there lie _perdus_
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets by poets--as the name is a poet's, too,
Its letters, although naturally lying
Still form a synonym for Truth. Cease trying!
"Americans arrayed and armed attend
Beside battalions bold, bright beauties blend,
Chiefs, clergy, citizens, conglomerate,--
Detesting despots,--daring deeds debate;
Each eye emblazoned ensigns entertain,--
Flourishing from far, fan freedom's flame.
Guards greeting guards grown gray,--guest greeting guest.
High-minded heroes hither homeward haste,
Ingenuous juniors join in jubilee,
Kith kenning kin, kind knowing kindred key.
Lo, lengthened lines lend Liberty liege love,
Mixed masses, marshalled, Monumentward move.
Note noble navies near--no novel notion
Oft our oppressors overawed old Ocean;
Presumptuous princes pristine patriots paled,
Queen's quarrel questing quotas, quondam quailed.
Rebellion roused, revolting ramparts rose.
Stout spirits, smiting servile soldiers, strove.
These thrilling themes, to thousands truly told,
Usurpers' unjust usages unfold.
Victorious vassals, vauntings vainly veiled,
Where, whilesince, Webster warlike Warren wailed.
'Xcuse 'xpletives, 'xtra queer 'xpressed,
Yielding Yankee yeomen Zest."
"All ardent acts affright an age abased
By brutal broils, by braggart bravery braced.
Craft's cankered courage changed Culloden's cry;
Enough. Ere envy enters England's eyes,
Fancy's false future fades, for Fortune flies.
Gaunt, gloomy, guarded, grappling giant griefs,
Here hunted hard, his harassed heart he heaves;
In impious ire incessant ills invests,
Judging Jove's jealous judgments, jaundiced jests!
Kneel kirtled knight! keep keener kingcraft known,
Let larger lore life's levelling lesson's loan;
Marauders must meet malefactors' meeds.
No nation noisy nonconformists needs.
O, oracles of old! our orb ordain
Peace's possession--Plenty's palmy plain!
Quiet Quixotic quests; quell quarrelling;
Rebuke red riot's resonant rifle ring.
Slumber seems strangely sweet since silence smote
The threatening thunders throbbing through their throat.
Usurper! under uniform unwont
Vail valour's vaguest venture, vainest vaunt.
Well wot we which were wise. War's wildfire won
Yet you, ye yearning youth, your young years yield
Zuinglius' zealous zest--Zinzendorf Zion-zealed."
"Alligator, beetle, porcupine, whale,
Bobolink, panther, dragon-fly, snail,
Crocodile, monkey, buffalo, hare,
Dromedary, leopard, mud-turtle, bear,
Elephant, badger, pelican, ox,
Flying-fish, reindeer, anaconda, fox,
Guinea-pig, dolphin, antelope, goose,
Humming-bird, weasel, pickerel, moose,
Ibex, rhinoceros, owl, kangaroo,
Jackal, opossum, toad, cockatoo,
Kingfisher, peacock, anteater, bat,
Lizard, ichneumon, honey-bee, rat,
Mocking-bird, camel, grasshopper, mouse,
Nightingale, spider, cuttle-fish, grouse,
Ocelot, pheasant, wolverine, auk,
Periwininkle, ermine, katydid, hawk,
Quail, hippopotamus, armadillo, moth,
Rattlesnake, lion, woodpecker, sloth,
Salamander, goldfinch, angleworm, dog,
Tiger, flamingo, scorpion, frog,
Unicorn, ostrich, nautilus, mole,
Viper, gorilla, basilisk, sole,
Whippoorwill, beaver, centipede, fawn,
Xantho, canary, polliwog, swan,
Yellowhammer, eagle, hyena, lark,
Zebra, chameleon, butterfly, shark."
"As a wave that steals when the winds are stormy
From creek to cove of the curving shore,
Buffeted, blown, and broken before me,
Scattered and spread to its sunlit core.
As a dove that dips in the dark of maples,
To sip the sweetness of shelter and shade,
I kneel in thy nimbus, O noon of Naples,
I bathe in thine beauty, by thee embayed.
What is it ails me that I should sing of her?
The queen of the flashes and flames that were!
Yea, I have felt the shuddering sting of her,
The flower-sweet throat and the hands of her!
I have swayed and sung to the sound of her psalters,
I have danced her dances of dizzy delight,
I have hallowed mine hair to the horns of her altars,
Between the nightingale's song and the night!
What is it, Queen, that now I should do for thee?
What is it now I should ask at thine hands?
Blow of the trumpets thine children once blew for thee
Break from thine feet and thine bosom the bands?
Nay, as sweet as the songs of Leone Leoni,
And gay as her garments of gem-sprinkled gold,
She gives me mellifluous, mild macaroni,
The choice of her children when cheeses are old!
And over me hover, as if by the wings of it,
Frayed in the furnace by flame that is fleet,
The curious coils and the strenuous strings of it,
Dropping, diminishing down, as I eat;
Lo! and the beautiful Queen, as she brings of it,
Lifts me the links of the limitless chain,
Bidding mine mouth chant the splendidest things of it,
Out of the wealth of my wonderful brain!
Behold! I have done it; my stomach is smitten
With sweets of the surfeit her hands have enrolled.
Italia, mine cheeks with thine kisses are bitten:
I am broken with beauty, stabbed, slaughtered, and sold!
No man of thy millions is more macaronied,
Save mighty Mazzini, than musical Me:
The souls of the Ages shall stand as astonied,
And faint in the flame I am fanning for thee!"
"The 'orn of the 'unter is 'eard on the 'ill;"
and again, in Moore's "Ballad Stanzas":
"If there's peace to be found in the world,
A 'eart that was 'umble might 'ope for it 'ere!"
"Ha helephant heasily heats hat his hease
Hunder humbrageous humbrella trees!"
"Bloom, beauteous blossoms, budding bowers beneath!
Behold, Boreas' bitter blast by brief
Bright beams becalmed; balmy breezes breathe,
Banishing blight, bring bliss beyond belief.
Build, bonny birds! By bending birchen bough,
By bush, by beech, by buttressed branches bare,
By bluebell-brightened bramble-brake; bestow
Bespeckled broods; but bold bad boys beware!
Babble, blithe brooklet! Barren borders breach,
Bathe broomy banks, bright buttercups bedew,
Briskly by bridge, by beetling bluff, by beach,
Beckoned by bravely bounding billows blue!"
"Brimming brooklets bubble,
Buoyant breezes blow,
Baby-billows breaking
Bashfully below.
Blossom-burdened branches,
Briared banks betide,
Bright bewitching bluebells
Blooming bend beside.
But beyond be breakers,
Bare blasts brooding black,
Bitterly bemoaning
Broken barks borne back."
"Beverage by bibbers blest,
Balmy beer--bewitching bane,
British brewings, boasted best,
Blunting Bacchus' brandied brain.
Bonny bumpers brimmed by beads,
Barley-born, bring blind relief,
Bubbling Bass-brewed Burton breed
Bland beguilement, bright but brief.
Bar-bought beer--bah! bitter brine--
Barrel-broaching braves, beware!
Bid Bavaria, benign,
Better brews bold Britons bear."
Pope says on this point in the following lines, which are also
alliterative--
"'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar."
We find this example in Tennyson:
"The splendour falls on castle walls,
And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying;
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying."
Crabbe also used this ornament profusely, as:
"Then 'cross the bounding brook they make their way
O'er its rough bridge, and there behold the bay;
The ocean smiling to the fervid sun,
The waves that faintly fall and slowly run,
The ships at distance, and the boats at hand,
And now they walk upon the seaside sand,
Counting the number, and what kind they be,
Ships softly sinking in the sleepy sea."
Take also this from Shelley's "Ode to a Skylark:"
"Teach me half the gladness
That my brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.
Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?"
"A was the Anchor which held fast our ship;
B was the Boatswain, with whistle to lip;
C was the Captain, who took the command;
D was the Doctor, with physic at hand;
E was the Euchre we played on the quiet;
F was the Fellow who kicked up a riot;
G was the Girl who was always so ill;
H was the Hammock from which I'd a spill
I was the Iceberg we passed on our way;
J was the Jersey I wore all the day;
K was the Keel, which was stuck on the shore;
L was the Lubber we all thought a bore;
M was the Mate, no one better I'd wish;
N was the Net in which I caught a fish;
O was the Oar which I broke--'twas so weak;
P was the Pennon which flew at our peak;
Q was the Quoit which was made out of rope;
R was the Rat which would eat all our soap;
S was the Sailor who got very tight;
T was the Tempest which came on one night;
U was the Uproar the night of the storm;
V was the Vessel we spoke in due form;
W's the Watch which the crew kept in turn;
X was Xantippe, whom each one did spurn;
Y was our Yacht, which flew through the foam;
Z was the Zany who wouldn't leave home."
"Upon the poop the captain stands,
As starboard as may be;
And pipes on deck the topsail hands
To reef the top-sail-gallant strands
Across the briny sea.
'Ho! splice the anchor under-weigh!'
The captain loudly cried;
'Ho! lubbers brave, belay! belay!
For we must luff for Falmouth Bay
Before to-morrow's tide.'
The good ship was a racing yawl,
A spare-rigged schooner sloop,
Athwart the bows the taffrails all
In grummets gay appeared to fall,
To deck the mainsail poop.
But ere they made the Foreland Light,
And Deal was left behind;
The wind it blew great gales that night,
And blew the doughty captain tight,
Full three sheets in the wind.
And right across the tiller head
The horse it ran apace,
Whereon a traveller hitched and sped
Along the jib and vanished
To heave the trysail brace.
What ship could live in such a sea!
What vessel bear the shock?
'Ho! starboard port your helm-a-lee!
Ho! reef the maintop-gallant-tree,
With many a running block!'
And right upon the Scilly Isles
The ship had run aground;
When lo! the stalwart Captain Giles
Mounts up upon the gaff and smiles,
And slews the compass round.
'Saved! saved!' with joy the sailors cry,
And scandalise the skiff;
As taut and hoisted high and dry
They see the ship unstoppered lie
Upon the sea-girt cliff.
And since that day in Falmouth Bay,
As herring-fishers trawl,
The younkers hear the boatswains say
How Captain Giles that awful day
Preserved the sinking yawl."
"Thy heart is like some icy lake,
On whose cold brink I stand;
Oh, buckle on my spirit's skate,
And lead, thou living saint, the way
To where the ice is thin--
That it may break beneath my feet
And let a lover in!"
"How many strive to force a way
Where none can go save those who pay,
To verdant plains of soft delight
The homage of the silent night,
When countless stars from pole to pole
Around the earth unceasing roll
In roseate shadow's silvery hue,
Shine forth and gild the morning dew."
"And must we really part for good,
But meet again here where we've stood?
No more delightful trysting-place,
We've watched sweet Nature's smiling face.
No more the landscape's lovely brow,
Exchange our mutual breathing vow.
Then should the twilight draw around
No loving interchange of sound."
"Less for renown than innate love,
These to my wish must recreant prove;
Nor whilst an impulse here remain,
Can ever hope the soul to gain;
For memory scanning all the past,
Relaxes her firm bonds at last,
And gives to candour all the grace
The heart can in its temple trace."
"An auld wife sat at her ivied door
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_);
A thing she had frequently done before;
And her knitting reposed on her aproned knees.
The piper he piped on the hill-top high
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_);
Till the cow said, 'I die,' and the goose said, 'Why?'
And the dog said nothing but searched for fleas.
The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_);
And I've met a ballad, I can't tell where,
Which mainly consisted of lines like these."
"Sing for the garish eye,
When moonless brandlings cling!
Let the froddering crooner cry,
And the braddled sapster sing.
For never and never again,
Will the tottering beechlings play,
For bratticed wrackers are singing aloud,
And the throngers croon in May!"
"To seek it with thimbles, to seek it with care:
To pursue it with forks and hope;
To threaten its life with a railway share;
To charm it with smiles and soap!
For the Snark's a peculiar creature, that won't
Be caught in a commonplace way;
Do all that you know, and try all that you don't:
Not a chance must be wasted to-day!"
"Lovely maid, with rapture swelling,
Should these pages meet thine eye,
Clouds of absence soft dispelling;--
Vacant memory heaves a sigh.
As the rose, with fragrance weeping,
Trembles to the tuneful wave,
So my heart shall twine unsleeping,
Till it canopies the grave.
Though another's smile's requited,
Envious fate my doom should be;
Joy for ever disunited,
Think, ah! think, at times on me!
Oft, amid the spicy gloaming,
Where the brakes their songs instil,
Fond affection silent roaming,
Loves to linger by the rill--
There, when echo's voice consoling,
Hears the nightingale complain,
Gentle sighs my lips controlling,
Bind my soul in beauty's chain.
Oft in slumber's deep recesses,
I thy mirror'd image see;
Fancy mocks the vain caresses
I would lavish like a bee!
But how vain is glittering sadness!
Hark, I hear distraction's knell!
Torture gilds my heart with madness!
Now for ever fare thee well!"
"Men were never perfect; yet the three brethren Veres were ever
severe, erect Hester Green. The next, clever Ned, less dependent,
"Tell me whence these meek, these gentle sheep,--whence the yet
meeker, the gentler shepherdess?"
"'Never! we well remember the Seer. We went where he dwells--we
entered the cell--we begged the decree,--
"'Where, whenever, when, 'twere well
Eve be wedded? Eld Seer, tell!
"'_Ere the green be red,
Sweet Eve, be never wed;
Ere be green the red cheek,
Never wed thee, Eve meek._'
"The terms perplexed Stephen, yet he jeered them. He resented the
"Bold Nassan quits his caravan,
A hazy mountain grot to scan;
Climbs jaggy rocks to spy his way,
Doth tax his sight, but far doth stray.
Not work of man, nor sport of child,
Finds Nassan in that mazy wild;
Lax grows his joints, limbs toil in vain--
Poor wight! why didst thou quit that plain
Vainly for succour Nassan calls,
Know, Zillah, that thy Nassan falls;
But prowling wolf and fox may joy,
To quarry on thy Arab boy."
Here follows a fugitive verse, written with _ease_ without _e's_:
"A jovial swain may rack his brain,
And tax his fancy's might,
To quiz in vain, for 'tis most plain,
That what I say is right."
The three following verses are very good:
"On Linden when the sun was low,
A frog he would a-wooing go;
He sighed a sigh, and breathed a prayer,
None but the brave deserve the fair.
A gentle knight was pricking o'er the plain,
Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow;
Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain,
Or who would suffer being here below.
The younger of the sister arts
Was born on the open sea;
The rest were slain at Chevy Chase,
Under the greenwood tree.
At morn the blackcock trims his jetty wings,
And says--remembrance saddening o'er each brow--
Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things!
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow!
It was a friar of orders gray,
Still harping on my daughter:
Sister spirit, come away,
Across this stormy water.
On the light fantastic toe,
Othello's occupation's gone;
Were the last words of Marmion.
There was a sound of revelry by night
In Thebes' streets three thousand years ago;
And comely virgins came with garlands dight
To censure Fate, and pious Hope forgo.
Oh! the young Lochinvar came out of the west,
An underbred fine-spoken fellow was he;
A back dropping in, an expansion of chest,
Far more than I once could foresee."
_Shepherd._ Echo, I ween, will in the woods reply,
And quaintly answer questions: shall I try?
_Shep._ What must we do our passion to express?
_Shep._ How shall I please her, who ne'er loved before?
_Shep._ What most moves women when we them address?
_Echo._                                             A dress.
_Shep._ Say, what can keep her chaste whom I adore?
_Echo._                                             A door.
_Shep._ If music softens rocks, love tunes my lyre.
_Shep._ Then teach me, Echo, how shall I come by her?
_Echo._                                               Buy her.
_Shep._ When bought, no question I shall be her dear?
_Echo._                                               Her dear.
_Shep._ But deer have horns: how must I keep her under?
_Shep._ What must I do when women will be kind?
_Echo._                                         Be kind.
_Shep._ What must I do when women will be cross?
_Echo._                                          Be cross.
_Shep._ Lord, what is she that can so turn and wind?
_Shep._ If she be wind, what stills her when she blows?
_Shep._ But if she bang again, still should I bang her?
_Echo._                                                 Bang her.
_Echo._                                        Hang her.
_Shep._ Thanks, gentle Echo! right thy answers tell
What woman is and how to guard her well.
_Echo._                                  Guard her well.
_Lover._ Echo! mysterious nymph, declare
Of what you're made, and what you are.
_Lover._ 'Mid airy cliffs and places high;
Sweet Echo! listening love, you lie.
_Echo._                              You lie.
_Lover._ Thou dost resuscitate dead sounds--
Hark! how my voice revives, resounds!
_Lover._ I'll question thee before I go--
Come, answer me more apropos!
_Lover._ Tell me, fair nymph, if ere you saw
So sweet a girl as Phoebe Shaw?
_Lover._ Say what will turn that frisking coney
Into the toils of matrimony?
_Lover._ Has Phoebe not a heavenly brow?
Is not her bosom white as snow?
_Lover._ Her eyes! was ever such a pair?
Are the stars brighter than they are.
_Echo._                               They are.
_Lover._ Echo, thou liest! but canst deceive me.
_Lover._ But come, thou saucy, pert romancer,
Who is as fair as Phoebe? Answer!
_Echo._                             Ann, sir.
Mes principautes?
Mes cuirasses?
perpetually moving
These faithful hands are proving
How soft the hours steal by;
This monitory pulse-like beating,
Is oftentimes methinks repeating,
'Swift, swift, the hours do fly.'
Ready! be ready! perhaps before
These hands have made
One revolution more,
Life's spring is snapt,--
You die!"
"Little monitor, impart
Some instruction to the heart;
Show the busy and the gay
Life is wasting swift away.
Follies cannot long endure,
Life is short and death is sure.
Happy those who wisely learn
Truth from error to discern:
Truth, immortal as the soul,
And unshaken as the pole."
"Joined by friendship,
Crowned by love."
"Could but our tempers move like this machine,
Not urged by passion, nor delayed by spleen;
But true to Nature's regulating power,
By virtuous acts distinguish every hour:
Then health and joy would follow, as they ought,
The laws of motion and the laws of thought:
On earth would pass the pleasant moments o'er
To rest in Heaven when Time shall be no more!"
"Sweet health to pass the pleasant moments o'er
And everlasting joy when Time shall be no more."
"To-morrow! yes, to-morrow! you'll repent
A train of years in vice and folly spent.
To-morrow comes--no penitential sorrow
Appears therein, for still it is to-morrow;
At length to-morrow such a habit gains
That you'll forget the time that Heaven ordains;
And you'll believe that day too soon will be
When more to-morrows you're denied to see."
Another old engraved specimen contained this verse:
"Content thy selfe withe thyne estat,
And sende no poore wight from thy gate;
For why, this councell I thee give,
To learne to dye, and dye to lyve."
"Absent or dead
Still let a friend be
Dear. The Absent claims
a sigh, the dead a
tear.
Angels guard
The friend I
Milman's poems have furnished a verse for this purpose:
"It matters little at what hour o' the day
The righteous fall asleep; death cannot come
To him untimely who is fit to die.
The less of this cold world, the more of heaven;
The briefer life, the earlier immortality."
Various other examples of watch-case verses follow:
"See how the moments pass,
How swift they fly away!
In the instructive glass
Behold thy life's decay.
Oh! waste not then thy prime
In sin's pernicious road;
Redeem thy misspent time,
Acquaint thyself with God.
So when thy pulse shall cease
Its throbbing transient play,
The soul to realms of bliss
May wing its joyful way."
"Deign, lady fair, this watch to wear,
To mark how moments fly;
For none a moment have to spare,
Who in a moment die."
"With me while present, may thy lovely eyes,
Be never turned upon this golden toy;
Think every pleasing hour too swiftly flies,
And measure time by joy succeeding joy.
But when the cares that interrupt our bliss,
To me not always will thy sight allow,
Then oft with fond impatience look on this,
Then every minute count--as I do now."
"Time is thou hast, employ the portion small;
Time past is gone, thou canst not it recall;
Time future is not, and may never be;
Time present is the only time for thee."
"Watch against evil thoughts
Watch against idle words;
Watch against sinful ways;
Watch against wicked actions.
What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch."
"Mark the rapid motion
Of this timepiece; hear it say,
Man, attend to thy salvation;
Time does quickly pass away.
Why, heedless of the warning
Which my tinkling sound doth give,
Do forget, vain frame adorning,
Man thou art not born to live?"
On a sun-dial the following verse has been found engraved:
"Once at a potent leader's voice it stayed;
Once it went back when a good monarch prayed;
Mortals! howe'er ye grieve, howe'er deplore,
The flying shadow shall return no more."
This was found under an hour-glass in a grotto near water:
"This babbling stream not uninstructive flows,
Nor idly loiters to its destined main;
Each flower it feeds that on its margin grows,
Now bids thee blush, whose days are spent in vain.
Nor void of moral, though unheeded glides
Time's current, stealing on with silent haste;
For lo! each falling sand _his_ folly chides,
Who lets one precious moment run to waste."
"MY DARLING,--Why am I such a fool as to write to a gipsy at
"The gentle reader we apprise, That this new Angel in the House
Contains a tale not very wise, About a person and a spouse. The
'While thus I grieved and kissed her glove,
My man brought in her note to say
Papa had bid her send his love,
And hoped I dine with them next day;
They had learned and practised Purcell's glee,
To sing it by to-morrow night:
The postscript was--her sisters and she
Inclosed some violets blue and white.
'Restless and sick of long exile,
From those sweet friends I rode, to see
The church repairs, and after a while
Waylaying the Dean, was asked to tea.
They introduced the Cousin Fred
I'd heard of, Honor's favourite; grave,
Dark, handsome, bluff, but gently bred,
And with an air of the salt wave.'
"He drew his breath with a gasping sob, with a quivering voice he
_Air._--"If I had a donkey vot vouldn't go,
Do you think I'd wallop," &c.
"Had I an ass averse to speed,
Deem'st thou I'd strike him? No, indeed!
Mark me, I'd try persuasion's art,
For cruelty offends my heart:
Had all resembled me, I ween,
Martin, thy law had needless been
Of speechless brutes from blows to screen
The poor head;
For had I an ass averse to speed
I ne'er would strike him, no, indeed!
I'd give him hay, and cry, 'Proceed,'
Why speak I thus? This very morn,
I saw that cruel William Burn,
Whilst crying 'Greens' upon his course,
Assail his ass with all his force;
He smote him o'er the head and thighs,
Till tears bedimmed the creature's eyes!
Oh! 'twas too much, my blood 'gan rise
And I exclaimed,
Burn turn'd and cried, with scornful eye,
'Perchance thou'rt one of Martin's fry,
And seek'st occasion base to take,
The vile informer's gain to make.'
Word of denial though I spoke,
Full on my brow his fury broke,
And thus, while I return'd the stroke,
I exclaimed,
To us, infringing thus the peace,
Approach'd his guardians--the police;
And, like inevitable Fate,
Bore us to where stern Justice sate;
Her minister the tale I told;
And to support my word, made bold
To crave he would the ass behold:
'For,' I declared,
They called the creature into court
Where, sooth to say, he made some sport,
With ears erect, and parted jaws,
As though he strove to plead his cause:
I gained the palm of feelings kind;
The ass was righted; William fined.
For Justice, one with me in mind,
Cried William to his judge, ''Tis hard
(Think not the fine that I regard),
But things have reached a goodly pass--
One may not beat a stubborn ass!'
Nought spoke the judge, but closed his book;
So William thence the creature took,
Eyeing me--ah! with what a look,
As gently whispering in his ear, I said,
There was a young damsel; oh, bless her,
It cost very little to dress her;
She was sweet as a rose
In her everyday clothes,
But had no young man to caress her.
There was a young turkey; oh, bless her:
It cost very little to dress her;
Some dry bread and thyme,
About Thanksgiving time,
And they ate the last bit from the dresser.
A newspaper poet; oh, dang him!
And pelt him and club him and bang him!
He kept writing away,
Till the people one day
Rose up and proceeded to hang him.
"Even is come; and from the dark Park, hark
The signal of the setting sun--one gun!
And six is sounding from the chime, prime time
To go and see the Drury-lane Dane slain,--
Or hear Othello's jealous doubt spout out,--
Or Macbeth raving at that shade-made blade,
Denying to his frantic clutch much touch;
Or else to see Ducrow with wide stride ride
Four horses as no other man can span;
Or in the small Olympic pit, sit split
Laughing at Liston, while you quiz his phiz.
Anon night comes, and with her wings brings things
Such as, with his poetic tongue, Young sung;
The gas up-blazes with its bright white light,
And paralytic watchmen prowl, howl, growl,
About the streets, and take up Pall Mall Sal,
Who hastening to her nightly jobs, robs fobs.
Now thieves to enter for your cash, smash, crash,
Past drowsy Charley, in a deep sleep, creep,
But frightened by Policeman B 3, flee,
And while they're going whisper low, 'No go!'
Now puss, while folks are in their beds, treads leads,
And sleepers waking, grumble--'Drat that cat!'
Who in the gutter caterwauls, squalls, mauls
Some feline foe, and screams in shrill ill-will.
Now Bulls of Bashan, of a prize-size, rise
In childish dreams, and with a roar gore poor
Georgey, or Charles, or Billy, willy-nilly;
But nursemaid in a nightmare rest, chest-pressed,
Dreameth of one of her old flames, James Games,
And that she hears--what faith is man's!--Ann's banns
And his, from Reverend Mr. Rice, twice, thrice;
White ribbons flourish, and a stout shout out,
That upward goes, shows Rose knows those bows' woes!"
"Let us sip, and let it slip,
And go which way it will a;
Let us trip, and let us skip,
And let us drink our fill a.
Take the cup, and drink all up,
Give me the can to fill a;
Every sup, and every cup,
Hold here and my good will a.
Gossip mine and gossip thine;
Now let us gossip still a;
Here is good wine, this ale is fine,
Now drink of which you will a.
Round about, till all be out,
I pray you let us swill a;
This jolly grout is jolly and stout,
I pray you stout it still a.
Let us laugh and let us quaff,
Good drinkers think none ill a;
Here is your bag, here is your staffe,
Be packing to the mill a."
"In a certain fair island, for commerce renown'd,
Whose fleets sailed in every sea,
A set of fanatics, men say, there was found,
Who set up an island and worship around,
And called it by name Elessde.
Many heads had the monster, and tails not a few,
Of divers rare metals was he
And temples they built him right goodly to view,
Where oft they would meet, and, like idolists true,
Pay their vows to the great Elessde.
Moreover, at times would their frenzy attain
('Twas nought less) to so high a degree,
That his soul-blinded votaries did not complain,
But e'en laid down their lives his false favour to gain--
So great was thy power, Elessde.
As for morals, this somewhat unscrupulous race
Were lax enough, 'twixt you and me;
Men would poison their friends with professional grace,
And of the fell deed leave behind ne'er a trace,
For the sake of the fiend, Elessde.
Then forgery flourished, and rampant and rife
Was each form of diablerie;
While the midnight assassin, with mallet and knife,
Would steal on his victim and rob him of life,
And all for thy love, Elessde.
There were giants of crime on the earth in that day,
The like of which we may not see:
Although, peradventure, some sceptic will say
There be those even now who acknowledge the sway
Of the god of the world--_L s. d._"
"What is earth, Sexton?--A place to dig graves.
What is earth, Rich man?--A place to work slaves.
What is earth, Greybeard?--A place to grow old.
What is earth, Miser?--A place to dig gold.
What is earth, Schoolboy?--A place for my play.
What is earth, Maiden?--A place to be gay.
What is earth, Seamstress?--A place where I weep.
What is earth, Sluggard?--A good place to sleep.
What is earth, Soldier?--A place for a battle.
What is earth, Herdsman?--A place to raise cattle.
What is earth, Widow?--A place of true sorrow.
What is earth, Tradesman?--I'll tell you to-morrow.
What is earth, Sick man?--'Tis nothing to me.
What is earth, Sailor?--My home is the sea.
What is earth, Statesman?--A place to win fame.
What is earth, Author?--I'll write there my name.
What is earth, Monarch?--For my realm it is given.
What is earth, Christian?--The gateway of heaven."
Macaulay, travesty on, 31;
 Two well-known alehouses in Oxford, about 1700.
 "'What do you mean by the reference to Greeley?'
(Uniform with the present volume, post 8vo, cloth limp, 2s. 6d.)
"This latest volume of the bright little 'Mayfair Library' is an
"It is quite certain that there have been thousands of not only
"A miscellaneous and highly amusing collection of literary
"One of the most quaintly amusing books we have seen for a long
time."--_Edinburgh Evening Express._
pains."--_Edinburgh Daily Review._