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diff --git a/old/50666-0.txt b/old/50666-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 724f178..0000000 --- a/old/50666-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6040 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Songs of the Sea and Lays of the Land, by -Charles Godfrey Leland - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Songs of the Sea and Lays of the Land - -Author: Charles Godfrey Leland - -Release Date: December 11, 2015 [EBook #50666] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONGS OF THE SEA, LAYS OF THE LAND *** - - - - -Produced by Larry Harrison, Cindy Beyer, Ross Cooling and -the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at -http://www.pgdpcanada.net with images provided by The -Internet Archives-US - - - - - - S O N G S O F T H E S E A - - AND - - L A Y S O F T H E L A N D - - - - - SONGS OF THE SEA - - AND - - LAYS OF THE LAND - - - BY - CHARLES GODFREY LELAND - - - - LONDON - ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK - 1895 - - - - - PREFACE - -Among the songs in this collection are the Brand New Ballads already -known more or less to the public, several of them having an American -newspaper circulation, while a few are given at times in public -readings; since I have learned, for example, that “In Nevada” was one of -the stock-pieces of Mr. Clifford Harrison. They now reappear amended and -with additions. - -In the “Songs of the Sea” the reader will not fail to observe that three -or four, such as the “Mermaid” and “Time for Us to Go,” are not by me at -all. They are sailors’ songs of the olden time, introduced as -suggestions for other lyrics, as I have indeed declared in the text, and -also to aid in the main purpose or idea which inspires the whole -collection—they being in this respect like stones from more ancient -edifices built into new houses, as was the wont of men in the middle -age. - -This main purpose was to set forth with scrupulous care, as of a statue -photographed from many sides, the mariner of the sailing—not -steaming—ship, who is now rapidly passing away, although some tens of -thousands of the species are still to be found in the remoter routes of -travel. This kind of man should be interesting, because he is almost the -only one who is drawn into his calling by a desire to rove about the -world and lead an adventurous, reckless, manly life. Into this life -entered, I may say, as “vitalising elements,” “shipwrecks and disasters -of the sea,” the extremes of discipline and dissipation, as well as -those of cynical scepticism and superstition, the seeing, like Ulysses, -cities and men, and the consciousness, so clear to undeveloped minds and -smaller natures, of belonging to a “peculiar” class. This I have borne -in mind most earnestly, and those who perceive it will also find that in -this spirit the following notes and sketches in song illustrate, I trust -accurately, a consistent ideal text, and that all the songs unite to -form a single poem. - -As for the many scraps, “chanties,” choruses, sayings, similes, and bits -of sea-lore worked up into the lyrics here and there, I make no attempt -whatever to indicate what is borrowed; all that I can say of it is, that -if the mere gathering the stones is all the merit of making a mosaic -picture (as many seem to think), then I could claim little merit for -originality. But as this is not a folk-lore book, in which a writer is -held sternly accountable “to give authority for every word,” and as a -mass of notes would have simply defeated the whole aim of the book, I -have preferred making myself amenable to the charge of plagiarism to -boring my reader—even as an Italian devoted servant of whom I once -heard, preferred to be carried off by the police, on the charge of -stealing oranges, rather than awaken and disturb his master who could -have explained the matter. I can, however, truly say that as regards -ideas, incidents, tales, turns of speech and idioms, current sayings, -and so on, from poetry down to vulgarity, I have literally taken so much -from sailors themselves that the work, if analysed, would be a curiosity -of collocation, like the poems made up entirely of proverbs, or the -Sermon of Texts. - -Here I would mention my obligation to more than one ancient mariner, and -specially to my old friend, Captain Stead, now so long a dweller at the -Langham Hotel, for advising about, and revising, these ballads. These -friends having carefully studied the work and corrected or modelled its -every sentence into ship-shape, have been kind enough to assure me that -it would hold its own in the forecastle, as a real thing, and not an -imitation; which saying uttered in sooth and truth especially by a -friend of forty years’ experience in sailing-vessels, mostly “before the -war,” was to me greatly encouraging. - -What I have above written of the “Songs of the Sea” is equally true of -the other ballads in this volume. They also form a series of eccentric -pictures of American life after the war, brought together, not like -chance pictures in a scrap-book, but as I before said, to carry out one -idea in reference to a special subject. In this spirit and to this end -were they written, from current prose tales. Nor have I ever forgotten -that there is in them for the future a kind of folk-lore which is never -so apparent to those who live in it as to those who inherit it. When I -was a small boy, there was in my aunt’s kitchen in Milford, -Massachusetts, a cheese-knife, which had no special interest to anybody -save to me, because it had been the very sword carried by General Eaton -in his famous march over the Desert to attack Algiers. Nowadays it would -be greatly prized. So it is sometimes worth while to think of these -things which we now possess, and how rapidly they are hastening to -become curiosities—I myself having lived to see every object familiar -to me in youth become bric-à-brac. In the last age, everything not in -the newest fashion was despised—in this there is a highly-cultured -class just beginning to show itself beyond the Realists and disciples of -Mental-analytical Chemistry, who look alternately at the Past and -Future, - - Even as Janus on the Capitol - Saw all that was or ever yet would be. - -There may be a few among the jealous guardians or spokes around the Hub -who may demand by what right I invade the sacred precincts of Boston, -and sing about its past. Well, my boyhood was half passed in Boston or -near it; there the romance of sailor life, which was marvellous in those -times, imbued me, and then and there in common with my mates I devoured -the _Mariners’ Chronicle_, _Shipwrecks and Disasters of the Sea_, _Lives -of the Buccaneers_, and listened with avidity to the tales of those who -had been on the briny deep. Nearly all my first-cousins had at one time -or other run away and gone to sea or taken long voyages. Among the -former were Benjamin Stimson, the “S” of _Two Years Before the Mast_; -Charles Leland, who afterwards grew like Samuel Jackson to the height of -seven feet; and Samuel Godfrey. From these and many more I learned an -incredible number of sea stories and songs, none of which I ever forgot, -being to an extraordinary degree accustomed to keep repeating to myself -these “stranger legends of the olden time.” Hence it comes that I have -in my mind such vivid memories of the old North End of Boston. - -I would say in conclusion what will be apparent enough to many, that -these Ballads make no great pretence to be poetry. They consist of -incidents or small “motives” cast into rhyme or measure, as the easiest -method of giving them a certain value, just as a tune brings out a song. -Most rhymers are criticised more or less severely for pretending to be -poets; all that I can claim for this volume is, that it is a kind of -collection of curiosities which, as they have seemed to me to be worth -remembering, will, I trust, be regarded by others as worth reading. - - CHARLES GODFREY LELAND. - FLORENCE, 1894. - - - - - CONTENTS - - - SONGS OF THE SEA - - PAGE - THE OLD TAVERN 1 - EL CAPITAN GENERAL 5 - UNCLE SAM 9 - MOTHER CAREY 13 - THE BIRD CREW 17 - DAVY JONES 19 - THE DEVIL’S POT 21 - ONE, TWO, THREE 24 - LA BELLA STREGA 27 - THE BEAUTIFUL WITCH 31 - THE WITCH’S BOX 35 - THE MERMAID 41 - THE MERMAN 43 - THE WIZARD FINN 51 - CHARLEY BUFF 55 - BOLD ROBIN ROVER 59 - TIME FOR US TO GO 64 - ROLLING OVER 67 - THE MUSQUITO 71 - STAND FROM UNDER! 73 - NEAR HAVANNA 77 - THE THREE DEAD MEN 80 - THE LADY-SAILOR 82 - THE SPANISH SAILOR’S SONG 84 - THE LOVER TO THE SAILOR 86 - GREEN CORN AND POTATOES 87 - THE SAILOR’S FAREWELL 90 - MACKEREL SIGNS 94 - TRUE BLUE 96 - THE STORY OF SAMUEL JACKSON 99 - THE DANDY SHIP 104 - JACK OF ALL TRADES 107 - THE GIRL WIND 110 - - LAYS OF THE LAND - - THE RISE AND FALL OF GLORYVILLE 115 - IN THE WRONG BOX 123 - ZION JERSEY BOGGS 130 - THE BALLAD OF THE GREEN OLD MAN 142 - CARRYING COALS 148 - CAREY, OF CARSON 150 - JOSEPHI IN BENICIA 156 - THE STORY OF A LIE 161 - THE LEGEND OF SAINT ANTHONY 164 - A RUSSIAN LYRIC 169 - MELODRAMNATION 173 - A TALE OF IDAHO 177 - A CALIFORNIAN ROMANCE 182 - THE STORY OF MR. SCROPER, ARCHITECT 187 - THAT INTERESTIN’ BOY 190 - MISS MILES, THE TELEGRAPH GIRL 191 - AN AMERICAN COCK-TALE 198 - JUDGE WYMAN 207 - IN NEVADA 213 - THE PHILANTHROPIC CLUB 223 - THE COLOURED FORTUNE-HUNTER 227 - PENN 228 - BALLAD OF THE FOXES 232 - EST MODUS IN REBUS 237 - THE MASHER 243 - ARIZONA JOHN 249 - THE BALLAD OF CHARITY 252 - MULTUM IN PARVO 256 - THE ORGANIST OF BERGAMO 258 - THE GOTH AND THE PIGEON 268 - REFLECTIONS IN A PRINTING-OFFICE 275 - - APPENDIX 277 - - - - - S O N G S O F T H E S E A - - - - - I SAW three sailors synging, hey howe! - Upon yon lea-land hey! - I hearde three mariners rynging, rumbelowe: - Upon yon sea strand gaye. - Synge hey howe, rumbelowe, - Row the boat, Norman, rowe! - - _Percy’s Relics._ - - - - - THE OLD TAVERN - - - In the North End of Boston, long ago; - Although ’tis yet within my memory; - There were of gabled houses many a row, - With overhanging storeys two or three, - And many with half-doors over whose end - Leaning upon her elbows, the good-wife - At eventide conversed with many a friend - Of all the little chances of their life; - Small ripples in a stream which ran full slow - In the North End of Boston, long ago. - - And ’mid these houses was a Hostelrie - Frequented by the people of the sea, - Known as the Boy and Barrel, from its sign: - A jolly urchin on a cask of wine - Bearing the words which puzzled every eye— - _Orbus In Tactu Mainet_[1] Heaven knows why. - Even there a bit of Latin made a show, - In the North End of Boston—long ago. - - And many a sailor, when his cruise was o’er, - Bore straight for it soon as he touched the shore: - In many a stormy night upon the sea - He’d thought upon the Boy—and of the spree - He’d have when there, and let all trouble go, - In the North End of Boston, long ago. - - There, like their vessels in a friendly port, - Met many mariners of every kind, - Spinning strange yarns of many a varied sort, - Well sheltered from the ocean and the wind; - In a long low dark room they lounged at ease; - Strange men there were from many a distant land, - And there above the high old chimney-piece - Were curiosities from many a strand, - Which often made strange tales and memories flow - In the North End of Boston, long ago. - - And there I often sat to hear those tales, - From men who’d passed through storm and fight and fire, - Of mighty icebergs and stupendous whales, - Of shipwrecked crews and of adventures dire, - Until the thought came to me on a time, - While I was listening to that merry throng, - That I would write their stories out in rhyme, - And weave into it many a sailor’s song, - That men might something of the legends know - Of the North End of Boston, long ago. - - First it was said that Captain Kidd in truth - Had revelled in that tavern with his crew, - And there it was he lost the Golden Tooth - Which brought him treasure, and the gossips knew - Moll Pitcher dwelt there in the days of yore, - And Peter Rugg had stopped before the door: - Tom Walker there did with the Devil go - In the North End of Boston, long ago. - - Nor had I long to wait, for at the word - Some one observed that he had seen in Spain - A captain hung—which Abner Chapin heard - And said, “I too upon the Spanish Main - Met with a man well known unto us all, - Who nearly hung a Captain General.” - He told the tale and I did rhyme it so; - In the North End of Boston, long ago. - ------ - -[1] - -See Appendix. - - - - - EL CAPITAN GENERAL - - - There was a Captain General who ruled in Vera Cruz, - And what we used to hear of him was always evil news; - He was a pirate on the sea—a robber on the shore: - The Señor Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador. - - There was a Yankee skipper who round about did roam, - His name was Stephen Folger and Nantucket was his home, - And having gone to Vera Cruz he had been skinned full sore - By the Señor Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador. - - But having got away alive, though all his cash was gone, - He said, “If there is Vengeance, I will surely try it on! - And I do wish I may be damned if I don’t clear the score - With Señor Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador!” - - He shipped a crew of seventy men—well-arméd men were they, - And sixty of them in the hold he darkly stowed away, - And sailing back to Vera Cruz was sighted from the shore, - By the Señor Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador. - - With twenty-five _soldados_ he came on board so pleased - And said: “_Maldito_ Yankee—again your ship is seized. - How many sailors have you got?” Said Folger, “Ten—no more,” - To the Captain Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador. - - “But come into my cabin and take a glass of wine, - I do suppose as usual, I’ll have to pay a fine; - I have got some old Madeira and we’ll talk the matter o’er— - My Capitan Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador.” - - And as over that Madeira the Captain General boozed, - It seemed to him as if his head was getting quite confused, - For it happened that some morphine had travelled from “the store” - To the glass of Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador. - - “What is it makes the vessel roll? What sounds are these I hear? - It seems as if the rising waves were beating on my ear!” - “Oh it is the breaking of the surf—just that and nothing more, - My Captain Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador!” - - The Governor was in a sleep which muddled all his brains, - The seventy men had got his gang and put them all in chains, - And when he woke the following day he could not see the shore, - For he was out on the blue water—the Don San Salvador. - - “Now do you see that yard-arm—and understand the thing?” - Said Captain Folger, “For all from that yard-arm you shall swing, - Or forty thousand dollars you must pay me from your store, - My Captain Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador.” - - The Capitano took a pen—the order he did sign, - “O Señor Yankee!—but you charge amazing high for wine!” - But ’twas not till the draft was paid they let him go ashore, - El Señor Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador. - - The greatest sharp some day will find another sharper wit, - It always makes the devil laugh to see a biter bit; - It takes two Spaniards any day to come a Yankee o’er: - Even two like Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador. - - And when this tale was told, another man - Cried out, “I’ll swear ’tis true as true can be, - Unto his health we’ll have all round a can! - For Captain Folger is well known to me. - Now I will sing ‘first lines’ of ‘Uncle Sam,’ - And he who can shall add at once a second, - I’ll call you one by one—now here I am, - And he who balks shall be the loser reckoned, - And pay for drinks all round”— - “All right,” they roared, - “Now then begin, for we are all on board!” - - - - - UNCLE SAM - - - When there’s rain and shine together, - _Chorus._ Yo heave ho! - Uncle Sam is in the weather: - _Chorus._ Yo heave ho! - - When the sun shines through a fog, - Yo heave ho! - Uncle Samuel drinks his grog: - Yo heave ho! - - When the blue sky shows in pieces, - Yo heave ho! - Those are Uncle Samuel’s breeches: - Yo heave ho! - - When a cloud is low and flat, - Yo heave ho! - That is Uncle Samuel’s hat: - Yo heave ho! - - When the wind is loud and bad, - Yo heave ho! - Then Old Sam is getting mad: - Yo heave ho! - - When the wind begins to bellow, - Yo heave ho! - Uncle Sam is in the cellar: - Yo heave ho! - - When the sky is clean and red, - Yo heave ho! - Uncle Sam is gone to bed: - Yo heave ho! - - When you hear the wind a-roaring, - Yo heave ho! - That is Uncle Sam a-snoring: - Yo heave ho! - - When you see the lightning spooning, - Yo heave ho! - Then old Uncle Sam’s harpooning: - Yo heave ho! - - When you hear the wind a-barking, - Yo heave ho! - Uncle Sam has gone a-sharking: - Yo heave ho! - - When you see a santo-corpus, - Yo heave ho! - Uncle Sam is arter a porpus: - Yo heave ho! - - When the water gabbles too much, - Yo heave ho! - Uncle Sam is talking Dutch: - Yo heave ho! - - When the sea hawk’s scream is heard, - Yo heave ho! - He wants to know if there’s Dutch on board: - Yo heave ho! - - When the wind’s before the rain, - Yo heave ho! - Soon you can make sail again: - Yo heave ho! - - “Belay that song I say—’tis gettin’ weary:” - Cried out a voice, “Let’s change to Mother Carey!” - - - - - MOTHER CAREY - - - With the wind old Mother Carey, - Yo ho oh! - Churns the sea to make her dairy: - Yo ho oh! - - When you see a storm a-brewin’, - Yo ho oh! - That is Mother Carey’s doin’: - Yo ho oh! - - When you see Mother Carey’s chickens, - Yo ho oh! - Then look out to catch the dickens! - Yo ho oh! - - When you hear the icebergs rattle, - Yo ho oh! - Those are Mother Carey’s cattle: - Yo ho oh! - - When you see them split—a-halving, - Yo ho oh! - Then Mother Carey’s cows are calving: - Yo ho oh! - - When you see a flying fish, - Yo ho oh! - Lose no time but make your wish: - Yo ho oh! - - Irish pennons when they’re flying, - Yo ho oh! - Set old Mother Carey crying: - Yo ho oh! - - When the sea-gulls dip for slush, - Yo ho oh! - Mother Carey stirs the mush: - Yo ho oh! - - When one sea-gull follows you, - Yo ho oh! - Mother Carey soon makes it two: - Yo ho oh! - - When the sea-gulls fly by two, - Yo ho oh! - Soon good luck will come to you: - Yo ho oh! - - When the sea-gulls fly by threes, - Yo ho oh! - Soon you’ll have a spanking breeze: - Yo ho oh! - - If seven follow you into port, - Yo ho oh! - There the sailors’ll have good sport: - Yo ho oh! - - When a rope trails in the water, - Yo ho oh! - That is Mother Carey’s garter: - Yo ho oh! - - When the clouds are red as roses, - Yo ho oh! - Those are Mother Carey’s posies: - Yo ho oh! - - If you want to win your Mary, - Yo ho oh! - Throw out a biscuit to Mother Carey: - Yo ho oh! - - And so they would have chantyd all night long, - But some one broke it with another song. - - - - - THE BIRD CREW - - - The Albatross - Is the captain and boss, - Haul away boys, haul away! - The sea-gull queers - Are the officeers, - Haul away boys, haul away! - And the Carey chickens as I guess - Is every one an A.B.S., - Haul away boys, haul away! - - “I’ve heard,” said Chapin, “many folk agree, - Those birds are souls of sailors lost at sea, - - And often one around the vessel flies - To give us warning ere the storms arise.” - - “Talkin’ of spirits in the vasty deep,” - Said Ezra Bullard, late of Marblehead, - “There’s one at least who never goes to sleep, - And mighty little good of him is said; - His special dispensation is to watch - The bottom of the ocean, and to see - It don’t fall out—for if it did we catch - The very direst kind of misery, - For all the water runnin’ through the hole - Would leave it dry as you can understand, - And from the Arctic to the ’tother pole, - ’Twould be one thunderin’ lot of empty land.” - And thereupon in his south-wester tones - He let us have the song of Davy Jones. - - - - - DAVY JONES - - - Down in the sea among sand and stones, - There lives the old fellow called Davy Jones. - - When storms come up he sighs and groans, - And that is the singing of Davy Jones. - - His chest is full of dead men’s bones, - And that is the locker of Davy Jones. - - Davy is Welsh you may hear by his tones, - For a regular Welsher is Davy Jones. - - Whenever a fish gets drowned, he moans, - So tender-hearted is Davy Jones. - - Thousands of ships the old man owns, - But none go a-sailing for Davy Jones. - - “Well—since you talk o’ the bottom of the sea,” - Said Enoch Doolittle of Salem town, - “I know a yarn that beats you full and free, - Because, d’ye know, it takes you deeper down, - And if you’re taken down—of course you’re beat.” - “That’s so,” cried all, “so now your yarn repeat!” - “All right,” quoth Doolittle, “I’ll serve it hot, - Because, d’ye see, it’s called The Devil’s Pot. - But ’fore I dive into the salty brine, - Give me a gill of white New England wine! - Take one all round to benefit the pub. - Now for the bottom of the pickle tub.” - - - - - THE DEVIL’S POT[2] - - - There’s a place where you see the Atlantic heave - Like water boiling hot; - Where you come with grief and with joy you leave, - And they call it the Devil’s Pot. - - Now there was a witch in the good old time, - And she had such power, they say, - Through rocks or stones or sand or lime, - She could always make her way. - - One night on a broom she went with a whirr; - The devil he saw her fly, - And the devil he fell in love with her - As she went sailing by. - - She flew like the devil to scape away, - And the devil so did he, - And she jumped from her broom without delay - And she dived to the bottom of the sea. - - And she bored a hole when she got down, - And round and round she twirled, - And closed it behind as she went on, - Till she went straight through the world. - - And the devil he dived in the water deep, - And he made it boil like pitch - As he roared and raved with many a leap, - But he never could find the witch. - - And still he stirs it by night and day, - And seeks and finds her not; - And that is the reason, the sailors say, - Why it’s called the Devil’s Pot. - - “They say that there are witches everywhere,” - Said Jones of Chesapeake, “a livin’ free; - Some in the rocks, some flyin’ in the air, - And some, in course, like fishes in the sea. - I’ve often heard strange voices in the night— - They wan’t no birds I’ll swer, nor any sitch— - One called me once by name; it gim’me fright— - And that I’m sartin was a water-witch. - One can’t in nat’ral wise account for that, - All you can call it is a Mr. E—— - But there are witches, I will bet a hat; - And so I’ll sing the song of One, Two, Three, - Fust drinkin’ all your healths,”—no more he said, - But in a good round voice went straight ahead: - ------ - -[2] The Devil’s Pot is a place on the North Atlantic route where, -according to sailors, there is always bad weather. - - - - - ONE, TWO, THREE - - - I saw three witches as the wind blew cold - In a red light to the lee; - Bold they were and over-bold - As they sailed over the sea; - Calling for One, Two, Three! - Calling for One, Two, Three! - And I think I can hear - It a-ringing in my ear, - A-calling for the One, Two, Three. - - And clouds came over the sky, - And the wind it blew hard and free, - And the waves grew bold and over-bold - As we sailed over the sea; - Howling for One, Two, Three! - Howling for their One, Two, Three! - Oh I think I can hear - It a-ringing in my ear, - A-howling for their One, Two, Three! - - And the storm came roaring on, - Such a storm as I never did see, - And the storm it was bold and over-bold, - And as bad as a storm could be; - A-roaring for its One, Two, Three! - A-howling for its One, Two, Three! - Oh I think I can hear - It a-howling in my ear, - A-growling for its One, Two, Three! - - And a wave came over the deck, - As big as a wave could be, - And it took away the captain and the mate and a man: - It had got the One, Two, Three! - And it went with the One, Two, Three! - Oh I think I can hear - It a-rolling in my ear, - As it went with the One, Two, Three. - - This being cheered, I said, “Some time ago - I made a song in the Italian tongue - About a witch and pirate—which for you - Shall, if you like, be now in English sung.” - “No, give it first,” cried Saltonstall, “by jingo! - In its own nateral, Eyetalian lingo; - What I don’t know of it ain’t worth a cent; - Even to Rome I several times have went, - In Naples, too, I’ve had full many a turn - And know old Spartivento like a dern; - And most of us, I reckon—though we’re Yankee— - Can go the Dago, or some _lingua frankey_. - We ain’t so ignorant of what we know; - So go ahead, Signor—_prestissimo_! - Ef we don’t catch the sense ’twill be a pity.”— - So thus encouraged I began my ditty: - - - - - LA BELLA STREGA - - - Era una bella strega - Che si bagnava alla riva; - Vennero i pirati, - Lei presero captiva. - - Il vento era in poppa, - Sull’onde la nave ballò, - La donna lacrimante - Al capitan parlò: - - “O Signor Capitano! - O Capitan’ del mar! - Daro cento ducati - Se tu mi lasci andar!” - - “Non prenderò cento ducati, - Tu costi molto più, - Io te vendrò al Sultano,” - Disse il Capitano - “Per mille zecchini d’oro - Vi stimi troppo giù.” - - “Non vuoi i cento ducati. - Ebben, tu non gli avrai, - Ho un’amante amato - Non mi abbandona mai.” - - Essa sedé sul ponte, - Principiò a cantar: - “Vieni il mio amante!” - Da lontano il vento - Si mette a mugghiar. - - Forte e più forte - La tempesta ruggio: - Gridava il Capitano: - “Io credo che il tuo amante - E il vento che corre innante, - Ovvero il diavolo.” - - Forte e più forte - La procella urlò: - “Sono roccie davanti, - E il vento vien di dietro, - Ben venuto sei tu, mio amante!” - La bella donna cantò. - - “Vattene al tuo amante - All’inferno a cantar!” - Disse il Capitano, - E gettò la donna fuori - Della nave nel mar. - - Ma come un gabbiano - Sull’onde essa volò: - “O mio Capitano! - Non sarai appiccato, - Ma sarai annegato; - Per sempre addio!” - - “That’s derned good Dago,” cried Jack Saltonstall; - “Blamed ef I didn’t understand it all. - For the best songs are easiest understood: - Now then let’s hear if t’other side’s as good! - A song is like a bird—’cos birds do sing— - So carve us out the second breast and wing; - And with your anthem bid our hearts rejoice:” - Encouraged thus I lifted up my voice. - - - - - THE BEAUTIFUL WITCH - - - A pretty witch was bathing - By the beach one summer day; - There came a boat with pirates - Who carried her away. - - The ship had a breeze behind her, - Over the waves went she! - “O Signor Capitano, - O Captain of the Sea! - I’ll give you a hundred ducats, - If you will set me free!” - - “I will not take a hundred; - You’re worth much more, you know: - I’ll sell you to the Sultan - For a thousand golden sequins: - You put yourself far too low.” - - “You will not take a hundred, - Very well then, let them be! - But I have a constant lover - Who, as you may discover, - Will never abandon me.” - - On the deck, before the rover, - The witch began to sing: - “Oh come to me, my lover!” - And the wind as it stole over - Began to howl and ring. - - Louder and ever louder - Became the tempest’s roar, - The captain in a passion - Thus at the lady swore: - “I believe that your windy lover - Is the devil and nothing more!” - - Wilder and ever wilder - The tempest raged and rang, - “There are rocks ahead, and the wind dead aft, - Thank you, my love!” the lady laughed - As unto the wind she sang. - - “Oh go with your cursed lover - To _inferno_ to sing for me!” - So cried the angry captain, - And threw the lady over - To sink in the stormy sea. - - But changing into a sea-gull - Over the waves she flew. - “O capitain, captain bold,” sang she, - “’Tis true you’ve missed the gallows tree, - But now you’ll drown in the foaming sea, - O captain, forever adieu!” - - “Talkin’ of witches and magicianers,” - Cried out Jack Saltonstall of Newbury port, - “They are the devil’s own parishioners, - And I knew one of a peculiar sort, - Because he was a sailor—had he been - A lawyer, now, it wouldn’t seem so queer: - For conjurers ’mong us ain’t often seen, - And he was of the kind who ain’t small beer, - Possessing cash enough to roll in bliss: - However that may be, the story’s _this_.” - - - - - THE WITCH’S BOX - - - Once when I went upon a trip - Likewise to the Southern sea, - We had a man upon the ship - And a wonderful man was he. - - A handsomer man I never did spy, - At home or in any port; - But there was something in his eye - Of a most peculiar sort. - - And all in Trinidado’s port - Was a woman fair and rich, - With her my messmate did consort, - And I heard she was a witch. - - Her eyes, like his, had a greenish glare, - They seemed to be quite of a level, - And the general look of the loving pair - Was exactly the look of the devil. - - Now when it was time to up and lift, - And the ship must leave the docks, - He came aboard with her parting gift, - A brown little wooden box. - - Now this man had hardly a shirt to his back, - When he started on this trip, - And the mate declared that such a Jack - Was a regular shame to the ship. - - Then this man he winked a dreadful wink, - And said to the mate, “I’ll be floored: - But I’ve got more clothes in my box, I think, - Than all of the men on board.” - - Now his box was only one foot square, - And what was our surprise - When he opened it and pulled out a pair - Of shirts before our eyes! - - Next came a hat and a jacket blue, - With trousers of the best, - For everything was nice and new, - And so on with all the rest. - - And when he was drest, all spick and span, - We observed upon our oaths - That we didn’t believe even our old man - Had got such a suit of clothes. - - Twenty-four hours arter, I heard him say, - And I thought it was very strange: - “I never wear my clothes but a day - And now it is time to change. - - “I make you a gift on ’em fair and plain, - With a quid of tobacco to boot.” - Sayin’ this he opened his box again, - And pulled out another new suit. - - And the same thing happened the very next day, - At about the very same bells, - He took off his second suit so gay, - And gave it to somebody else. - - So it happened every day again, - Till he’d rigged us all from his store; - And such a dandy lot of men - Were never in a ship before. - - Then we never had any scrimmages - For fear of spilin’ our slops: - We looked like the graven images - Before the tailors’ shops. - - But a man named Knox from Edinboro toun, - Always took the thing amiss, - And often remarked with a doubtful frown: - “There is something eereligious in this!” - - So one day when our friend had opened his box, - Before we could prevent, - Up behind him came Mr. Knox - And dropped in his New Testament. - - There came a flash of lightning bright, - And an awful thunder’s roar, - And the box and the sailor went clean out o’ sight, - And we never beheld ’em more. - - And all to ashes and all to wreck - Went our clothes, and we looked forlorn, - For there we were standing on the deck - As naked as we were born! - - And this is the lesson short and small, - Which we learned from our liberal friend, - That the things which cost you nothing at all - Never come to any good in the end. - - And when the laugh at this had died away, - Mose Brown of Bristol in the whaling line - Said: “Mermaids are the witches of the sea, - Which in good looks are really superfine. - And on this subject I will give a song, - Which I daresay you all already know, - But anyway it isn’t very long, - Though it was made a hundred years ago, - I guess that mermaids were much plentier then; - Perhaps they’re scared of steamboats and the swell - Which drives the fish as foxes do a hen— - So like the steamers I will now propel.” - - - - - THE MERMAID - - - One Friday morning we set sail[3] - It was not far from land, - When I espied a fair mermaid, - With a comb and a glass in her hand. - _Chorus._ And the raging winds do blow, blow, blow, - And the raging winds do blow; - And we poor sailors climbing up aloft, - And the land lubbers lying down below. - - Then up spoke the boy of our gallant ship - And a well-spoken boy was he: - “I’ve a mother and father in London town, - And this night they will weep for me.” - - Then up spoke the captain of our gallant ship, - And a well-spoken man was he: - “I’ve a wife who is living in Liverpool town, - A wife whom I never shall see.” - - “My wife who is living in Liverpool town - This night will be looking for me; - She may look till the sun no more goes down, - She may look to the bottom of the sea.” - - Then three times around went our gallant ship, - And three times around went she; - And three times around was the end of her trip, - When she sank to the bottom of the sea. - ------ - -[3] There may be a few readers to whom it is necessary to point out that -this first ballad of the “Mermaid” is an old song, here used as -introduction to a second by me, which is of the same nature. - - - - - THE MERMAN - - - Then another man said when that song was sung: - There are men like you and me, - Who will sometimes come ashore and get sprung, - Yet who live at the bottom of the sea. - - For I myself knew one of that folk - (I believe he still lives and thrives), - And I’ll tell you the truth without any joke - How we saved one another’s blest lives. - - I was walking one night in New York town, - And the moon shone bright and clear, - When I thought I heard a singular sound - That came from a board-yard near. - - First was a groan of misery, - And then a scythe of pain; - And a voice which wailed: “Oh where is the Sea? - Which I never shall see again?” - - And I thought that party must be cracked, - Or a little over the bay; - Because the water was not, in fact, - A half of a mile away. - - So I looked that sufferin’ mortal up, - And found, sufficiently soon, - A man who looked like a perishin’ pup, - As he lay in the light of the moon. - - And I said to him, “Matey, just confess - What all of this row’s about, - And what was it got you into this mess, - And how can I get you out?” - - Then this man he opened his eyes so wide: - “No more do I ask of thee - Than to carry me down to the water’s side, - And chuck me right into the sea.” - - And I says, “’Tis a singular thing to ask, - But I think it can be no sin, - And anyhow ’tis an easy task - To carry and pitch you in.” - - So I picked that perishin’ person up, - And slewed him on my back, - And he wriggled and moved with many a flup - Like a codfish or a jack. - - But when I had carried him half the way, - He seemed to be half-way done, - And when we had got ’longside of the bay, - I guessed that his life was gone. - - But when he heard the water splash, - He opened his eyes—you bet! - And said: “If you only will make a dash— - Good Lord! there’s a chance for me yet!” - - And when we came to the water’s edge, - I never a word did say, - But carried him right to the end of the Ledge, - And dumped him into the Bay. - - And then he gin a yell of delight, - And then he warbled a tune, - As he swam about in the water bright, - All there in the light of the moon. - - And he hollered to me his partin’ thanks, - And said: “I am outer my pain; - Good-bye! I’m off for the ’Foundland Banks; - Some day we shall meet again.” - - Now when a year had passed I found - Myself in a Southern sea, - A-wrecked; for all on board were drowned, - And nobody saved but me. - - And as I sat upon the turf, - And looked at the water blue, - A man came walking out of the surf, - And says to me: “How do you do? - - “I think you don’t remember me, - Allow me to let you know - I’m the fellow that you threw into the sea— - In New York—a year ago. - - “My home is down in the Ocean deep, - And sometimes—would you think? - I go ashore when men are asleep - To a tavern to take a drink. - - “My mother was a mermaid fair, - She lived down in the sea; - And my father he was a Dutch sailór, - So it came that I am what I be. - - “And I can walk about on land - Until my clothes are dry, - But that brings up to the end of my sand, - For then I must surely die: - - “And my soul sail off for Doldrum Isle, - Unless some one pities my pain, - And carries me down where the waters bile, - And puts me in ’em again. - - “One turn deserves another, ahoy! - And John must settle with Jack; - You treated me like a brother, old boy - And now I will pay you back. - - “In this bag there is more than a thousand pound, - And I give it all to you: - In a Spanish galloon that money I found, - (It’s a thing which I frequently do). - - “But in this place you’d be sure to spile, - So now I will give you a tip: - Just walk to the other side of this isle, - And there you will find a ship. - - “You’ll find her there as sure as you’re born; - Her name is the _Clara Belle_, - She sails for Havanna in the morn, - So, matey—fare-you-well! - - “Farewell—for here I cannot bide.” - He turned his back to the shore, - And walked right into the risin’ tide, - And I never beheld him more. - - So we never should doubt of a mystery, - There are lots of ’em round us still; - For nobody knows what’s down in the sea, - And nobody ever will. - - Said Brown, “That story now goes home to me. - Folks say a witch, a wizard, and a Finn, - Are all jint partners in all deviltry, - The Devil himself of course bein’ counted in; - And of these Northern conjurers I can sing - A song if you will join me in the chorus. - First take your drinks—that is the prudent thing, - We never know in life what lies before us.” - Which having done, himself he did begin - The wondrous ballad of the “Wizard Finn.” - - - - - THE WIZARD FINN - - - As I suppose, you all have heard - There’s no good luck with a Finn on board, - I can tell you that is so. - I’ve sailed with one and I ought to know: - For it is true, upon my word, - There’s no good luck with a Finn on board. - - Eric Jansen was his name, - And from Christián’ he came; - A seemly man all for to see, - But devil a bit the man for me: - For it is true, as all have heard, - There’s no good luck with a Finn on board. - - From the hour he joined the ship, - All went wrong in all the trip; - ’Twas nothing but swear and growl and groan, - And the weather was just the devil’s own: - You may reckon it all absurd, - But there’s no good luck with a Finn on board. - - Our grub was spoiled from that first hour, - Except the vinegar all was sour; - All you heard was Lubber! and Liar! - And everything hot except the fire: - For it is true, as all accord, - There’s no good luck with a Finn on board. - - For as the doctors all do know, - A Finn has fins between each toe: - He is web-footed like a duck; - Which is the cause of his bad luck: - For it is true, as I averred, - There’s no good luck with a Finn on board. - - And when at last it got so bad, - That master and men were nigh gone mad, - A rummerin’ whisper did begin - That ’twas all along of this here Finn: - For it is true, and on re-córd - There’s no good luck with a Finn on board. - - And the long and short of this debate - Was that one night our second mate, - Bein’ as mad as a man might be, - Pitched Eric Jansen into the sea: - For it is true, unless I’ve erred, - There’s no good luck with a Finn on board. - - When all at once around there came - Over the sea a greenish flame, - And the biggest whale I ever spied, - Rose up by Eric Jansen’s side: - For it is true, as you may’ve inferred, - There’s no good luck with a Finn on board. - - And the Finn he got upon the whale, - And off in the flame we saw them sail; - Hearing a song as they fell behind, - Like women singing with the wind: - For it is true, as all have concurred, - There’s no good luck with a Finn on board. - - Off from the ship and off the shore, - And Eric Jansen we saw no more; - But from that hour, aboard that ship, - All went well for the rest of the trip: - For it is true, upon my word, - As you and I have often heard, - People may say it’s all absurd, - And yet it holds as I averred, - And bein’ a fact it’s on recórd, - Unless the best of men have erred, - As you may truly have inferred, - In which observers have concurred: - There’s no good luck with a Finn on board. - - “That story of the Finn,” said one to Brown, - “Is of the kind which hev been salted down, - Which is the reason, I suppose, why you - Take such a lot of pains to prove it’s true. - When tales are c’rect in all their fitnesses, - There ain’t no need of forty witnesses, - Nor one at all I guess, but that’s enough; - Now listen to the song of ‘Charley Buff,’ - Who always said, ‘I am a truthful man:’” - He polished off his drink and thus began: - - - - - CHARLEY BUFF - - - Oh Charley Buff was his parents’ joy, - And as he always told, - He went to sea as a cabin-boy - Before he was one year old. - - _Chorus._ Now this is pretty bad, - But it’s nothin’ to what’s a-coming: - Yet Charley he was a truthful lad, - And never indulged in humming. - - And this Charley Buff allays said to me: - “To lie I cannot afford, - For you know I hev got more truth in me - Than all of the rest on board. - - “I have seen in the isle of Barriboo - Such high-sized coco-nuts, - That the natives used to split ’em in two - And use ’em to make their huts. - - “I hev seen the Kanaka women - Foller a ship’n full sail, - A thousand miles a-swimmin’ - For a bottle or a tenpenny nail. - - “I hev seen the eggs of the toodly-wang; - It’s a bird in the Muldive Isles; - And when they hatch they burst with a bang - You can hear five hundred miles. - - “From a Cariboo king named Jocko, - A man of cheerful life, - For only a fid of tobacco - I bought me a beautiful wife. - - “One night she was gone, by gum! - But as soon as ever I missed her, - From the king for a glass of rum - I bought her younger sister. - - “One evening for their tea - Her family broiled and ate her; - ‘Never mind!’ says the king to me, - ‘Just go and pick out a better.’” - - _Chorus._ Now this is pretty bad, - Yet it’s nothin’ to what’s a-coming; - But I hear the old man a bawlin’ like mad, - So I guess I will stop my humming. - - “Wal,” answered Brown, “that comes it rather strong. - Now if you like I’ll sing a pirate’s song - Of which you all have heard at times a bit; - I’ve jined ’em into one to make ’em fit, - Like beads upon a string, altho’ I fear - It’s partly pirate and part mutineer.” - - - - - BOLD ROBIN ROVER - - - Bold Robin Rover - Said to his crew: - “Up with the black flag - And down with the blue! - Up with the Black Boy! - All men to show, - Over the water - And off let us go!” - - A man-of-war he hailed us: - “Come under my lee!” - “See you damned,” said the pirate, - “For I’d rather sink at sea, - In the blue water - Far out and free, - Cruising down on the shore - By the coast of Barbary.” - - We met the _Flying Dutchman_, - By midnight he came, - His hull was all of hell fire, - His sails were all o’ flame; - Fire on the main-top, - Fire on the bow, - Fire on the gun-deck, - Fire down below! - - Four-and-twenty dead men, - Those were the crew, - The devil on the bowsprit - Fiddled as she flew. - - We gave her a broadside - Right in the dip, - Just like a candle, - Out went the ship. - - We met a gallant vessel - A-sailing on the sea, - For mercy, for mercy, - For mercy, she did plea; - But the mercy we gave her - We sunk her in the sea; - Cruising down on the shore - By the coast of Barbary, - - Four-and-twenty Spaniards, - Mighty men of rank, - With their golden ladies - Had to walk the plank, - Over the gunwale - Into the sea, - Cruising down on the shore, - By the coast of Barbary. - - Oh devil take the captain! - And devil take the ship! - And devil take the cargo! - And devil take the trip! - And devil take the bo’su’n! - And devil take his call! - And devil take the doctor! - And devil take ’em all! - - Over the quarter, - Over the sail, - Into the water, - Dead as a nail, - Slung like a biscuit, - Hot as a coal, - Where the sharks may take the body, - And the devil take the soul! - - Then spoke Grim Sam of Jersey, “As we’ve heard - A mermaid or a witch is the same bird, - But of a different feather, so a pirate, - And slaver, is all one for guards to fire at, - For pirates kill and plunder all they catch, - And slavers at the same are just their match; - There ain’t no special difference” (it was said - That Sam himself well knew the Guinea trade, - And half-way to the devil had sent his soul - By running into Cuba “sacks of coal”)— - And then he sang to us right merrily - A slaver’s song, which was not writ by me. - - - - - TIME FOR US TO GO - - - With sails let fall and sheeted home, and clear of the ground were we, - We passed the bank, stood round the light, and sailed away to sea; - The wind was fair and the coast was clear, and the brig was noways - slow, - For she was built in Baltimore, and ’twas time for us to go. - Time for us to go, - Time for us to go, - For she was built in Baltimore, and ’twas time for us to go. - - A quick run to the West we had, and when we made the Bight, - We kept the offing all day long, and crossed the bar at night. - Six hundred niggers in the hold, and seventy we did stow, - And when we’d clapped the hatches on, ’twas time for us to go. - - We hadn’t been three days at sea before we saw a sail, - So we clapped on every inch she’d stand, although it blew a gale, - And we walked along full fourteen knots, for the barkie she did know, - As well as ever a soul on board, ’twas time for us to go. - - We carried away the royal yards, and the stun’sle boom was gone, - Says the skipper, “They may go or stand; I’m darned if I don’t crook - on. - So the weather braces we’ll round in, and the trys’le set also, - And we’ll keep the brig three p’ints away, for it’s time for us to - go.” - - Oh yard-arm under she did plunge in the trough of the deep seas, - And her masts they thrashed about like whips as she bowled before the - breeze, - And every yard did buckle up like to a bending bow, - But her spars were tough as whalebone, and ’twas time for us to go. - - We dropped the cruiser in the night, and our cargo landed we, - And ashore we went, with our pockets full of dollars, on the spree. - And when the liquor it is out, and the locker it is low, - Then to sea again, in the ebony trade, ’twill be time for us to go. - Time for us to go, - Time for us to go, - Then to sea again, in the ebony trade, ’twill be time for us to go. - - “Wall,” said Mose Brown, “I ’low that that escape - From the derned cruiser was a blame close shave, - And I myself once in as bad a scrape - Was lifted out by one big thumping wave - On the same line of coast—or thereabout, - Since it was off the Bight—that’s old Benin— - Where as the sayin’ is, ‘but one goes out - Of all a hundred strangers who go in.’ - It ain’t so healthy quite—to be exact— - As ’tis in Colorado high and dry, - Where they send invalids—it is a fact— - Off to some other country for to die; - Excuse me, gents, for keepin’ you so long, - Now I’ll proceed to let you hev my song.” - - - - - ROLLING OVER[4] - - - It was upon a Boston brig, and that was in the Fall, - Our barky she was light as a gig, for our lading was but small; - And it was in the American War as we were sailing thus, - When we saw a steamer from afar, and knew she was after us. - _Chorus._ Rolling over, rolling over, rolling on. - The roaring waves they came, - Like water into fire all gone, - For the sea was all of a flame. - - Now I have often seen by dark the sea a-burning bright, - But nothing did I yet remark like what it was that night, - And the wake we left behind us as we sailed for many an hour, - Was like a fiery serpent who was chasing to devour. - - And then the captain made a speech to us a-standing round, - And said: “’Fore I’ll be taken I’ll be damned if I don’t be drowned; - Yet if you will be plucky, men, and likewise well behaved, - We’ve got one chance in a thousand yet, but what we may be saved. - - “About ten miles to leeward there lies the Guinea land, - And for fifty miles before it clear a narrow bar of sand; - And if we find a deepish place—as such of them there are— - It just is barely possible that we may clear the bar.” - - Then we gave three cheers for our old man because we liked his dash, - And allowed ere we’d go to prison that we all would go to smash; - So then we set the wheel up with the steamer coming down, - And never a man did care a damn if he was going to drown. - - Now as we came unto the bar I happened to remark - A spot among the waves on which the water it was dark; - And I showed it to the captain, who saw the place was fit, - And hollered to the helmsman to steer her straight for it. - - Now just as we were working to this very closest shave, - There came by Heaven’s mercy a tremendous booming wave, - Which gave the barky such a lift, thanks to our lucky star, - That though we felt the bottom scrape—by God we crossed the bar! - - And as we came in the still water we gave three roaring cheers, - For the rebel he was locked outside—of him we had no fears; - But I never shall forget until I come unto my grave, - How we were saved on the Guinea coast by the sea-light and the wave. - _Chorus._ Rolling over, rolling over, rolling on. - The roaring waves they came, - Like water into fire all gone, - For the sea was all of a flame. - - Quoth Nat of Stonington, “That _is_ a bruiser, - And yet I know darn’d well it could be done - With the third wave—but talking of a cruiser, - I know a song—’tis just a little one— - But first I would observe that a _muskeeter_ - Is not an insect, for as you should know - The term’s applied unto a different creeter, - Which sails about the Gulf of Mexico. - Sometimes the thing is called a _guard-accoster_,[5] - And when one did accost us with a gun, - Out of the way we ginerally tost her; - It ain’t hard work to make a greaser run. - Well, that’ll do. We got a song before us, - And them as likes may holler in the chorus.” - ------ - -[4] This ballad was very much revised, corrected, turned over, and -re-turned, by sundry old sailors, chief among whom was the ancient -mariner, Captain Stead. Almost the same could be said of all these -songs, but this one was specially “cut up and salted down for sea use.” - -[5] _Guarda Costa._ - - - - - THE MUSQUITO - - - Said Paul unto Peter, - “I see a muskeeter, - The boat’s coming over the bay.” - Said Peter to Paul, - “She is saucy, though small, - And the captain is sailing away.” - - Said Paul unto Peter, - “Confound the old creetur, - The boat’s coming over the bay.” - Said Peter to Paul, - “We will soon make her squall, - And the captain is sailing away.” - - Said Paul unto Peter, - “We’ll bang her and beat her! - The boat’s coming over the bay.” - Said Peter to Paul, - “Set stun’sles and all, - And the captain is sailing away.” - - Said Paul unto Peter, - “We’ll give her short metre, - The boat’s coming over the bay.” - Said Peter to Paul, - “Give her powder and ball, - And the captain is sailing away.” - - Said Paul unto Peter, - “We’ll roast her and eat her, - The boat’s coming over the bay.” - Said Peter to Paul, - “We will gobble them all, - And the captain is sailing away!” - - “Now, ’fore we fairly get into the Gulf,” - Said Saltonstall, “and fall into its tide, - Which swallows up so many like a wolf, - I’ll sing a song about a place outside, - Where a thing once took place which was a wonder— - I mean the story of ‘Old Stand from Under.’” - - - - - STAND FROM UNDER! - - - I was sailing in a vessel a long time ago, - All the while dead against us the wind used to blow, - And it seemed as if aboard us that nothing would go right, - When over the Bahamas a-sailing by the night. - _Chorus._ By the night, by the night, - When over the Bahamas a-sailing by the night. - - In the dark, up in the rigging, or somewhere on high, - “Hallo! Stand from under!” a voice used to cry; - But the Being who hallooed it was always out of sight, - When over the Bahamas a-sailing by the night. - - On that gloomy haunted vessel, and all among her crew, - Was a dark and silent sailor whom no one ever knew; - And the Voice it called the loudest when that seaman came to light, - When over the Bahamas a-sailing by the night. - - And we said to him one midnight when we heard it worst of all, - “Your friend there in the rigging is giving you a call.” - Then he looked up above him with such bitterness and spite, - When over the Bahama Isles a-sailing by the night. - - When the Voice with “Stand from under!” once again to him salamed, - He hallooed back like thunder: “Let go then and be damned!” - Like a man in desperation who expects a cruel fight, - All over the Bahamas a-sailing by the night. - - And as the word was spoken—like coming to a beck— - A something came a-whizzing and fell down upon the deck, - And the body of a mariner was there before our sight, - All over the Bahama Isles a-sailing by the night. - - And looking at the dead man, he said: “I do declare! - An hour’s sail from Cuba I stabbed that fellow there. - And now he always haunts me, though I killed him fair, in fight, - All over the Bahama Isles a-sailing by the night.” - - “But the devil a bit of fear have I of dead or living men, - I’ve lifted him before and I can lift him up again, - And pitch him in the water, and sink him out of sight, - All over the Bahamas a-sailing by the night.” - - He grappled with the dead man in spite of all our cries, - When life and awful anger came in the corpse’s eyes; - It tore him to the toffrail and held him deadly tight, - All over the Bahama Isles a-sailing by the night. - - And overboard together in a grapple went the two, - And downward sunk before us into the water blue; - But in and all around them shone a corpo-santo light, - All over the Bahama Isles a-sailing by the night. - - But from that very minute the wind blew well and fair, - And everything went right with us when we had lost the pair; - But I always shall remember while I live that awful sight, - All over the Bahama Isles a-sailing by the night. - - “Now that we’re gittin’ t’wards the Spanish Strand,” - Said Moses Brown, a-waving his bandana, - “I just propose that first of all I land— - As all of us have done—at the old Havanna. - Adventures there do gin’rally abound, - The natives being all sus-ceptive creeters; - For if romance upon this airth is found, - It sartinly _is_ ’mong the senoritas. - Though he who of ’em would advantage take, - Must be on hand and al’ays wide awake: - _Quien el diablo ha de engañar_ - _Mañana ha bien de levantar_.” - Meanin’ that “who the devil would deceive, - Must rise uncommon early,” I believe. - That is the precious time to pick a salad, - As happened to the fellow in my ballad; - Who carried off the booty, as the Fox - Took the fair Hen from the two fighting Cocks. - - - - - NEAR HAVANNA - - - It was down near Havanna town, ho! - It was down near Havanna town, low, - That I saw a mortal fight, - At the coming on of night, - By the starlight a long time ago. - - Two Spaniards were a-fighting for their lives, - The blades flashed like lightning up and down; - To the click and the clock of the knives, - And _there_ stood a lady looking on. - - I asked her the cause of the fray, - And she answered in Spanish: “Oh see! - They are villains who carried me away, - And now they are fighting for me.” - - And I said as I looked at her face - That I hardly could blame such a theft, - “But I’ll wait until one gets his grace, - Then I’ll tackle with the other who is left.” - - But just as I spoke, with a start, - The two leapt and fell on the sand, - For both had been stabbed to the heart - And each had his death out of hand. - - So I and the _donna_ were friends, - And that of the kindest and best; - Now here this true history ends, - And you must imagine the rest. - - And ’twas all near Havanna town, ho! - It was down by Havanna town, low, - That I saw this mortal fight, - At the coming on of night, - By the starlight a long time ago. - - There sat a stranger there whom no one knew, - Who did not seem a follower of the sea, - And yet no stranger surely to the Blue, - Who now politely spoke the company, - Saying unto them: “Mates, ’tween you and me, - I put it as a question—don’t you think - That it is pretty near time to take a drink? - And if you do belong to Gideon’s Band, - Then here’s my purse to pay—and here’s my hand”— - There was a roar of laughter loud and long, - And then the stranger burst into a song; - But for a minute were they all so gay, - For with the words their laughter died away. - - - - - THE THREE DEAD MEN - _Los tres Muertos_ - - - Ever so far and far away, - Down in the hollow by the bay, - Where the beach is dry and the rocks are high, - Under the sand three dead men lie. - There they lie alow, low, low, - Nor hear the cockrel’s crow. - Where the palm-trees are a-growing, and the wind is ever blowing, - There they lie alow, low, low. - - One was drowned in yonder sea, - One was shot as it may be, - One was left on the beach to die, - But all in the hollow sleeping lie. - There they lie alow, low, low, - Nor wake at the cockrel’s crow. - Where the palm-trees are a-growing, and the wind is ever blowing, - There they lie alow, low, low. - - Sometimes when the moon is bright - You can see the three, like gulls in flight, - Flitting along above the waves, - Or sitting and talking on their graves, - Where they lie alow, low, low, - Nor hear the cockrel’s crow. - Where the palm-trees are a-growing, and the wind is ever blowing, - There they lie alow, low, low. - - There was a pause—when some one merrily - Struck up a song which all have known of old; - How Billy Taylor’s sweetheart went to sea, - And how she fought in an engagement bold: - And as the talk ran on of female sailors - Who’ve gone to sea in men-of-war, or whalers, - Until I spoke and said: “I know a lay - About a Spanish lady, old lang syne, - Who, as a sailor, wished to sail away— - The words are by another and not mine:” - - - - - THE LADY-SAILOR[6] - - - I’ll go in yon boat, my mother, - Oh yes! in yon boat I’ll go; - I’ll go with the mariner, mother, - And I’ll be a mariner too. - _Ay, ay, ay, verdadero,_ - _Ay, ay, con el marinero!_ - And I’ll be a mariner too! - - Mother, there’s no refusing, - What true love demands I must do; - In love there’s no picking and choosing, - So I’ll be a mariner too. - _Ay, ay, verdadero,_ - _Ay, ay, con el marinero_, - And I’ll be a mariner too! - - “I like those Spanish songs,” the stranger said: - “Many I’ve heard and many I have read, - And if you like I’ll give you one in rhyme, - By Gil Vincente of the oldest time, - Which holds its own, and bravely, one may say, - For Spanish sailors sing it to this day.” - ------ - -[6] - - Irme quiero, madre, - En aquella galera - Con el marinero - Por ser marinera. - - - - - THE SPANISH SAILOR’S SONG - - - If you’re sleeping, my dear, - Wake and open to me! - For the hour is at hand - When afar we must flee. - - If your white feet are bare - Still no longer delay; - For deep are the waters - Which roll in our way. - - The waters so deep - Of the Guadalquivír; - The hour is at hand, - We must wander, my dear.[7] - - ’Tis strange, he added, how our land, in truth, - As it goes Southward seems to turn to youth, - And with a softer sun all words are sung— - As things are warmed—into the Spanish tongue: - I’ve given you a song, let’s have another; - “Well, I know one,” I said, “which seems its brother, - Although, compared to yours, it’s nearer zero, - In Spanish, _Digas tu el marinero!_” - ------ - -[7] - - Si dormis, donçella, - Despertad y abrid, - Que venida es la hora, - Si quereis partir. - - Si descalza estais - No querais calzar, - Que muchas las aquas - Teneis de pasar— - - Las aguas tan hondas - De Guadalquivír; - Que venida es la hora - Si teneis partir. - - - - - THE LOVER TO THE SAILOR - - - Now tell me this, my sailor boy, - As sure as you love your wine, - Oh did you ever see a ship - As trim as that girl of mine? - - And you who’ve been in many a gale, - And stood on many a deck; - Oh did you ever see a sail - As white as my true love’s neck? - - And you who have been where the red rose blows - In many a Southern place, - Oh did you ever see a rose - Like those in my sweetheart’s face? - - Here’s a cheer for the women with jet black curls, - Of Spain or of Portugal! - And seven for the Yankee and English girls, - The prettiest of them all! - - “Wall now,” cried Jones, “I railly must admit, - Them Spanish songs of yourn hev taste and wit; - But as I’m gettin’ hungry, what is upper - In me just now is that I want my supper; - And while it’s cookin’, till they bring the tub, - I’ll sing you how a sailor lost his grub.” - - - - - GREEN CORN AND POTATOES - - - Oh I once was in love like a sinner, - And the girl she was hahn’some and tall, - She said she would cook me a dinner - Of corn and potatoes and all. - - In a pot she put ham and potatoes, - One chicken, and that not too small; - With gumbos and good red tomatoes, - And beans and some oysters and all. - - On a rock by the river she cooked it, - When there came up a devil of a squall; - And into the water it hooked it, - With the corn and potatoes and all. - - The ham and the beans and potatoes - All went in that devil of a squall, - With the chicken and big red tomatoes, - And carrots and oysters and all. - - Then hurrah, boys! Hurrah for the Union! - And the banner which waves from the wall; - Likewise for the parsnip and onion, - Green corn and potatoes and all! - - The gumbos, the greens, and the carrots— - Likewise for the monkeys and parrots, - And corn and potatoes and all! - - Here John of Baltimore spoke out: said he— - “Mates, you must know I’m goin’ to leave the sea; - I’ve had a fortune left me, as I learn, - So now I guess I give the land a turn. - I am not one who a sea-life belittles, - But do confess I cannot stand the vittles: - You may correct me if you think I’m wrong; - But first I’ll give my sentiments in song:” - - - - - THE SAILOR’S FAREWELL - - - Hard tack and cheese, good-bye! - For I am going home, - To keep me warm and dry, - No more on the seas to roam. - - Roast beef and turkey free, - And likewise chicken-pie, - Salt junk—farewell to thee! - Hard tack and cheese, good-bye! - - I’m going to the land - Where ham and eggs they fry; - Veal cutlets are on hand; - Hard tack and cheese, good-bye! - - Roast duck doth there abound, - And mince and apple-pie - In stacks is lyin’ round; - Hard tack and cheese, good-bye! - - I smell the rich roast goose, - A second slice I’ll try; - A third I shan’t refuse; - Hard tack and cheese, good-bye! - - Planked shad is very fine; - I’m in for living high, - On terrapins with wine; - Hard tack and cheese, good-bye! - - I seek my native soil, - For soft-shell crabs I sigh, - And oysters on the broil; - Hard tack and cheese, good-bye! - - Unto the canvas-back - Myself I will apply, - And hickory nuts I’ll crack; - Of chinquapins no lack; - Hard tack and cheese, good-bye! - - The buckwheat-cake shall boom, - The Jersey sausage fry; - Amid green corn I’ll bloom, - And hominy consume; - Hard tack and cheese, good-bye! - - I see the cranberry sauce, - All with my mental eye; - Plum-pudding I will boss; - Hard tack and cheese, good-bye! - - Venison on chafing-dish, - With jelly, by the bye, - Coffee and fresh cat-fish; - Hard tack and cheese, good-bye! - - I’ll soon be on the strand - Where luscious reed birds fly; - My own—my Maryland— - Hard tack and cheese, good-bye! - - Old Ocean with thy foam, - For thee no more I sigh; - For I am going home! - Hard tack and cheese, good-bye! - - “That bill o’ fare,” cried Abner Chapin, loud, - “Is pitched too high for this here Northern crowd: - New England rum, I spose, seems rather meek - ’Longside peach-brandy down in Chesapeake. - I don’t de-cry your vittles, by no means, - But I prefer a pot of pork and beans - To all the canvas-backs that ever flew, - With soft-shell crabs and reed birds thereunto. - And all burnt offerins of fries of lambs - Ain’t worth a dish of good Rhode Island clams; - And all your Spanish mackerel, my man, - Worth one good mackerel caught off Cape Ann!” - “Talkin’ of mackerel”—Here Peter Young - Broke off this sermon with the “Mackerel Song.” - - - - - MACKEREL SIGNS - - - Mackerel clouds and mares’ tails - A-sailing, a-trailing, - Make lofty ships carry low sails - A-sailing, a-trailing away. - - When the mack’rel are in the sky, - A-sailing, a-trailing; - Soon the wind will be blowing high: - A-sailing and trailing away. - - When the mack’rel shine in the moon, - A-sailing, a-trailing; - Then the wind will begin to tune: - A-sailing, a-trailing away. - - Of all the wind upon the seas, - A-sailing, a-trailing; - The best is an evening mackerel breeze: - A-sailing and trailing away. - - “A mackerel is a sailor-dish,” - Said Jones, “for ’tis a sailor fish, - All drest, like us, in white and blue, - Which I do call the prettiest hue - Which the great heaven has to show - Of all the colours in the bow: - So, if you please, I’ll sing to you - A little song about the Blue!” - - - - - TRUE BLUE - - - Blue is the sea we sail on, - And blue is the sky above, - And blue are the eyes - As sea or skies - Of the maiden whom I love: - And blue is the flag we’re under, - And blue is the coat I wear; - But brighter the blue, - And deeper the hue - In the eyes which I hold so dear! - Bluer and brighter and sweeter, - Fonder and fair and as true; - Oh it’s blue love and true love for ever! - And God bless the beautiful blue! - - Now supper being over, every man - Lighted his pipe or called for a cigar, - Lolled in his chair—and all again began - To order “something lively” from the bar. - Jack Saltonstall, intent on keeping peace, - Waved a great South Sea club, and said, “I’m sent - By Providence to act as your police;” - And at the table sat as President. - He was a man of pleasing dignity, - And all allowed he would a captain be, - Calming all quarrels with a word and wink; - He had hot rum and lemon for his drink. - And as he sat in state, with the club of peace - Which he had taken from the chimney-piece, - He said to us: “What tales this bat could tell - Of many a battle—many a busted shell, - And murdered victims by the surfy shore, - And cani-bally feasts when all was o’er!” - - Quoth Sam of Jersey, “I hev seen such things - Among them natives, ordered by their kings, - As well might make a common pirate weep, - And the old devil feel uncommon cheap: - Such derned, infernal deeds, and parst all showin’, - Pirates and slavers ain’t the worst folk goin’. - There’s things to which the worst _they_ do is slow; - I’ve lived among ’em an I ort to know. - And yet among those natives there are some - As mild as lambs, and good and humoursome; - Who never fight no more than an old hen, - Such difference there is in mortal men. - I’ll tell you now a tale, to make you sport, - Of one who chanced among this gentle sort.” - - - - - THE STORY OF SAMUEL JACKSON - - - I’ll tell you of a sailor now, a tale that can’t be beat, - His name was Samuel Jackson, and his height was seven feet; - And how this man was shipwrecked in the far Pacific Isles, - And of the heathen natives with their suppositious[8] wiles. - - Now when the others cut the ship, because she was a wreck, - They left this Samuel Jackson there, a-standin’ on the deck— - That is, a standin’ on the deck, while sittin’ on the boom; - They wouldn’t let him in the boat ’cos he took up too much room. - - When up there came a tilted wave, and like a horse it romped, - It fell like mountains on the boat, and so the boat was swamped; - And of those selfish mariners full every one was drowned, - While Samuel, standing on the deck, beheld it safe and sound. - - Now when the sea grew soft and still, and all the gale was o’er, - Sam Jackson made himself a raft, and paddled safe ashore. - For fear of fatal accidents—not knowin’ what might come, - He took a gun and matches, with a prudent cask of rum. - - Now this island where he landed proved as merry as a fife, - For its indigents had ne’er beheld a white man in their life; - Such incidents as rum and guns they never yet had seen, - And likewise, in religion, they were awful jolly green. - - But they had a dim tradition, from their ancestors, in course, - Which they had somehow derived from a very ancient source: - How that a god would come to them, and set the island right; - And how he should be orful tall, and likewise pearly white. - - Now when they saw this Samuel approachin’ on his raft, - The news through all the island shades was quickly telegrapht, - How all their tribulations would speedily be past, - ’Cos the long-expected sucker was invadin’ ’em at last. - - Now when Sam Jackson stept ashore, as modest as you please, - Nine thousand bloomin’ savages received him on their knees; - He looked around in wonderment, regardin’ it as odd, - Not bein’ much accustomed to be worshipped as a god. - - But he twigged the situation, and with a pleasin’ smile - Stretched out his hands, a-blessin’ all the natives of the isle; - He did it well, although his paws were bigger than a pan, - Because he was habitual a most politeful man. - - So to return their manners, and nary-wise for fun, - He raised himself with dignity, and then fired off his gun: - So all allowed that he must be one of the heavenly chaps, - Since he went about with lightning and dispensed with thunderclaps. - - They took him on their shoulders, and he let it go for good, - And went into their city in the which a temple stood, - And sot him on the altar, and made him their salams, - And brought him pleasant coco-nuts, with chickens, po and yams. - - And from that day henceforward, in a captivating style, - He relegated, as he pleased, the natives of that isle; - And when an unbeliever rose—as now and then were some, - He cured their irreligion with a little taste of rum. - - He settled all their business, and he did it very well, - So everything went booming like a blessed wedding bell; - Eleven lovely feminines attended to his wants, - And a guard of honour followed him to all his usual haunts. - - Now what mortal men are made of, that they can’t put up with bliss, - I do not know, but this I know, that Sam got tired of this; - He wished that he was far away, again aboard a ship, - And all he thought of—night and day—was givin’ ’em the slip. - - And so one night when all was still and every soul asleep, - He got into a good canoe and paddled o’er the deep, - But oh the row the natives made, when early in the morn - They came to worship Samuel, and found their god was gone! - - Then Samuel travelled many days, but had the luck at last - To meet a brig from Boston where he shipped before the mast; - And he gave it as his sentiments, and no one thought it odd, - He was better off as sailor than when sailing as a god. - - Now many years had flown away when Samuel was forgot, - There came a ship for pearl shell unto that lonely spot; - They went into the temple, and what do you suppose - They found the natives worshipping—a suit of Samuel’s clothes! - - And this was the tradition of the people of the soil, - How once a great divinity had ruled upon their isle; - Four fathom tall, with eyes like fire, and such was their believin’, - One night he got upon the moon—and sailed away to Heaven! - - “Wall, it’s a fact,” cried Doolittle, “I’ll swear - A rover ain’t contented anywhere; - But if he is a real sailor slip, - He’s happiest on the hull—aboard a ship— - For there at times he has his tallest fun, - Especially if ’tis a dandy one - Where all is fine—O mateys, that’s the thing!” - He raised his voice, and thus began to sing: - (While up and down he merrily did prance) - Unto the air of _Dance, the Boatman, dance!_ - ------ - -[8] - -_Vide_ Appendix. - - - - - THE DANDY SHIP - - - We’ve a dandy ship - And a dandy crew; - A dandy mate - And a captain too; - A dandy doctor - Who’s a dand’ old sinner, - And a dandy darkey - To cook the dinner. - - _Chorus._ It’s dance, sailors, dance! - It’s dance, the sailors, dance! - We’ll dance all night till the broad daylight, - And then go to sea in the mornin’! - - We’ve a dandy lot - Of passengers, - Who live on chicken - And sassengers; - A dandy steward - To steer their mess; - Likewise a dandy— - Stew—ard—ess! - - _Chorus._ It’s dance, the sailors, dance! - It’s dance, the sailors, dance! - We’ll dance all night till the broad daylight, - And then go to sea in the mornin’! - - “Shiftin’ and changin’ it is understood,” - Said Abner Chapin, “never come to good.” - “Yes,” quoth the Stranger, “that is very true, - Who goes for many gets but very few; - Who travels zigzag makes full many a cross, - And rolling stones ne’er gather any moss; - The explanation of which word is funny: - In common Yiddish Hebrew, _moss_ means money, - And stones are men—take Peter for a sample— - Excuse me, friends, I know of an example - Of a loose fish who changed about so long - He first became a byword, then a song, - Which I will sing you though it is distressin’, - Not that you need it—as a moral lesson.” - - - - - JACK OF ALL TRADES - - - In all trades I’ve been a meddler, - _Chorus._ Foolin’ my life away: - I started life as a Yankee peddler, - Fiddlin’ and foolin’ away. - - Didn’t find the trade encouragin’ - So I turned a Dey Street New York surgeon. - - Next I’d a shopman for employer, - And then a Philadelphia lawyer. - - After that I was a smuggler, - Then I travelled as a juggler. - - Next I was a collector’s dunner, - And after that an emigrant runner. - - Then I laboured with some bakers, - Next, for a year, I joined the Shakers; - - But they found me too defective, - So for a while I turned detective. - - Then I tried my hand as teacher, - And next became a Blue Light preacher. - - Then I was one of the ——’s editors, - But had to cut to dodge my creditors. - - Faking oranges I tried next on, - Then for a while I dug as a sexton. - - For seven trips I was a slaver, - Then, as a barber, I turned shaver. - - After that I worked as pirate, - For all the naval sharps to fire at. - - Then nigger minstrel, then a sorter, - Off an’ on, shorthand reporter. - - Then I took to readin’ lectures, - And after that to paintin’ pictures. - - Next as drummer I did chaffer, - And then I worked as photográpher. - - Then for a while I run a dairy, - And next I turned apothecäry. - - Then stuck pla-cards as a billist, - And so became a patent pill-ist. - - Finding all other trades deceiving, - For a time I took to thieving. - - Now I’m a Pacific purser, - And don’t think I can do any worser, - Foolin’ my life away. - - “Yes, that’s the way,” said Jones, “that some go squandrin’, - Which minds me that we too must now be wand’rin’:” - “And I,” quoth Brown, “must be aboard and early; - But first of all I’m going to see my girley; - She’d blow a storm if I should fail to meet her: - She is, I vum, an awful breezy creeter, - A gale in petticoats, and one that’s stinging; - I’ll sing a song on that—to end our singing. - You’ve known the _girl-wind_, boys—I never doubt it; - And here’s a ballad which is all about it:” - - - - - THE GIRL-WIND - - - A hurly-burly, hurl-wind - Is hurrying o’er the waves; - Before it runs the Girl-wind - Fresh up from the Ocean caves. - She’s the little puff who goes before - To tell of the blow that’s coming, - She sounds like a hive when winters o’er - And you hear the bees a-humming. - - It’s all very well when a young girl can - Come tripping along with laughter; - But not so nice when you see the old man - With a big stick coming after. - It’s just the same with Everything - When pleasure runs before us, - You drink your wine and think it’s fine:— - Then comes the tavern scoreus! - - So we went forth upon our different ways— - And these were wide—to many a distant shore: - I to my home to put in form these lays, - And think upon this strange wild sailor-lore, - In which, to him who reads with generous heart, - As in a museum we seem to see - The strangest relics gathered far apart— - Rude, coarse, and rough, yet touched with poetry; - Like shells and gems and coins of olden time, - And worthless stones, all hardened in a mass, - Such as I’ve seen, fished from the ocean’s slime, - Such are these men and melodies—alas! - They all are of an age half past away. - Where is the boatswain now?—who hears his call? - And where these sailing packets once so gay? - I to myself do seem traditional - And all my youth a legend—so to say— - Yet well or ill I’ve done the best I could - To make in truthful song a little show - Of quaint old tales, now little understood, - Of the North End of Boston—long ago. - - - - - L A Y S O F T H E L A N D - - - - - THE RISE AND FALL OF GLORYVILLE - - - Where the rockiest Rocky Mountains interview the scornful skies, - And the sager kinds of sage-bush in the middle distance rise, - There the cultured eye descending from the dreamlike azure hill, - Lights in an æsthetic foreground on the town of Gloryville. - - It was in the Middle Ages—’bout the end of Sixty-eight, - So I found the hoary legend written on an ancient slate— - That one Ezry Jenks prospecting, when he reached this blooming spot, - Thus uplifted to his pardner: “Glory! Moses, let us squat!” - - Thus rebounded Moses Adams: “Glory was the foremost word - Which in the untrammelled silence of this wilderness was heard, - And I arnswer, dimly feelin’ like a prophet, grand and slow, - ‘Glory kinder sounds like Money—up to glory let her go!’” - - And this casual conversation in the year of Sixty-eight, - As if by an inspiration he recorded on a slate, - Which ’twas said in later ages—six weeks after—used to hang - As a curiositary in the principal shebang. - - On the spot that very evening they perceived a beauteous gleam - From a grain of shining metal in a wild auriferous stream: - As their eyes remarked the symptom thus their tongues responsive - spoke: - “In this undiscovered section there _is_ pay-dirt, sure as smoke!” - - Little boots or little shoes it to inform you how, like crows - To a carcase, folks came flying, and the town of Glory rose; - As in country schools the urchins cast each one a spittle-ball, - Till at last a monstrous paper fungus gathers on the wall. - - ’Long the road they built their cabins, in a vis-a-visual way, - As if each man to his neighbour kind of wished to have his say; - But ’twas also said that like two rows of teeth the houses grew, - Threatening uncommon danger to the stranger passing through. - - Yes, for like the note of freedom sounded on Hibernia’s harp, - Every person in the party was a most uncommon sharp; - And it got to be a saying that from such an ornery cuss - As a regular Gloryvillin—oh, good Law deliver us! - - First of all the pay-dirt vanished or became uncommon rare, - Then they wandered more than ever to the Cross and from the Square, - For when all resources failed them nary copper did they mind, - For they had fine-answering Genius, which is never left behind. - - So they got incopperated as a city fair and grand, - Spreading memoirs of their splendour over many a distant land, - Mind I say in _distant_ places—people near them knew - Into what unearthly beauty the great town of Glory grew. - - Then they sent an ex-tra Governor over seas and far beyond, - Even unto distant Holland, loaded up with many a bond, - Splendidly engraved in London, having just the proper touch - Quite imposing—rather—for they did impose upon the Dutch. - - And with every bond the Governor had a picture to bestow - Of the town of Gloryville a-bathing in the sunset’s glow; - This they had performed in Paris by an artist full of cheek, - Who was told to draw a city _comme il faut dans l’Amérique_. - - The ideas of this artist were idead from long ago, - Out of scenery in an opera, “Cortez in the Mexico.” - Therefore all his work expanded with expensive fallacies: - Castles, towered walls, pavilions, real-estately palaces. - - In the foreground lofty palm-trees, as if full of soaring love, - Bore up coco-nuts and monkeys to the smiling heaven above; - Jet-black Indian chieftains, at their feet too lovely girls were - sighin, - With an elephant beyond them—here and there a casual lion. - - You have seen in _Pilgrim’s Progress_ the Celestial City stand - Like a hub in half a cart-wheel raying light o’er all the land. - Well, in _that_, it is the felloes of the wheel which cause the blaze; - So in Gloryville the fellows were the ones who made the rays. - - When these views were well matured the Governor went to Amsterdam, - Where to Mynheer Schmuel Ganef first of all he made his slam: - At a glance each “saw” the other—at a glance they went aside, - And without a word of bother soon the plan was cut and dried. - - For one hundred thousand dollars then the Governor at will - Gave away the full fee-simple of the town of Gloryville. - “Dat for you,” said Schmuel Ganef, “is, I dink, not much too much, - But I makesh de shtock a million ven I sells him to the Dutch.” - - And the secret of his selling was upon the artful plan - Known to the police in Paris as the _vol Américain_, - Whereby he who does the spilling manages the man who’s spilt - Very nicely, for he makes him an accomplice in the guilt. - - Even as of old great sages managed the Parisian _fonds_, - So in Amsterdam Heer Ganef peddled out his Glory bonds; - And to all he slyly whispered, “I will let you in de first - On de ground-floor—sell out quickly—for you know de ding may burst.” - - Woe to you who live by thieving, though you be of rogues the chief, - Even the greatest will discover in due time his master-thief. - True, he “let them in,” and truly on the very bottom floor, - But was with the Gloryvillins in the cellar long before. - - And to tell you how the biters all got bitten were in vain; - Here the Governor leaves my story, and he comes not in again. - I will pass to later ages, when all Gloryville, you bet, - Found itself extreme encumbered with an extra booming debt. - - Those who sold the bonds had vanished, those who hadn’t held the town, - Little knew they of its glory over seas or great renown. - They had nothing of the fruitage, though, alas! they held the plant, - Nothing saw they of the picture, save, indeed, the Elephant. - - He who had been in the background now came trampling to the fore; - Terribly he trampled on them, very awful was his roar! - Very dreadful is the silence when no human voice responds - To a legal requisition for the interest of our bonds. - - But ere long a shrewd reflection unto Moses Adams came— - “Darned ef I’m a-gwine to suffer fur another party’s game; - Wings is given to muskeeters—like muskeeters men can fly; - Ef a strawberry-vine can travel with its roots, then why not I?” - - Silently, in secret, Moses to himself a plan reveals, - Got a three-inch plank and sawed it into surreptitious wheels, - And when night in solemn mystery had succeeded unto day, - Put his hut and things on axles, and quite lonely drove away - - To a place just over yonder by the old Coyote Road; - There, no more a man of glory, Moses Adams dropped his load, - And when resting from his labour and refreshing from his jug, - Having known a town called Julesberg, called his shanty Splendourbug. - - On the following morn as usual in due time arose the sun, - And the Gloryvillins followed his example one by one; - While he smiled upon the city, as on other things beneath, - ’Twas observed one snag was wanting in the double row of teeth. - - Little said the Left-behinders, but they seemed to take the hint, - And each man surveyed his neighbour with a shrewd and genial squint; - All day long there was a sound of sawing timber up and down, - Seven more houses in the morning were a-wanting in the town. - - And before the week departed all the town departed too, - Just like the swallows in the autumn to another soil they flew; - Only that, unlike the swallows which we hear of in the song, - When the Gloryvillins squandered each one took his nest along. - - All except one ancient darkey, obstinate and blind and lame, - Who for want of wheels and credit could not follow up the game; - So the others had to leave him, which they did without regret, - Left him there without a copper—just one million deep in debt. - - If you seek them you may find them comfortable as in a rug, - All of them at length established in the town of Splendourbug; - And the driver to the traveller as by Gloryville he goes, - Points him out, an ancient darkey who a million dollars owes. - - - - - IN THE WRONG BOX - - - When Eagle Davis died, - I was sittin’ by his side, - ’Twas in Boston, Massachusetts; and he said to me, “Old boy! - This climate—as you see— - Isn’t quite the size for me; - Dead or livin’, take me back if you can to Ellanoy!” - - So I took him by the hand, - But he’d just run out his sand, - And his breath was gone for ever—before a word would come; - Then I and other three - Together did agree - In a party for to travel and to funeralise him home. - - But Goshen Wheeler said, - As he looked upon the dead, - Weepin’ mildly, “Just remark my observation what I say: - That deceased, now glori_ous_, - Was in life a curious cuss, - And somethin’ unexpectable will happen on the way. - - “Frum the time that he was born - Till he doubled round the Horn - Of Death, all his measurements and pleasurements were odd; - And odd his line will be, - As you’re registered to see, - Till his walnut case is underneath the gravel and the sod.” - - It was bitter winter weather - When we all four got together - At the depôt with the coffin in an extra packin’ box; - And a friend with good intent, - A cask of whisky sent, - Just to keep our boats from wrackin’, as they say, upon the rocks. - - Then a ticket agent he - Seein’ mournin’, says to me, - “Can I get the cards, or help you in your trouble, Mister Brown?” - So with solemn words I said, - As I pinted to the dead, - “There you’ll find, I guess, our pilgrimage and shrine is written - down.” - - Then all night beneath the stars - We sat grimly in the cars, - Sometimes sleepin’, sometimes thinkin’, sometimes drinkin’, till the - dawn; - And each man went in his turn - To the baggage-crate to learn - If the box was keepin’ time with us, and how ’twas gettin’ on. - - Then all day beneath the sun - Still the train went rushin’ on, - While we still kep’ as silent as grave-stones as we went: - Playing euchre solemnly, - Which we kinder did agree - With the stakes to build for Davis a decent monu_ment_. - - ’Bout once in every mile - Some mourner took a smile, - But we did no other smilin’ as we travelled day or night; - And once in every hour - Some one went into the bower, - And reported the receptacle of Davis was all right. - - But when four days were past, - Which we still were flyin’ fast, - Goshen Wheeler, very solemn, with expression to us cries, - “Where we are it should be freezin’ - And our very breaths a-squeezin’, - Whereas the air is hot enough to bake persimmon pies. - - “Don’t you smell a rich perfume - As of summer flowers in bloom? - ’Tis magnolias a-peddled by yon humble coloured boy: - Now, I never yet did know - That the sweet mag-no-li-o - Grew in winter in the latitude of Northern Ellanoy.” - - Then said Ebenezer Dotton, - “I behold a field of cotton, - And I wonder how in thunder such a veg’table got here. - I don’t know how we’re fixed, - But the climate’s getting mixed, - And it’s spilin’ very rapidly with warmness as I fear.” - - Spoke Mister Aaron Bland, - “I perceive on yonder land - That sugar-cane is bloomin’, correctly, all in rows, - And not to make allusions - To Republican delusions, - But the niggers air a-gettin’ all around as thick as crows.” - - Still we sat there mighty glum - Till along a fellow come. - And I says, says I, “Conductor, now tell us what it means, - Just inform us where we be?” - “Wall, now, gentlemen,” said he, - “I reckon we air comin’ to the spot called New Or-leéns!” - - So we rushed all in a row, - When we got to the depôt, - To the baggage-crate, a-wonderin’ at these transformation scenes; - And we found out unexpected - That the box had been directed - Not unto Ellanoy, but to a man in New Or-leéns! - - Without carin’ if I’d catch it, - I straightway took a hatchet, - And busted off the cover without openin’ my mouth; - And found a grand pianner - Which we’d followed for our banner - All the way from Massachusetts unto the sunny South! - - Then I said, “I rather guess - I can see into this mess, - And explain the startlin’ error which has given you such shocks. - When that Boston fellow, he - Asked the route I’d take of me, - I pinted, inadvertional, unto another box.” - - Now Eagle Davis lies - Beneath the Northern skies, - Where the snow is on the pine-tree while we are with the palm; - But I reckon if his spirit - Should ever come to hear it, - He’ll be perfectly contented with the story in this psalm. - - - - - ZION JERSEY BOGGS - A LEGEND OF PHILADELPHIA - - - Before the telegraphic wires - Had ever run from pole to pole, - Or telegirls sent telegrams - To cheer the weary waiting soul; - When all things went about as slow - As terrapins could run on clogs, - Was played a game - By one whose name - Was Mister Zion Jersey Boggs. - -A Philadelphia newspaper - Was printed then on Chestnut Street, - While ’crost the way, just opposite, - There lived a sufferin’ rival sheet, - Whose editors could get no news, - Which made ’em cross as starvin’ hogs; - The first, I guess, - Had an express - Which kind o’ b’longed to Mister Boggs. - - But in those days the only news - Which reëly opened readers’ eyes, - Was of the New York lottery, - And who by luck had got a prize. - All other news, for all they cared, - Might travel to the orful dogs; - And this they got - All piping hot— - Though surreptitiously—from Boggs. - - For of the crew no party knew - That Boggs did any horses own. - All sportin’ amputations he - Did most concussively disown; - For he had serious subtle aims, - His wheels were full of secret cogs,— - Well oiled and slow, - Yet sure to go, - Was Mister Zion Jersey Boggs. - - One mornin’ he, mysteriously, - An’ smilin’ quite ironical, - Spoke to the other editor, - The man who run the _Chronicle:_ - “The _Ledger_ has a hoss express - By which your lottery news he flogs.” - “Yes, that is true, - But what’s to do?” - Replied the man to Mister Boggs. - - Then Mister Boggs let down his brows, - And with a long deep knowing wink, - Said, “Hosses travel mighty fast, - But ther air faster things, I think; - An’ kerrier-pidgings, as you know, - Kin find their way thro’ storm and fogs: - Them air the bugs - To fly like slugs!” - Said Mister Zion Jersey Boggs. - - “And in my glorious natyve land, - Which lies acrost the Delaware, - I hev a lot upon the spot,— - Just twenty dollars fur a pair. - These gentle insects air the things - To make the _Ledger_ squeal like hogs; - That is the game - To hit ’em lame!” - Said Mister Zion Jersey Boggs. - - The editor looked back again, - And saw him better on his wink. - “It is the crisis of our fate— - Say, Boggs, what is your style of drink? - Step to the bar of Congress Hall;— - We’ll try your poultry on, by Gogs! - An’ let ’em fly - Tarnation high!” - “Amen!” said Zion Jersey Boggs. - - The pidgins came, the pidgins flew, - They lit upon the lofty wall; - They made their five an’ ninety miles - In just about no time at all. - Compared to them, the _Ledger_ team - Went just as slow as haulin’ logs. - But all was mum, - Shut close an’ dum, - By the request of Mister Boggs. - - Then on the follerin’ Monday he, - Lookin’ profounder as he prowled, - This son of sin an’ mystery, - Into the _Ledger_ orfice owled. - “An’ oh! to think,” he sadly groaned, - “That earth should bear setch skalliwogs! - Setch all-fired snakes, - And no mistakes!” - Said Mister Zion Jersey Boggs. - - “Why, what is up?” asked Mr. Swain; - “It seems you’ve had some awful shoves.” - “The _Chronicle_,” his agent cried, - “Has went an’ bin an’ bought some doves! - Them traitors, wretches, swindlers, cheats, - Hev smashed us up like polywogs. - They’ve knocked, I guess, - Our hoss express - Higher than any kite,” said Boggs. - - “Have you no plan?” asked Mister Swain, - “To keep the fellows off our walks?” - “I _hev_,” said Boggs, as grim as death; - “What do you think of pidging-horks? - For in my glorious natyve land, - Acrost the river, ’mong the frogs, - I hev a lot - All sharply sot - To eat them pidgings up,” said Boggs. - - “They are the chosen birds of wrath, - They fly like arrers through the air, - Or angels sent by orful Death— - Jist fifty dollars fur a pair; - An’ cheap to keep, because, you see, - Upon the enemy they progs.” - “Well, try it on, - And now begone!” - Said Mister Swain to Mister Boggs. - - The autumn morn was bright and fair, - Fresh as a rose with recent rain. - The pidgins tortled through the air, - But nary one came home again. - Some feathers dropped in Chestnut Street, - Some bills and claws among the logs: - Wipin’ a tear, - “I greatly fear - That all’s not right,” said Mr. Boggs. - - Into the _Chronicle_ he went, - Twice as mysterious as before, - “And _hev_ you heard the orful news?” - He whispered as he shet the door. - “Oh, I hev come to tell a tale - Of crime, which all creation flogs, - Of wretchery - And treachery - That bangs tarnation sin,” said Boggs. - - “Them _Ledger_ fellers with their tricks, - Hev slopped clean over crime’s dark cup. - They’ve bin an’ bought some pidging-horks, - And they hev _et_ our pidgings up. - Oh, whut is life wuth livin’ fur - When editors behave like hogs? - An’ ragin’ crime - Makes double time; - Oh, darn setch villany!” cried Boggs. - - “But hark! bee-hold, to-morrer, thou - In deep revenge may dry your tears; - I hev a plan, which, you’ll allow, - Beats all-git-out when it eppears. - The ragin’ eagle of the North, - The bird which all creation flogs, - Will cause them horks - To walk ther chalks, - An’ give us grand revenge,” said Boggs. - - “Them glorious birds of liberty, - Them symbols of our country’s fame, - Wild, sarsy, furious, and free, - Indeliably rowdy game; - They shall revenge them gentile doves, - Our harmless messengers, by Gogs! - In which the horks - Hev stuck ther forks,” - Cried Mister Zion Jersey Boggs. - - “For in my glorious natyve land - Acrost the river, down below, - I hev a farm, and in the barn - Six captyve eagles in a row: - One hundred dollars fur a pair; - Fetch out the flimsies frum your togs - An’ up on high - _I’ll_ make ’em fly,” - Said Mister Zion Jersey Boggs. - - But this same editor had heard - Some hint or rumour, faint or dim, - How Mister Boggs, it was averred, - Was coming Paddy over him. - An earlier tale of soapy deeds - Then gave his memory startling jogs, - And full of wrath - Right in his path - He went for Zion Jersey Boggs. - - “Horses and pidgins—pidgin-horks”— - That was enough to raise his Dutch: - He saw it all—and also saw - The eagle—“Just one bird too much.” - Too mad to mind his shootin’-iron, - And throw good powder to the dogs, - He grabbed his chair, - And then and there - Corrected Zion Jersey Boggs. - - After long years had rolled away, - And Morse’s telegraph came in, - Still on the facing rival roofs - Two grey old cages could be seen, - And young reporters o’er their drinks - Would tell each other—jolly dogs— - Of ancient time - What in this rhyme - I’ve told of Zion Jersey Boggs. - - - - - THE BALLAD OF THE GREEN OLD MAN - - - It was a balmeous day in May, when spring was springing high - And all amid the buttercups the bees did butterfly; - While the butterflies were being enraptured in the flowers, - And winsome frogs were singing soft morals to the showers. - - Green were the emerald grasses which grew upon the plain, - And green too were the verdant boughs which rippled in the rain, - Far green likewise the apple hue which clad the distant hill, - But at the station sat a man who looked far greener still. - - An ancient man, a boy-like man, a person mild and meek, - A being who had little tongue, and nary bit of cheek. - And while upon him pleasant-like I saw the ladies look, - He sat a-counting money in a brownsome pocket-book. - - Then to him a policeman spoke: “Unless you feel too proud, - You’d better stow away that cash while you’re in this here crowd; - There’s many a chap about this spot who’d clean you out like ten.” - “And can it be,” exclaimed the man, “there are such wicked men? - - “Then I will put my greenbacks up all in my pocket-book, - And keep it buttoned very tight, and at the button look.” - He said it with a simple tone, and gave a simple smile— - You never saw a half-grown shad one-half so void of guile. - - And the bumble-bees kept bumbling away among the flowers, - While distant frogs were frogging amid the summer showers, - And the tree-toads were tree-toadying in accents sharp or flat— - All nature seemed a-naturing as there the old man sat. - - Then up and down the platform promiscuous he strayed, - Amid the waiting passengers he took his lemonade, - A-making little kind remarks unto them all at sight, - Until he met two travellers who looked cosmopolite. - - Now even as the old was green, this pair were darkly-brown; - They seemed to be of that degree which sports about the town. - Amid terrestrial mice, I ween, their destiny was Cat; - If ever men were gonoffs,[9] I should say these two were that. - - And they had watched that old man well with interested look, - And gazed him counting greenbacks in that brownsome pocket-book; - And the elder softly warbled with benevolential phiz, - “Green peas has come to market, and the veg’tables is riz.” - - Yet still across the heavenly sky the clouds went clouding on, - The rush upon the gliding brook kept rushing all alone, - While the ducks upon the water were a-ducking just the same, - And every mortal human man kept on his little game. - - And the old man to the strangers very affable let slip - How that zealousy policeman had given him the tip, - And how his cash was buttoned in his pocket dark and dim, - And how he guessed no man alive on earth could gammon him. - - In ardent conversation ere long the three were steeped, - And in that good man’s confidence the younger party deeped. - The p’liceman, as he shadowed them, exclaimed in blooming rage, - “They’re stuffin’ of that duck, I guess, and leavin’ out the sage.” - - He saw the game distinctly, and inspected how it took, - And watched the reappearance of that brownsome pocket-book, - And how that futile ancient, ere he buttoned up his coat, - Had interchanged, obliging-like, a greensome coloured note. - - And how they parted tenderly, and how the happy twain - Went out into the Infinite by taking of the train; - Then up the blue policeman came, and said, “My ancient son, - Now you have gone and did it; say what you have been and done?” - - And unto him the good old man replied with childish glee, - “They were as nice a two young men as I did ever see; - But they were in such misery their story made me cry; - So I lent ’em twenty dollars—which they’ll pay me by-and-bye. - - “But as I had no twenty, we also did arrange, - They got from me a fifty bill, and gimme thirty change; - But they will send that fifty back, and by to-morrow’s train——” - “That note,” out cried the constable, “you’ll never see again.” - - “And that,” exclaimed the sweet old man, “I hope I never may, - Because I do not care a cuss how far it keeps away; - For if I’m a judge of money, and I _reether_ think I am, - The one I shoved was never worth a continental dam. - - “They hev wandered with their sorrers into the sunny South, - They hev got uncommon swallows and an extry lot of mouth. - In the next train to the North’ard I expect to widely roam, - And if any come inquirin’, jist say I ain’t at home.” - - The p’liceman lifted up his glance unto the sunny skies, - I s’pose the light was fervent, for a tear were in his eyes, - And said, “If in your travels a hat store you should see, - Just buy yourself a beaver tile and charge that tile to me.” - - While the robins were a-robbing acrost the meadow gay, - And the pigeons still a-pigeoning among the gleam of May, - All out of doors kept out of doors as suchlike only can, - A-singing of an endless hymn about that good old man. - ------ - -[9] _Gonoff_, a Scriptural term for a Member of the Legislature, or -suchlike. - - - - - CARRYING COALS - - - In the gloomsome abysses where darkness is kept, - And the spirit of silence for ages has slept, - In the great shaft of Pottsville, way down in the hole, - There came seven parties, all dealers in coal; - But they never had been in that chasm before, - Nor had the sensation of darkness all o’er, - Which so greatly expandeth the soul. - - And one of ’em said, “It’s an awful delight - To be infinite deep into no end of night, - Where the heavenly sunshine can’t manage to spring,— - And, talking of that, I’ve a notion, by Jing! - Let we ourselves mine out some coal lumps to-day - To show to the folks,—which I think, by the way, - Would be a poetical thing.” - - So they filled up their pockets, untried by a doubt, - And in the hotel they unveiled ’em all out; - But their glances grew strange as they turned o’er the weight, - Till one of them shouted, “By thunder, it’s slate!” - Yet the youngest among them had dealered in coal, - And unto that traffic surrendered his soul, - Since the Anno Eighteen Forty-eight. - - For all of man’s wisdom is only a dream, - Which passeth away like a plate of ice-cream, - And the best of experience fails, as we mark, - If you go for to dig when you’re all in the dark; - For there’s always a moral inside of a tale, - And big things in little things always prevail - As sure as there’s wood in the bark. - - - - - CAREY, OF CARSON - - - The night-mist dim and darkling, - As o’er the roads we pass, - Lies in the morning sparkling - As dewdrops on the grass. - E’en so the deeds of darkness, - Which come like midnight dews, - Appear as sparkling items - Next morning in the news. - - Away in Carson City, - Far in the Silver Land, - There lives one Justice Carey, - A man of head and hand; - And as upon his table - The Judge a-smoking sat - There rowdied in a rougher - Who wore a gallows hat. - - He looked upon the Justice, - But Justice did not budge - Until the younger warbled, - “Say—don’t you know me, Judge?” - “I think,” said Carey meekly, - “Your face full well I know,— - I sent you up for stealing - A horse a year ago.” - - “Ay, that is just the hair-pin - I am, and that’s my line; - And here is twenty dollars - I’ve brought to pay the fine.” - “You owe no fine,” said Carey, - “Your punishment is o’er.” - “Not yet,” replied the rover; - “I’ve come to have some more. - - “Fust-rate assault and batt’ry - I’m goin’ to commit, - And you’re the mournful victim - That I intend to hit, - And give you such a scrampin’ - As never was, nohow; - And so, to save the lawin’, - I guess I’ll settle now.” - - Up rose the Court in splendour; - “Young man, your start is fair, - Sail in, my son, sail over, - And we will call it square! - Go in upon your chances,— - Perhaps you may not miss; - I like to see young heroes - Ambitionin’ like this.” - - The young one at the older - Went in with all his heft, - And, like a flyin’ boulder, - At once let out his left; - The Court, in haste, ducked under - Its head uncommon spry, - Then lifted the intruder - With a puncher in the eye,— - - A regular right-hander; - And like a cannon-ball, - The young man, when percussioned - Went over on the wall. - In just about a second, - The Court, with all its vim, - Like squash-vines o’er a meadow, - Went climbing over him. - - Yea, as the pumpkin clambers - Above an Indian grave, - Or as the Mississippi - Inunders with its wave, - And merrily slops over - A town in happy sport, - E’en so that man was clambered - All over by the Court. - - And in about a minute - That party was so raw, - He would have seemed a stranger - Unto his dearest squaw; - Till he was soft and tender, - This morsel once so tough, - And then, in sad surrender, - He moaned aloud, “Enough!” - - He rose; and Justice Carey - Said to him ere he went, - “I do not think the fightin’ - You did was worth a cent. - I charge for time two dollars, - As lawyers should, ’tis plain; - The balance of the twenty - I give you back again. - - “I like to be obligin’ - To folks with all my powers, - So when you next want fightin’ - Don’t come in office hours; - I only make my charges - For what’s in legal time,— - Drop in, my son, this evenin’, - And I’ll not charge a dime.” - - The young man took the guerdon, - As he had ta’en the scars; - Then took himself awayward - To the ’Ginia City cars. - ’Tis glorious when heroes - Go in to right their wrongs; - But if you’re only hair-pins, - Oh, then beware of tongs! - - - - - JOSEPHI IN BENICIA - - - There was a man who spent his mortal life - A-prisoning until there came a war; - And with the war there came an enemy, - And with the enemy came dynamite, - And with the dynamite the engineers - Histed that prison-house, and with it all - That was therein. And when the man came down - And lay a-dying, round the chaplain lit, - And asked him “What of life?” and he replied, - “To me this life has been a blasted cell.” - And so he died like any other man, - And thus it is things work among mankind. - - The great Josephi—the piano lord— - When in the land of California - Was duly published for Benicia, - Yet never once put in; and then arose - Dame Rumour with a hundred thousand tongues, - And people said that he had bust his wires, - And had neuralgia in his sounding-board, - And the dyspepsia in his pedal joint, - And the stricnosis in his upper keys,— - Yet all was false, and I will tell you why. - The day before he was to have gone in - Unto his glory in Benicia, - There came a visitor whose sun-grilled face - And grand prize pumpkin air had all the style - Of a Maud Muller’s father; and this man, - Being shown in, remarked, “I s’pose you air - Mister Joseephee?” To him in reply - The small piano-smasher nodded “Yes.” - And thus the agriculturist went on:— - “I’m from Beneesh, I am, and I belong - To the Town Council—that is my posish. - Down here disposin’ of my barley, and - I thort I’d call and see yer, being as - Yer comin’ down ter-morrer fur to play.” - “Ja, dot is so,” replied the music man. - “Ye see, yer comin’ to a stranger town, - And so I thort I’d let yer hev some pints - About the programme. We’re a-payin’ yer - A pot o’ money, and of course yer want - To suit the ordience.” “Vell, vot you like,” - Exclaimed the great musician. “I can blay - Chopin, Beethoven, Liszt—ja! all de crate - Gombosers, and I gifes you vot you shoose.” - “I never heerd them tunes,” replied his guest. - “Do yer know ‘Nancy Lee’?” “Not I, bei Gott!” - “Nor ‘Mary Ann’?” “Nein” (_very haughtily_). - “The ‘Spanish Dona’—the ‘Monastery Bells’?” - “Gott’s dammerwetter! Himmelspotzen—NEIN!” - “Wall, now, whar did ye learn? My darter Sue - Goes to Miss Lynch’s, and she knows ’em all, - An’ plays ’em all by heart right straight along. - I never thought her no great shakes, and yet - She’s clean ahead of you.” A gloomy pause - Ensued, and two long glares. Then he set on, - “What kind o’ dancing music are ye gwine - To fetch along? for that’s the heavy jerk.” - “_Tantz musik!_” Oh, the horror of the voice - Of great Josephi when he heard these words. - “Yes, certinly. Ain’t ye a-goin’ to play - Fur dancing arter supper? Wot d’ye s’pose - We’re gwine to pay yer fur?” (Here came the squall.) - “Go to der Teufel mit your tantz musik! - Dere-to your tauter also. Sapperment! - Verflucht sei deine Seele—do you dink - I coom to blay fur caddle? I ton’t go - Unto Benicia. Dell your veller-bigs - Your tauter blays in my blace—in de blace - Of Herr Josephi—do you oonderstand, - You hundert tousend plasted _Schweinigel_!” - And in the rustic’s face he slammed the door. - - He did not play in fair Benicia, - And in that town he is not popular; - And in its leading circles seven out - Of eight regard him as a German fraud, - Who cannot even play “My Mary Ann.” - And thus it is they think he is a sell, - And thus it is things work among mankind. - - - - - THE STORY OF A LIE - - - Who asks an ape to throw a coco-nut - Should take it not amiss if it be thrown - On his own head, as echo answers song. - - There was a man named Jesse, who was called - The greatest liar in Connecticut. - For there are giants among the Brobdingnags. - - It was a burning day, and William Hoop - Sat in the shade, when Jess came riding by. - When wolves run past your door-step, let them run. - - But William cried, “Stop for a moment, Jess, - And tell us a big lie.” Jesse liked it not. - Ne’er ask a hangman how to tie a noose. - - But hastily and sadly he replied, - “This is no time for lying now; oh, woe!” - A wanton widow may wear darkest weeds. - - “Your Uncle Sol died very suddenly - An hour ago, and you would have me lie!” - Who weaveth nets is often caught in them. - - “And I am riding for the coroner, - And for a coffin. William, learn from this - _Never while living ask a man to lie_.” - - Then William ran in and told his wife, - And he and she and all the family - Burst into tears. The thistle soon bears thorns. - - And in his waggon, leaving everything, - They posted off and on, four miles away. - The eagle hastens at the eaglet’s cry. - - And when arrived they found the family - In the large kitchen, but in ne’er a grief. - It pains a man at times to miss his pain. - - There Uncle Sol was buried—to the eyes, - In a great water-melon, lush and red. - Life’s sweetest things are water after all: - - Which rises in a mist, and comes again - As rainy tears. And William almost wept - For rage, because he had no cause to cry. - - But after this he never did entreat - Another man to tell a lie to him. - Burnt child seeks not a second time the fire. - - - - - THE LEGEND OF SAINT ANTHONY - - - The seek-no-further face of loveliness, - The perfect form of fawn-like springfulness, - Rich as a bonanza just unbound: - Catherine Van Peyster, of Fifth Avenue. - - She lived a year in Europe—but for aye - In all the hearts of all who met her there; - And then her pa allowed her boundless cash, - Which she laid out in glorious works of art. - - Such as the dream-like dresses made by Worth, - And heavenly hats by Virot, and all things - Refined, æsthetic, swell, and classical; - Yea, even a picture—she bought everything. - - ’Tis true it was a picture of herself, - And when she ordered it she simply said, - “I know that I am very beautiful, - My mirror tells me that—distinctively; - - “But I am also very clever too, - For I am of a clever family, - Papa and sisters all are awful smart; - Now you must make it somehow sparkle out - - “In what you paint. And as for me I guess - I’ll show you how to fix it—wait a bit. - Ain’t there a saint they call Saint Catherine? - One of my beaux, I think, once called me that.” - - “_Si, Illustrissima_,” the artist said, - “Dere is a Santa Catarina, who - Is beautiful most of the oder sants, - Vitch giusto suit so lovely mad as you! - - “And she do always hold opon a vheel.” - “I see!” cried Miss Van Peyster—“just the thing, - The wheel of fortune—and the loveliest saint; - That’s me exactly. What a perfect fit!” - - And so ’twas painted, and the painted pair, - Saint Catherine and Miss Catherine, went across - Unto New York; and many people came - To call and worship—or to make believe. - - And with the rest came Mr. Anthony, - A blooming broker, and a mighty man, - Who did not think small brewings of himself, - Albeit his studies had been very small, - - And very few i’ the heap. His face and form - Were greasiness and grossness well combined, - With sneeriness and nearness in the eyes; - He seemed a kind of coarsest Capuchin. - - And much he did admire the quaint conceit - Of being taken as a holy saint, - And said, “I’d like to try that thing myself. - How could a feller fix it——Catherine?” - - “Easy enough,” replied the beautiful: - “You’ve only got to send your photograph - Out to my man in Florence, and to say, - ‘_Vous peignez moi comme le Saint Anthony_.’ - - “I’ll write it for you if you have a card, - And he will fix it for you _comme il faut_.” - That very hour the heavy shaver wrote, - And sent the order for his portraiture. - - And in due time ’twas done—and further on - ’Twas in the Custom House—and thence ’twas sent - To the Spring Exhibition in New York, - There was no time to send it to “the House.” - - And Anthony himself beheld it not - Till it had hung a week upon “the walls,” - And all the newspapers had served it up, - And all the world had merry made withal. - - Yea, he _was_ in it—clad in dirty rags, - A vile abomination. In his hand - A monstrous rosary. The Sunday Press - Said ’twas a rope of onions, meant to feed - - The monstrous hog which filled the canvas up, - So vast in its proportions that it seemed - As Anthony were waiting on the hog, - And not the hog upon Saint Anthony. - - In it and in for it. Just as the Saint - Of Padua is painted, with his pig, - Only a little more so. And thus ends - The tale of the great hog and Anthony. - - - - - A RUSSIAN LYRIC - AIR—“_Denkst du daran mein tapfre Lagienka._” - - - “SALTOKOFF SKUPCHIROFSKY,” said the ruler - Of Russia to his captain of the guard, - “I will retire; the night is growing cooler - Have all the troops been posted in the yard?” - “They have, my liege, and in the tower o’er you - The watchman, with an opera-glass, afar - Looks out to see that no one comes to bore you: - _Bogu Tsarachnie!_ God protect the Tsar!” - - “What have you done with him who came this morning, - And wanted me to buy a lightning-rod?” - “He sleeps beneath the Neva, as a warning - To others like him, not as yet in quod.” - “The girl who bored us for a contribution - To send her blessed clergyman afar?” - “She’s strangled by the Seventh Resolution: - _Bogu Tsarachnie!_ God protect the Tsar!” - - “And where is he who gave us the conniptions, - That cheeky man from the United States, - Who came unto my bedside for subscriptions - To—what was it?—the ‘Life of Sergeant Bates’?” - “Upon a special train that man is flying - Unto Siberia in a third-class car; - Thou badest him ‘dry up!’ and he is drying: - _Bogu Tsarachnie!_ God protect the Tsar!” - - “And where is he who bored us for insurance - On life or fire, who down the chimney came?” - “My liege, beneath our feet in deepest durance - He pays with penance for his little game.” - “And, after him, the pedlar who came plungin’ - Into the parlour, smoking a cigar?” - “Ask of the vipers in the palace dungeon: - _Bogu Tsarachnie!_ God protect the Tsar!” - - “And that young man who always kept a-saying, - ‘That is the kind of hair-pin that I am’?” - “My liege, the strychnine in his vitals playing - May tell you how I stopped that kind of flam. - “And he who at this day is still repeating, - ‘What, never, never?’” “In a butt of tar - We coopered _him_. His heart’s no longer beating: - _Bogu Tsarachnie!_ God protect the Tsar!” - - “And where is he who on the imperial fences - Inscribed _Pop’s Bitters_, and _Take Fooler’s Pills_?” - “My lord, his medicines were no defences, - In Hades he atones for earthly ills.” - “And that confounded nuisance of a Scotch Guard - Who played the bagpipes up and down the car?” - “My lord, the imperial headsman wears his watch-guard: - _Bogu Tsarachnie!_ God protect the Tsar!” - - “Captain, ’tis well. Now telegraph to London - That every Nihilist has had his dose, - And that a fresh conspiracy is undone, - And keep the gum-drop, corn-ball peddlers close - Who spread sedition in the trains to ’stress me; - And keep the gates of anarchy ajar; - So may Saint Feoderskidobry bless thee! - _Bogu Tsarachnie!_ God protect the Tsar!” - - - - - MELODRAMNATION - - - “Now Mr. Gallagher is satisfied.” - So says the Boston _Post_. The facts are these: - He is the chief of a theatric club, - And as he deems that he can melodram, - He melodrammed for it a mighty piece - Of thundering incidents and awful scenes, - Which called for just nine actors. And they all - Declared that each had got the worst and curst - Of all the parts, and that ’twas written thus - To boom the fame of selfish Gallagher; - So the first night they came upon the boards, - With hearts like hornets and with souls like snakes - And feeling like old pizen, all agog - To be revenged upon the common foe, - Who was to act the hero. _Act the first_: - The hero and his mother meet to part, - And on her shoulders and o’er all her bust - The parent had put pins by papersful, - Till she was like a frightful porcupine; - And when she pressed her darling to her breast, - The pins _en masse_ entered his very soul, - And pricked his nose, and ran into his cheeks, - So that he howled; but his mamma held on, - Easing her heart with rapturous revenge - While agonizing his. In the next act - He was on shipboard, and ’twas in the plot - That he should be knocked down and cuffed about - By a most cruel captain; and, God knows, - The captain played that part most perfectly, - Since in the start he went for Gallagher - With a belaying-pin, and laid him out - _Secundum artem_, and then let him up, - Only to let into him twice as hot, - ’Mid rapturous hurrahs. In the next act - The hero led the crew to mutiny, - And Gallagher was glorious; but just then - Some one let down the trap on which he stood, - And there he was, up to his waist in stage, - Unable to get up or to go down, - And thus they kept him in captivity - While all the audience guyed him. When he strove - To climb they lowered him, and when he sought - To dodge beneath they highered him again; - So he went up and down like Erie stock - Until the scene was shifted. In the next - He fought the villain of the play, and this - Was Mr. Hencoop Smith, a stalwart rogue, - Extremely high on muscle, and the way - He lathered Gallagher about the stage - Was Awful Gardener. And when Smith should cry, - “Forgive me—I am crushed!” and Gallagher - Replied, “I’ll have your life!” the hero lay - Under the table, while his adversary - Bemauled him with a chair-leg. It was o’er, - And Gallagher, all black and blue, went home - To plotter out revenge. On the next night - The piece was adverred to be played again, - And Gallagher sent round a messenger, - Who said he was too ill to play his part, - But he would send a substitute. He did— - A giant-like ferocious prize-fighter, - Under another name. And how he played! - He squeezed the mother into raving fits, - And jerked her wig away by accident, - And threw the cruel captain down the trap, - And larruped all the actors; and when Smith - Came on to fight, he took him by the heels - And mopped the stage with him until ’twas clean, - Then hurled him through the flat. All was a wreck: - And in the front seat sat the Gallagher - And laughed until he cried. Revenge is sweet! - - - - - A TALE OF IDAHO - - - When they had finished the ethnology, - And polished up the climate and the crops, - And glorified the different kinds of bugs, - And told in turn their lies about the snakes, - And fish and deer and things, of Idaho, - A pensive cuss in spectacles inquired, - “All this is well enough; now how about - Your educational facilities? - And let me see in dots the time they go.” - - “And that’s the only thing we really lack,” - Replied the Ancient, with a silvery sigh; - “We do defect in _that_ ostensibly. - We have the schools, but then we cannot git - The folks to run ’em, or who will remain - Adjacent to ’em, for they will not keep.” - “How!—do they _die_?” “Wall, some on ’em expired, - Though Idaho ain’t an expirin’ State; - But I will tell you just the time they go. - - “We had a fine young fellow from the East; - He licked the boys, and also kissed the gals, - And was all round uncommon popular, - Bein’ likewise an awful fightin’ man, - And there he _did_ slop over. For one day - He met a grizzly bar upon the prowl, - And whistled to it, and the grizzly _come_; - But when he went he carried by express - All of that fine young man inside of him; - And that is just about the time they go. - - “We had another from Connecticut: - A widder run him down, and married him - Inside the very school-house where he taught, - Just as an Injun cooks a terrapin - In its own shell, or as a lovely deer - Is sometimes aboriginally biled - Inside of its own skin, for that poor man - Has been in bilin’ water ever sense: - They say she makes it solemn hot for him. - And that is just about the time they go. - - “The third was well enough, but he was lame; - I needn’t tell you how _that_ one got spiled; - For sense he couldn’t run, one day, of course, - The Injuns overtook him, and the way - They treated him was pretty nigh as bad - As if they had been widders, and that man - Their lawful spouse. They also made it hot, - Because they took and briled him at the stake. - And that is just about the time they go. - - “Then we tried women-folks to keep the school. - We writ for one. She came; and as she lit - Down from the stage, a man proposed to her - And was accepted, and she married him - That very night; in fact, within an hour - He gin a party, and we had a dance; - But Education suffered all the same, - As she declined to teach, bein’ inclined - To conjugate—excuse my little joke; - But that is just about the time they go. - - “The second—wall, _I took_ the second one - About the middle of the week she come; - But telegraphed unto the Institute, - ‘Send on some more; keep sending of ’em on.’ - And so they kept a-comin’, but they kep’ - A-going speedier than they arrove, - For the third lady was abducted by - A highwayman before she got to us— - She took it awful kindly, I believe. - And that is just about the time they go.” - - “But why,” exclaimed the wondering traveller, - “Don’t you obtain a scareful, ugly one— - Some hideous old faggot, just like that - Tremendous terror with the lantern-jaws - By yonder ticket-window? She would keep.” - “Alas! how strange,” replied the Ancient Man; - “How is it that you people from the East - Will never understand us pioneers? - That woman is my wife—the very one - I cut away from school; and she’s by far - The handsomest there was in all the drove. - For that is just about the time they go.” - - - - - A CALIFORNIAN ROMANCE - - - Know’st thou the burning lay of Dante’s own, - “_Nix mangiare é il diavolo!_ - _Ma peggior la donna?_” that’s to say, - “’Tis hard to be hard up, but harder still - To get ahead of women.” Never much, - While in Night’s cushion stars like pin-heads shine. - - Oh, listen to me, for the tale I tell - Is of Chicago, and the latest out, - And by the noble _Tribune_ novelist. - “Say, do you mean it, honest Injun, now?” - Said Vivian O’Riley to his sire. - “And faith I do,” the earnest sire replied: - “Marry this girl if so ye choose, me son, - But—if ye do—the divil a ha’penny - Of all me fortune will yees ever see, - While in Night’s cushion stars like pin-hids shine.” - - Two hours have passed, and so have eight or ten - Slow-rolling tramway cars, until there comes - The one which Vivian wants, and soon it lands - The lover at the door of Pericles - O’Rourke, the father of _bellissima_, - The Lady Ethelberta. Lo, she sits - In her boudoir (the high-toned word for “room”), - Casting her soul in reverie o’er the trees, - While in Night’s cushion stars like pin-heads shine. - - “I have bad news for you, my utmost own,” - Said Vivian in sad tones unto his love. - “Cusses and crocuses upon my luck! - And damns and daffodils on everything!” - And as he spoke there came into his face - A grey old scaly look which seemed to say, - _Don’t bluff or you’ll be called_. “My dad and I - Have had a round about, and he has dis— - Sis—sis—inherited me; and I have - Been given the g.-b. on your account, - My be—b—beau—tiful. And I am now - A beg—egg—eggar for you, Bertie dear! - While in Night’s cushion stars like pin-heads shine. - - Her soft dusk eyes grew wide and serious. - - “Yes,” he continued, “I am regular poor, - Poor as a busted Indian, and of course - It follows in the logic of our life - That I must give you up. I cannot ask - One in the golden glory of events - To come and share a fate which runs upon - A thousand annual dollars. Ne’er a case. - While in Night’s cushion stars like pin-heads shine.” - - She looked at him with an incarnadine, - Rich, passionate, scarlet-sanguine crimson flush - Surging into her cheeks. If it had been - A _full_, ’tis probable that Vivian - Would have gone under; but a _flush_ - Could never scare him or his similar, - While in Night’s cushion stars like pin-heads shine. - - “Oh, Vivian!” she gurgled, like a dove, - “Oh, do you think I will let up on you? - And do you deem I would go back upon - The note I signed, and run to protest?—no— - Not while the snowy paper of my truth - Is quiréd by the young-eyed cherubim, - And in Night’s cushion stars like pin-heads shine.” - - Three months or ninety days went by, and then - Upon a golden Californian - December afternoon, with azure skies - Like those of summer as they are produced - In less expensive countries, men beheld - A diamondaine wedding at the house - Of Ethelberta’s sire. As Vivian - And his fair bride sat in the car—ri—age - Which bore them to the station, ever on - She gazed upon him like a Lamia - With a strange look, which one might call, in fact, - A weirdly precious smile. He gazed at her. - “And so you would not leave me, love?” he cooed, - “Even when you thought me poor?” And she replied, - “Never, my precious one. I learned lang syne - That when a sucker once drops off the hook - It never bites again. And well you know - That you were on the point of dropping off, - And so your pa and I put up the job - So as to land you, dear—as faith we did— - A little quicker. Oh, men, men, men, men! - If ye thus round, girls _will_ get square with you, - While in Night’s cushion stars like pin-heads shine.” - - - - - THE STORY OF MR. SCROPER, ARCHITECT - - - Yes, I’ll tell you how it happened—that, too, with all due respect - To the memory of Scroper, late departed architect— - How it came that he departed so abruptly in the train; - Why it was he’s been so late, too, in returnin’ back again. - - Now some folks are born to greatness, some achieve it, as you’ve read; - And some justly stand and take it as it dollops on their head; - But in this sublime Republic, where it’s help and help again, - We all generally make it in cahoot with other men. - - Scroper was a fine young fellow, of a monstrous enterprise; - Likewise really ambitious, for he was so bound to rise, - And he left no stone unturned—nor a log—he rolled ’em all, - Till at last he got the contract for our new great City Hall. - - Now, of all our mortal actors here upon this earthly stage, - The contractors have the hardest parts to play, I will engage; - Specially in bran-new cities, just between the knead and bake, - And where all the population are severely on the make. - - What between the Common Council, and the more uncommon sort, - Politicians, Press, and preachers, Scroper fell uncommon short. - All of such as come a-plummin’ when a puddin’s to be had; - All against his best contractin’ counteractin’ mighty bad. - - Therefore when this edificial had got up his edifice, - All who’d not been edifishing with him soon got up a hiss; - Said the stuff upon the buildin’ was the worst that could be had, - Likewise called the architexture architechnically bad. - - So it came one solemn evenin’ in a Presbyterian rain - Mr. Scroper all in silence gently took the Northern train; - All he left was one small message to a friend who shared his home,— - _When the darned affair blows over, telegraph for me to come_. - - So he sat one summer mornin’, far away in Montreal, - Musin’ on his recent patrons, while at heart he darned ’em all, - When there came a little letter datin’ from his recent home,— - “_All the thing is quite blown over, back again we bid you come_. - - “_For last night we had a tempest,—while the mighty thunder rang,_ - _Up there came a real guster, which blew down the whole shebang._ - (_Shebang_’s a word from Hebrew, meanin’ Seven, sayeth Krupp, - And applied to any shanty where they play at seven-up.) - - “_Truly it was well blown over all to splinders in the night,_ - _And the winds of heaven are blowing o’er the ruins as I write._” - Gentlemen, the story’s over. It would last for many a day - If it told of every buildin’ built upon the swindlin’ lay. - - - - - THAT INTERESTIN’ BOY - - -HE sat upon the window-sill and jingled ninety cents. There came -along another boy, who said, “How are you, Pence? You’re goin’ out -a-Christmassin’, I guess, among the Dutch, to buy some gifts.” The -other spoke: “No—not exactly much. I am in luck, this year, I am. -I haven’t any bills. My sister’s sick, and can’t expect no presents but -her pills. My brother Ben’s in Canada, away upon the wing. Of -course, you know he can’t suppose I’ll buy him anything. My mother -pulled my hair, last night, until she made me squall. Of course she -knows that she’s gone up for anything at all.” “But there’s your father,” -said his friend. “Well,—yes—I really thought that I was stuck on the -old man, and that he had me caught, and I was kinder looking round -to hunt him up a pipe; but then, this very mornin’ he hit me such a -wipe! That fixed his Christmas goose for him, and took away his joy. -Now all this money’s goin’ to a good and clever boy, to buy him lots of -pea-nuts and candy, I’ll engage—with caramels; and that good boy is -just my size and age.” - - - - - MISS MILES, THE TELEGRAPH GIRL - - - Thy heart is like some icy lake, - On whose cold brink I stand; - Oh, buckle on my spirit’s skate, - And take me by the hand! - - 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. - - _Spiritualistic Poetry._ - - Since Soul first basked in Passion’s sun, - I always ran to seed - In seeking One who’d gone and done - Some great heroic deed; - And deemed I’d find Life’s Earnest Truth - In Gloriana Clarke, - Whose eyes were like two carriage lamps - Advancing through the dark. - - But as the rose of morning fades - Before the fire of noon, - Or sparrows yield in sylvan glades - To mocking-birds in June, - My Gloriana’s stock went down— - Its wheat all turned to chaff— - When I got in with Mary Miles, - Who ran the telegraph. - - Her brow betokened serious life; - I knew my final queen; - A soul divine in gaiter-boots, - A Dream in crinoline. - Her parasol a glory seemed - Around a vivid saint, - The whole one spirit-photograph - Illumed with heavenly paint. - - And thus she lifted up her voice, - That mission-mantled maid; - And thus she spoke with golden grace, - And sacredly she said— - A-pointing at me all the time - With that same parasol, - The light which gleams from silent lands - Around her seemed to fall— - - “You’ve told of great and holy deeds— - I s’pose they all are true— - But in our telegraphic line - We’ve some adventures, too; - And though I do not like to boast - Of what I ever done, - _One_ thing my Moral Consciousness - Declares was Number One. - - “Last Fall I was in Tennessee - A-travelling might and main, - When all at once the engine broke— - They couldn’t run the train; - And if another train should come - ’Twould rather make us scream.” - List to the glorious deed she did, - This angel of my dream. - - “I saw a telegraphic line - Was running by our _rout_, - Though not a house or a machine - Was anywhere about. - And the conductor said, said he, - With his wild eyes of light: - ‘Miss Miles, if we’d a battery, - I’d fix this scrape all right. - - “‘I’d send ’em down a telegram - Some twenty miles below, - And ask for help.’ I looked at him— - ‘I’ll fix the business, Joe. - Is there a pair of nippers here? - If so, those nippers bring; - And if you can’t, a sharp-edged file - Would be a heaven-sent thing.’” - - “Unshadowed girl! I see the dodge,” - I cried in rapturous joy; - “And didst thou climb the post thyself?” - Said she, “I did, my boy. - A higher law of moral truth - Gave courage to my soul; - I did not show my garters once - In going up the pole. - - “No poet ever felt such thrills - In touching of his lyre - As I did when I found there came - A message through the wire. - That wire I cut, and ’tween my teeth - I held it—ay, with pride— - And with my tongue the current clicked - To the wire on t’other side. - - “On one side came the message in - From some man in New York: - ‘_Buy if you can, at ninety-five,_ - _Five thousand sides of pork._’ - And this same electricity - I changed as in a flash: - ‘_Send down an engine right away,_ - _Or we shall go to smash._’ - - “The engine came, and all were saved— - Yet life is but a Dream. - I live—thou livest in a cloud: - We are not what we seem. - Still craving for the Infinite - In Time’s ideal lodge, - I grasped a truth—yet after all - ’Twas but an earthly dodge.” - - I gazed upon that spirit grand, - Upon my knees I sank, - And from mine eyes the burning sand - The scalding tear-drops drank. - Then soft she smiled: “If deeds like this - Can yield such victory, - And I am in your line, my love, - Then, love, I yield to thee.” - - Ho, maidens of Vienna’s show! - Ho, matrons of Lucerne! - Look out for us next summer, when - We give your shop a turn. - I have won my soul’s ideal, - I have booked her for a wife; - And the Fancy and the Real - Are united in my life. - - - - - AN AMERICAN COCK-TALE - - - PROFESSOR LUTHER CRANMER BANGS - Has travelled in Europe more than a year, - And no one need ever be troubled with pangs - At telling him aught which he thought was severe; - For there’s ne’er a Yankee of any size, - No matter how sharply he chaffs or slangs, - That can boast he ever has taken a rise - On Professor Luther Cranmer Bangs. - - _He_ was the man whom Dr. Snayle - Read a lecture to on a morning call— - Read it clear through from bill to tail; - And Bangs like Old Piety bore it all. - Said Snayle, when the sheets were all up-read, - “I’m a-going with this to Boston, you know”— - “I’m glad to hear it,” his listener said: - “I always _did_ hate those Bostonians so!” - - Well, last week on a City Atlas ’bus - The Professor and I went riding down, - While the driver politely gave to us - Opinions on things about the town. - And finding my friend was “prone to receive,” - And came from the Western land afar, - He told him just what one _ought_ to believe - In politics, piety, love, and war. - - Then glancing at Bangs, who sat to leeward, - Looking as mild as cambric tea, - He said: “I once ’ad—but I soon got cured - Of—a wish to go to Amerikee. - I was tired of always a-drivin’ these cusses, - And so I thought I would like to range”—— - “You were right,” said Bangs. “In our Yankee ’busses - It’s the _driver_ who takes (and keeps) the change!” - - Sharp glanced the driver at Bangs; then said, - “What scared me of goin’ was this, d’ye see,— - I’d a friend in New York, whose letters I read; - And he wrote: In the whole of your country, - He ’ad looked the biggest graveyards through, - Looked ’em through with uncommon keer, - But never ’ad come to a single view - Of a cove[10] as wos aged fifty year. - - “And as this is the case in hevery State, - I think there’s nothink on hearth for cure’n - A chap hof a fancy to hemigrate - Like readin’ of them graveyards of yourn. - So I thought I’d rather perlong my breath, - Tho’ sometimes here a fellow they hangs”—— - “You are right, my friend. Choose your own way of death, - _I_ go in for that,” said Professor Bangs. - - “But I see you have not understood - Why no aged person is ever found - Among us. We only want _young_ blood - On our driving, thriving, Yankee ground. - Youth alone has the power to go it; - Old men are a drag on putting it through, - So we kill them off—and our tombstones show it— - Before they arrive at forty-two.” - - Here the driver gave a long _cher_—_rup_! - And gazed at the Yankee, dark and wan, - As if he had woke the wrong passenger up - While calmly Professor Bangs went on: - “In walking up and down Broadway, - Large mourning sign-boards at times appear - With this inscription in letters grey— - ‘_Elderly persons extinguished here_.’ - - “And they put in your hand a pamphlet small, - Adapted to people of different stations, - Which cites the law, and exhorts them all - _To dismiss in peace_ their old relations. - ‘Why let them linger in a vale,’ - It states, ‘where often colds they catch? - Send them to _us_, and we’ll end the tale - With politeness, humanity, and dispatch.’ - - “‘N.B.—For those who would die by the trigger - We’ve a merciful man who’s a practised shot, - With an elegant room, and a careful nigger - To lay them genteelly out on the spot. - Our principal has a chemist of fame, - Whom he exclusively employs on - Those who set their checks on a different game - And like to pass to heaven by poison.’ - - “’Tis thus the ladies generally choose it; - They love to die without pain or pangs - By a nice little globule—who could refuse it? - None but a man,” said Professor Bangs. - “A _saw buck_ extra they always charge - For the stylish mode of extinguishing breath. - A saw buck’s ten dollars. It’s rather large, - But then it ensures you a _cocktail_ death.” - - “Vot may that be?” said the driver, meekly, - In the tone of a greatly altered man. - I observed that he seemed to be growing weakly - Since the Professor his story began. - “A cocktail’s a tipple—America vaunts of it— - So flavoured, so foamy, so spiced, and whirled, - That he who can get as much as he wants of it - Very soon drinks himself out of the world. - - “’Tis said in the sky—right over Paris, - Where the American heaven is found, - Where everything brick-like and fast and rare is— - The cocks with tumblers for tails run round. - They cut to the bar for all things thinkable,— - All that is nice is a gratis boon,— - Then they come back with your favourite drinkable - And their sickle-feather’s a silver spoon! - - “But he who invented the cocktail brew is - The man before you. Thus came the hint: - I had once been kissing a pretty Jewess, - Who just before had been nibbling mint; - And in order to recall the taste - Which I found in pressing her luscious two lips, - I mingled brandy and mint, in haste, - With sugar and ice—and thus made Juleps. - - “The first step was, therefore, the julep perfected, - Which gives us a _menthal_ spirit of wine; - And finding myself thereby respected, - I sought to make bitter and sweet combine. - So I took of bitters aromatic - (I prefer the tincture of bark myself, - With orange flavoured, but if you lack it, - Try any kind on the bar-room shelf). - - “And I fixed them with sugar, and ice, and spirits, - In a silver tumbler, lightning-quick, sir, - Which I shook till all their several merits - Were combined in one subtle and strange elixir. - Then I passed it through a silver sieve - Kept carefully free from spot or rust; - And the final jimglorious touch to give, - I threw in a sprinkle of nutmeg-dust. - - “And I am told by the spirit-rappers - That in the American Paris-heaven, - Though they’ve fancy drinks which are total snappers, - There’s nothing better than mine are given. - So they die in New York without any pangs, - For they know in the next world, to requite ’em, - They’ll sit over Paris,” said Mr. Bangs, - “A-drinking cocktails _ad infinitum_.” - - Here we got down, and the driver said, - “Vell, _you_’re of the kind that will allers bang ’em!” - And turning our mocassins homeward, we sped - To that great American wigwam, the Langham. - Said Bangs, “O’er _my_ eyes there is drawn no wool. - That man has no heart who would tell you a mock tale; - But story for story I told to the Bull, - What I call a real American cocktail.” - ------ - -[10] _Cove_, a word erroneously supposed to be slang. It is derived from -the Gypsy _covo_ or _covi_, meaning _that_—that fellow, that thing. - - - - - JUDGE WYMAN - A RURAL YANKEE LEGEND - - - Long ago, in the State of Maine, - There lived a Judge—a good old soul, - Rather well up in “genial vein,” - And not by any means “down on” the bowl. - N.B.—By “bowl” I mean the “cup,” - And by “cup”—N.B.—I mean a _glass_, - Since neither bowls nor cups go up - At present when we our liquor pass. - (Although I recall— - ’Tis three years this Fall— - When travelling in the wilderness, - And things were all in an awful mess, - And our crockery, with a horrible crash, - Had gone its way to eternal smash) - (It came, as the driver allowed, from racin’), - We drank champagne from a tin wash-basin. - Excuse the digression—_non est crimen_— - And return to our Judge, whose name was Wyman. - The Judge oft drank in a hostelrie - Kept by a man whose name was Sterret, - Where he met with jolly company, - But where the whisky was void of merit. - The real Minié rifle brand, - That at forty rods kills out of hand. - - Well, it came to pass that one night the Judge - At Sterret’s, after a long, hot day, - Got so tight that he couldn’t budge, - And found himself “well over the bay,” - With a “snake in his boot” and one in his hat, - Like a biled owl, or a monkey horned, - Tangle-legged, hawk-eyed, on a bat, - Peepy, skewered, and slewed, and corned. - Couldn’t tell a skunk from a pint of Cologne, - Couldn’t see the difference ’tween _fips_ and cents; - And when he attempted to walk alone, - Simply made a Virginia fence; - Till liquor yielded at last to sleep, - And he sank into Dream River—four miles deep. - - _Sanctus Ivus fuit Brito, advocatus sed non latro._ - “Saint Ives the Briton first took a brief, - For though a lawyer he wasn’t a thief.” - This is what the story declares, - Which says he listens to lawyers’ prayers. - Likely enough! perhaps he may— - Whenever a lawyer tries to pray! - But another legend, old and quaint, - Assigns them a different kind of saint, - With a singular foot and peculiar hue, - Whose breath is tinged with a beautiful blue; - - And this was _rather_ the saint, I think, - Who inspired the young lawyers, twenty-four, - Who helped Judge Wyman to stow his drink, - And made them rejoice to hear him snore. - Who, save the devil, would not have wept - To see these graceless legal loons - Tricking the good old Judge as he slept, - And filling his pockets with Sterret’s spoons? - With silver spoons; likewise for butter - A handsome ten-dollar silver knife; - Then put Judge Wyman on a shutter, - And carried him home to his loving wife. - - If any ladies read these rhymes, - Which in Edgar A. Poetry are called “runes,” - They may just imagine what sort of times - Mrs. Wyman had when she found the spoons! - The Judge’s grief was full of merit, - And his lady wasn’t inclined to flout it; - But she quietly took the spoons to Sterret, - And nothing more was said about it. - A month went by, and _Fama_, the wench! - Had not spread a whisper to urge remorse, - And Judge Wyman sat on the legal bench, - Trying a fellow for stealing a horse. - The evidence was all due north. - It froze the prisoner every minute, - Till Judge Wyman called the culprit forth, - And asked what “he had to say _agin_ it?” - - The prisoner looked at the planks of pine - Of the little rural court-house ceiling, - At all the jury in a line, - Then answered, his only small card dealing, - “Judge, I hev lots of honesty, - But when I’m drunk I can’t control it; - And as for this ’ere hoss—d’ye see?— - I was drunk as blazes when I stole it.” - Answered the Judge, “If this Court were a dunce, - She would say, in law that is no excuse; - For the Court held that opinion _once_, - But of late her connection’s been gettin’ loose. - One may be certain on law to-day, - And find himself to-morrow dumb.— - - “But answer me one thing truly, and say - Where’bouts it was you got your rum?” - “I drank because I was invited, - And got my rum at Sterret’s, d’ye see?” - “Mr. Sheriff,” cried the Judge, excited, - “This instant set that poor man free! - The liquor that Sterret sells, by thunder! - Would make a man do anything, - And some time or other, I shouldn’t wonder - If it made a saint on the gallows swing; - It will run a man to perdition quicker - Than it takes a fiddler to reel off tunes; - _Why, this Court herself once got drunk on that liquor,_ - _And stole the whole of old Sterret’s spoons_!” - - - - - IN NEVADA - - - Like an awful alligator - Breathing fire and screeching hell-some, - With a pack of hounds behind him, - As if hunted by the devil, - Came the smoking locomotive, - Followed by the cars and tender, - Down among the mountain gorges, - Till it stopped before a village - As the starry night came on. - - Just before a mountain village, - Where there was a howling shindy - Just around a bran-new gallows, - With a roaring blazing bonfire - Casting a red light upon it, - While a crowd of roughest rowdies - Shouted, “Cuss him! darn his vitals! - Bust him! sink him! burn him! skin him!” - Evidently much excited - As the starry night came on. - - On the gallows stood a culprit - Shrieking painfully for mercy. - As the train and engine halted, - Louder yelled the gasping victim. - Then out cried the grim conductor, - “What in thunder is the matter? - What’s ye doin’ with that feller? - Why’ve ye got both fire and gallows?” - And unto him some one answered, - As the starry night came on:— - - “This all-fired, skunk-eyed villain, - Whom you see upon the gallows, - Lately stole the loveliest mewel[11] - That you ever sot your peeps on, - For a hundred shiny dollars, - Went and sold it to the Greasers; - But, as you perceive, we’ve nailed him, - And at present we’re debatin’ - Whether we had better hang him, - Or else roast him like an Injun, - Ere the starry night comes on. - - “And I think ez ther ar’ ladies - Here to grace this gay occasion, - In the train, and quite convenient, - We had better take and burn him. - ’Twould be kinder interestin’, - Or, as folks might say, romantic, - To behold an execution, - As we do ’em here in Hell Town, - In the real frontier fashion, - Ere the starry night comes on.” - - Up from all the assembled ladies, - And from all the passageros, - Went a scream of protestation,— - “What! for nothing but a mewel! - Only for a hundred dollars - Roast alive a fine young fellow! - Never, never, never, ne—ver!” - Falling on her knees, a damsel - Begged the maddened crowd to spare him, - And to her replied the spokesman, - As the starry night came on:— - - “Since the lady begs it of us, - And as we ar’ galiant fellers, - We will smash the tail of Jestis, - And will spare this orful miscrint, - Ef you’ll raise a hundred dollars - To replace the vanished mewel. - Then this fiend, unwhipped, undamaged, - May go wanderin’ to thunder, - Soon as he darnation pleases, - Ere the starry night comes on.” - - Straight among the pitying ladies, - And the other passageros, - Went the hat around in circle. - Dollars, quarters, halves, and greenbacks - Rained into it till the hundred - Was accomplished, and the ransom - Paid unto Judge Lynch in person, - Who received it very gracious, - And at once released the prisoner, - Sternly bidding him to squaddle, - Just as fast as he could make it, - Ere the starry night came on. - And the lady who by kneeling - Had destroyed the path of justice, - Seized upon the fine young fellow, - He who had the mulomania, - Or who was a kleptomuliac; - And she led him by the halter, - While the reckless population - Made atrocious puns upon it; - And she stowed him in the Pullman - As the safest sanctuary, - As the starry night came on. - - It was over. Loud the whistle - Blew a signal of departure; - Still the dying bonfire flickering - Showed on high the ghastly gallows, - Seeming like some hungry monster - Disappointed of a victim, - Gasping as in fitful anger, - Pouring out unto the gallows - Or the sympathetic scaffold - All the story of its sorrow, - As the clouds passed o’er the moon-face, - And the starry night came on. - - Soon the train and those within it - Reached and passed a second station, - And was speeding ever onward, - When at once a shriek came ringing— - ’Twas an utterance from the lady - Who by tears had baffled justice; - Loud she cried, “Where is my hero? - Where, oh, where’s the handsome prisoner?” - And the affable conductor - Searched the train from clue to ear-ring, - But they could not find the captive. - He had clearly just evaded - At the station just behind them, - As the starry night came on. - Then outspoke a man unnoted - Hitherto: “I heard the fellow - Say just now to the conductor, - Ere we reached the second teapot, - That he reckoned he must hook it - This here time a little sooner, - If he hoped to get his portion - Of the hundred, since the last time - He came awful nigh to lose it; - For it might be anted off all - ’Fore he got a chance to strike it, - Ere the starry night came on.” - - And the Unknown thus continued: - “They hev hed that gallows standin’ - All the summer, and the people - Mostly git ther livin’ from it, - For they take ther turns in bein’ - Mournful victims who hev stolen - Every one a lovely mewel; - And they always every evenin’ - Hev the awful death-fire kindled, - And the ghastly captive ready. - It’s the fourth time I hev seen it, - Comin’ through and never missed it; - Only for a variation - Now and then they hire a nigger - For the people from New England, - As the starry night comes on. - - “And they find that fire and gallows - Just as good as a bonanza, - For they got the Legislater - Lately to incopperate it; - And I hear the stock is risin’ - Up like prairie smoke in autumn. - Yes, in this world men diskiver - Cur’ous ways to make a livin’, - Ez you’ll find when you hev tried it - For a year or so about here.” - And the passengers in silence - Mused upon this new experience, - Most of all the fine young lady, - As the dragon darted onward, - And the starry night came on. - ------ - -[11] Mule. - - - - - THE PHILANTHROPIC CLUB - - - I am the member of a club of reg’lar noble seeds, - Whose object is to give rewards for philanthropic deeds. - We root for magnanimity as spiders hunt for flies, - So we lately held a meeting to award our annual prize. - - Then our President reported with great solemnity - The case of Dayball Carter, a man in Tennessee, - Who plunged into a burning store as if his doom had come, - But emergéd with an infant—and a gallon jug of rum. - - But the club could nowise settle, admitting all the fact, - If the baby or the liquor had inspired the noble act, - For ’twas proved he kept the liquor while he let the infant go, - So the case of Mr. Carter was adjourned _in dubio_. - - Then the Secretary read us, in very moving tones, - The wondrous case of courage of General Pompey Jones, - Who found a hydrophobic dog upon a neighbour’s farm, - And roped his neck and led him off where he could do no harm. - - Then Brother Chunk, of Pewterville, declared that it was sad - To have to state that Jones had no idea the dog was mad, - And that in circles where he moved ’twas very freely said - He’d picked it up intending to come out one dog ahead. - - Then the next case reported in the doings of the day - Was that of Huckleberry Pod, a man in Iowa, - Who slopped into a raging flood to save a drowning maid, - And did it like a beaver, as admiring neighbours said. - - Then Brother Chunk again let down his fist with startling bump, - And said he’d found that Mr. Pod refused to make the jump - Till offered fifty dollars by the people of the town, - And that then he wouldn’t do it till he got the money down. - - Last of all we heard the instance of Golias Purple Fife, - Who went into an awful well to save a fellow’s life, - A man who always spoke of Fife as of a blooming fool, - And who recently had done him blind in trading for a mule; - - And on top of this, moreover, in addition, ’twas a fact, - He refused a quarter-dollar for this noble manly act, - And when they asked him what he’d drink, or if he’d take a bite, - He jumped in silence on his mule and rode into the night. - - This case, in the opinion of the members of the club, - Was much the most deserving, and the nearest to the hub; - And each allowed he’d never heard the like in all his life, - So, by general acclamation, they bestowed the prize on Fife:— - - A silver-plated snuff-box, with a compass in the lid, - With the words, “_If sold at auction always do as you are bid_,” - Which we sent him in a hurry ere it might be understood - That this, too, was not an instance of the pure unmingled good. - - And these are the proceedings of these noble-minded seeds, - Who make it their profession to discover virtuous deeds; - And every day turns out a lot, but still ’tis on our mind - That a case without a speck in it is very hard to find. - - - - - THE COLOURED FORTUNE-HUNTER - - - Pete Jonsing went to see the County Clerk - About a marriage license, and the man - Said unto him for fun, but seriously: - “I hope the bride possesses fifty cents, - Because the Legislature’s passed a law - That any girl with less must not be wed.” - “Jis’ go ahead wid dat ’ar paper, Boss,” - Peter replied; then whispered, bending down: - “Dar’s rumers—and dey is reliable— - Dat de young woman dat I’m goin’ fur - Has got two dollars and a quarter—_shoa_. - And dat’s de reason wy I marries her.” - - - - - PENN - ON A TEXT BY ROBERT BURDETTE - - - When William Penn appeared before King Charles - To get the charter of his Promised Land - In Pennsylvaniá, - ’Twas in his usual free-and-easy style, - With hands in pockets and his hat on side— - Singing _Lard-dardy day_! - _Let us drink and be merry, laugh, sing, and rejoice,_ - _With claret and sherry, theorbo and voice,_ - _Merry-ton-ton-ton ta-lay!_ - - King Charles at once removed his feathered tile. - “Keep on your hat, young man!” said William Penn, - “It is our Quaker way; - And people will not know that you are bald; - Be quite at home to make your guests at home— - Singing _Lard-dardy day_! - _This changeable world to our joys is unjust,_ - _All treasure’s uncertain, so down with your dust,_ - _Merry-ton-ton-ton ta-lay!_” - - “It is the custom here,” the King replied, - “For only one to cover at a time; - This is the courtly way.” - “Then you should have more covers,” warbled Penn. - “Warm people’s heads to make them merry men— - Singing _Lard-dardy day_! - _And in frolics dispose of your shillings and pence,_ - _Since we all shall be past it a hundred years hence,_ - _Merry-ton-ton-ton ta-lay_! - - “’Tis a queer world, and faith! I do not lay - My hat around, loose, in a domicile - Where I don’t know the way, - Unless some party gives a check for it; - I’ve travelled some—I have—and can’t be bit— - Singing _Lard-dardy day_! - Since, despite your invention, and learning, and sense, - You’ll be _non est inventus_ a hundred years hence, - _Merry-ton-ton-ton ta-lay!_” - - “Odds-fish!” exclaimed his Royal Majesty, - “He talks full well, but as it seems to me, - According to our way, - There’s a tremendous pig in this same Penn.” - “Bravo, young man!” said William; “try again— - Singing _Lard-dardy day_! - You have brought me a terrible one on the nob, - But I bear you no malice, not being a snob, - _Merry-ton-ton-ton ta-lay!_” - - And thus it is that history is writ, - And thus it is good men are slandered sore - From ever till to-day. - Some writer pastes a joke; it may remain - Safe in a corner from Time’s wind and rain - Till Time has rolled away. - _So, hurrah for King Charles! and hurrah, too, for Penn!_ - _And all such and similar excellent men!_ - _Merry-ton-ton-ton ta-lay!_ - - - - - BALLAD OF THE FOXES - - - There is a golden glory in my song - As of a picture by Carpaccio, - For it is of the early morning-time - When every man believed with tender faith - That animals could talk—oh, lovely lore! - So, lady, listen as the lay runs on. - - There was a goose, and she was travelling - Across the land for her dyspepsia, - And at the noontide sat to rest herself - In a small thicket, when there came along - Two starving foxes, perishing to find - Something which was not too-too-utter-ish - To serve for dinner. And as they were wild - For want of food, it was but natural - That they should likewise be confounded cross; - Oh, lady, listen as the lay runs on! - - And as they halted near the thicket, one - Of them observed, “If you were half as sharp - As books make out, you would not now, I’ll bet, - Be ravenous enough to gnaw the grass.” - “And if you were as big, or half as big, - As you believe you are,” snarled Number Two, - “You’d be a lion of the largest size - _Minus_ his roar, and pluck, and dignity.” - Oh, listen, lady, as the lay runs on! - - “Please to observe I want no impudence - From any fifteen-nickel quadruped - Of your peculiar shape,” snapped Number One. - “And if you give me but another note - Of your chin-music,” snarled out Number Two, - “I’ll make a wreck of you, you wretched beast, - Beyond insurance—bet your tail on that!” - Oh, lady, listen as the lay runs on! - - “You are the champion snob of all the beasts!” - “And you the upper scum of all the frauds.” - “You are the weathercock of infamy.” - “And you the lightning-rod of falsehood’s spire.” - “You are a thief!” “Ditto.” “You lie.” “I ain’t.” - “Shut up, you goy!” And hearing this, the goose - Could bear no more, but walking from the bush, - Put on expression most benevolent, - And said, “Oh, gentlemen, for shame! for shame! - I’ll settle this dispute: in the first place - Let me remark, as an impartial friend——” - Oh, listen, lady, as the lay runs on! - - But she did not remark, because they made - A rush at her and caught her by the throat, - And ate her up; and as they picked their teeth - With toothpicks made of her last pin-feathers, - The first observed, and that quite affably, - “Only a goose would ever make attempt - To settle a dispute when foxes fight”— - Oh, lady, listen as the lay runs on! - - “And while I have a very great respect - For any peacemaker,” said Number Two, - “I would suggest that I invariably - Have found, if they be really honest folk - Who interfere with reprobates like us, - They’re always eaten up; there is, I think, - More clanship between devils any day - Than among all the angels. Interest - Binds us together, and howe’er we fight - Among ourselves to ease our bitter blood, - We do not hate each other half as much - As we do hate the good. Neighbours who fight - Can generally take most perfect care, - Not only of themselves, but of the goose - Who sticks her bill into the fuss they make. - This banquet now adjourns until it meets - Another wingéd angel of the sort - Which it has just discussed—may it be soon!” - Lady, this lyric runs no further on. - - - - - EST MODUS IN REBUS - A NARRATIVE OF NEW YORK - - - I would not say to man, “Don’t spread yourself - To win the admiration of mankind,” - Since he who never spreads can never shine, - And he who never shines is never seen, - And he who’s never seen is counted out - In the great game of life; yet what is spread - Too thin entirely, when the sun shines out - Must soon dry up and be a fly-away. - - There was a man who took his daily dine - At a delightful _table d’hôte_, where he - Was waited on by an obedient youth, - Who, as a waiter, was a paragon - Of quick politeness. He’d apologise - If the sun shone too much, or if it rained, - And say in simple faith that he would speak - To the proprietor and have it changed, - Then vanish like an elfin fly-away. - - The vulgar boarder at this _table d’hôte_ - Was one who greatly loved to spread himself - And play the imperial before the rest; - And finding that the waiter cushioned it, - Sat down on him severely. Every time - He spoke he called him names, and said that he - Forthwith would punish him in cruel wise - Unless he tortled faster, or unless - The steak was better cooked. And then he’d swear— - Oh, death and dandelions! how he would swear! - Till all the blood of all the boarders round - Was almost turned to cherry-water ice, - And each and all wished they could fly away. - - And yet this waiter had a fund reserved - Of pretty stout pugnacity and pride, - And every time the boarder called him “fool,” - Or “low-born rooster,” he would add it up - To the preceding pile of expletives, - And think it over. He did not forget - A single word. Of all the abusatives - There was not one which proved a fly-away. - - At last the crisis came, when one fine day, - For some imagined fault, the boarder said - Unto the waiter, that unless he stirred - A little quicker he would bung his eye, - And take him by the legs _instanter_-ly - And wipe the floor with him. But with that word - He overdrew the account. That was the fly - Which overset the camel, and the drop - Which made the pail slop over. For the youth - On that let out his Injun. All at once - He turned both red and white, as fat and lean - Are seen in a beefsteak before ’tis cooked, - And blew his soul out in a fly-away. - - “You misspelled copy of a gentleman - With all the meaning lost!—if you dare call - Me names again as you have often done, - I’ll bung your pallid eyes. You’ve said too much, - So now just dwindle down. I’ve always been - Obedient and polite, and served you well, - As you were never served by any one, - And all you ever gave me was abuse, - And all because you were a vulgar fool. - Now stop your noise, or I will sling you out - Of yonder window for a fly-away!” - - The boarder rose as if in roaring wrath, - The waiter jerked his linen jacket off - And fairly danced about in gypsy style, - Impatient for a fight. But then the guest - As if with self-command restrained himself, - And said to the assembled company, - “There must be lines in all society - To regulate our conduct. Lines, I say, - Which separate us from the vulgar herd, - With whom we may not fight. I draw the line - At waiters.” Here he looked about the room - To be applauded; but the only sound - Which rose was that of a tremendous slap - On his own face, and then a mighty roar - Of laughter from the happy company, - For all his valour was a fly-away. - - So he sat down too terrified to speak; - And then the waiter took a dripping jug - Of ice-water and poured out every drop - Upon his head, yea, water, ice, and all; - And then that boarder burst in bitter tears, - And blubbered like a boy, while all the room - Rang with redoubled laughter. Then a guest - Proposed a vote of thanks to him who had - Put down a public nuisance, and the next - Passed round a hat and took collection up - To give the waiter as a small reward - For punishing a coward. Then he rose, - And since that hour has been a fly-away. - - - - - THE MASHER - - - The word to “mash,” in the sense of causing love or attracting - by a glance or fascinating look, came into ordinary slang from - the American stage. Thus an actress was often fined for - “mashing” or smiling at men in the audience. It was introduced - by the well-known gypsy family of actors, C., among whom Romany - was habitually spoken. The word “masher” or “mash” means in that - tongue to allure, delude, or entice. It was doubtless much aided - in its popularity by its quasi-identity with the English word. A - girl could be called a masher as she could be called a - man-killer, or killing. But there can be no doubt as to the - gypsy origin of “mash” as used on the stage. I am indebted for - this information to the late well-known _impresario_ Palmer of - New York, and I made a note of it years before the term had - become at all popular. - - It was in the Indian summer-time, when life is tender brown, - And people in the country talk of going into town, - When the nights are crisp and cooling, though the sun is warm by day, - In the home-like town of Glasgow, in the State of Iowa; - - It was in the railroad deepô of that greatly-favoured zone, - That a young man met a stranger, who was still not all unknown, - For they had run-countered casual in riding in the car, - And the latter to the previous had offered a cigar. - - Now as the primal gentleman was nominated Gale, - It follows that the secondary man was Mr. Dale; - This is called poetic justice when arrangements fit in time, - And Fate allows the titles to accommodate in rhyme. - - And a lovely sense of autumn seemed to warble in the air; - Boys with baskets selling peaches were vibratin’ everywhere, - While in the mellow distance folks were gettin’ in their corn, - And the biggest yellow punkins ever seen since you were born. - - Now a gradual sensation emotioned this our Gale, - That he’d seldom seen so fine a man for cheek as Mr. Dale; - Yet simultaneous he felt that he was all the while - The biggest dude and cock-a-hoop within a hundred mile. - - For the usual expression of his quite enormous eyes - Was that of two ripe gooseberries who’ve been decreed a prize; - Like a goose apart from berries, too—though not removed from sauce— - He conversed on lovely Woman as if he were all her boss. - - Till, in fact, he stated plainly that, between his face and cash, - There was not a lady living whom he was not sure to mash; - The wealthiest, the loveliest, of families sublime, - At just a single look from him must all give in in time. - - Now when our Dale had got along so far upon the strain, - They saw a Dream of Loveliness descending from the train, - A proud and queenly beauty of a transcendental face, - With gloves unto her shoulders, and the most expensive lace. - - All Baltimore and New Orleans seemed centered into one, - As if their stars of beauty had been fused into a sun; - But, oh! her frosty dignity expressed a kind of glow - Like sunshine when thermometers show thirty grades below. - - But it flashed a gleam of shrewdness into the head of Gale, - And with aggravatin’ humour he exclaimed to Mr. Dale, - “Since every girl’s a cricket-ball and you’re the only bat, - If you want to show you’re champion, go in and mash on that. - - “I will bet a thousand dollars, and plank them on the rub, - That if you try it thither, you will catch a lofty snub. - I don’t mean but what a lady may reply to what you say, - But I bet you cannot win her into wedding in a day.” - - A singular emotion enveloped Mr. Dale; - One would say he seemed confuseled, for his countenance was pale: - At first there came an angry look, and when that look did get, - He larft a wild and hollow larf, and said, “I take the debt. - - “The brave deserve the lovely—every woman may be won; - What men have fixed before us may by other men be done. - You will lose your thousand dollars. For the first time in my life - I have gazed upon a woman whom I wish to make my wife.” - - Like a terrier at a rabbit, with his hat upon his eyes - Mr. Dale, the awful masher, went head-longing at the prize, - Looking rather like a party simply bent to break the peace, - Mr. Gale, with smiles, expected just a yell for the police. - - Oh! what are women made of? Oh! what can women be? - From Eves to Jersey Lilies what bewildering sights we see! - One listened on the instant to all the Serpent said; - The other paid attention right away to Floral Ned. - - With a blow as with a hammer the intruder broke the ice, - And the proud and queenly beauty seemed to think it awful nice. - Mr. Gale, as he beheld it, with a trembling heart began - To realise he really was a most astonished man. - - Shall I tell you how he wooed her? shall I tell you how he won? - How they had a hasty wedding ere the evening was done? - For when all things were considered, the fond couple thought it best— - Such things are not uncommon in the wild and rapid West. - - Dale obtained the thousand dollars, and then vanished with the dream. - Gale stayed in town with sorrow, like a spoon behind the cream; - Till one morning in the paper he read, though not in rhymes, - How a certain blooming couple had been married fifty times! - - How they wandered o’er the country; how the bridegroom used to bet - He would wed the girl that evening,—how he always pulled the debt; - How his eyes were large and greensome; how, in fact, to end the tale, - Their very latest victim was a fine young man named Gale. - - - - - ARIZONA JOHN - - - When in a situation it always pays the best - To have your wits about you, for it helps the interest; - And a man gets so encouraged by succeedin’ when he tries, - That the more you crowd him downward, the more he’s bound to rise. - - As when near Tres Alamos, while workin’ at his mine, - John Lyons, late of Tombstone, without the least design - To involve himself whatever in any kind of tricks, - Got inside an unprovided and a most unpleasant fix. - - John Lyons, late of Tombstone, had but just put in a blast, - When he saw four buck Apaches approximatin’ fast - Upon their headlong horses in a rackaloose career, - And every one preceded by a long projectin’ spear: - - He had planted all the powder, and was just atop the shaft, - While the foemen kept a-comin’ like as they was telegrapht. - To run was to be taken, and to stay was to be slew— - And in such a situation how-whatever could he do? - - Bein’ quick upon the trigger Lyons did not stop to choose, - For a match was in his fingers, so he lighted up the fuse, - And dropped behind a boulder for to disabuse their aim, - When at him like a sheriff’s writ full dig the Injuns came. - - He had timed the fuse so nicely that the ’Paches reached the rock - Exactly at the nick of the explosionary shock: - Bang! How the big rock busted as the powder gave a flare! - While a rain of stones and gravel went a-thunderin’ through the air. - - It was four red Apaches who also had a rise, - And started for the hunting-grounds on horseback thro’ the skies; - Or as if they had the notion, but recalled it there and then, - For they speedily descended as four non-existent men. - - John Lyons, late of Tombstone, just down behind his rock, - Escaped the influential effect of such a shock, - And examinin’ the prospect, he very plainly sees - He has worked the blast quite perfect—likewise slammed his enemies. - - When narratin’ the adventure which I’ve chanted in my song, - If he terms them “blasted Injuns” no one calls his language strong— - For their hopes were surely blasted which they fondly reckoned on, - And with patent giant-powder by this Arizona John. - - - - - THE BALLAD OF CHARITY - - - It was in a pleasant deepô, sequestered from the rain, - That many weary passengers were waitin’ for the train; - Piles of quite expensive baggage, many a gorgeous portmantó, - Ivory-handled umberellas made a most touristic show. - - Whereunto there came a person, very humble was his mien, - Who took an observation of the interestin’ scene; - Closely scanned the umberellas, watched with joy the mighty trunks, - And observed that all the people were securin’ Pullman bunks: - - Who was followed shortly after by a most unhappy tramp, - Upon whose features poverty had jounced her iron stamp; - And to make a clear impression as bees sting you while they buzz, - She had hit him rather harder than she generally does. - - For he was so awful ragged, and in parts so awful bare, - That the folks were quite repulsioned to behold him begging there; - And instead of drawing currency from out their pocket-books, - They drew themselves asunder with aversionary looks. - - Sternly gazed the first newcomer on the unindulgent crowd, - Then in tones which pierced the deepô he solilicussed aloud:— - “I hev trevelled o’er this cont’nent from Quebec to Bogotáw, - But setch a set of scallawags as these I never saw. - - “Ye are wealthy, ye are gifted, ye have house and lands and rent, - Yet unto a suff’rin’ mortal ye will not donate a cent; - Ye expend your missionaries to the heathen and the Jew, - But there isn’t any heathen that is half as small as you. - - “Ye are lucky—ye hev cheque-books and deeposits in the bank, - And ye squanderate your money on the titled folks of rank; - The onyx and the sardonyx upon your garments shine, - An’ ye drink at every dinner p’r’aps a dollar’s wuth of wine. - - “Ye are goin’ for the summer to the islands by the sea, - Where it costs four dollars daily—setch is not for setch as me; - Iv’ry-handled umberellers do not come into my plan, - But I kin give a dollar to this suff’rin’ fellow-man. - - “Hand-bags made of Rooshy leather are not truly at my call, - Yet in the eyes of Mussy I am richer ’en you all, - For I kin give a dollar wher’ you dare not stand a dime, - And never miss it nother, nor regret it any time.” - - Sayin’ this he drew a wallet from the inner of his vest, - And gave the tramp a daddy, which it was his level best; - Other people havin’ heard him soon to charity inclined— - One giver soon makes twenty if you only get their wind. - - The first who gave the dollar led the other one about, - And at every contribution he a-raised a joyful shout, - Exclaimin’ how ’twas noble to relieviate distress, - And remarkin’ that our duty is our present happiness. - - Thirty dollars altogether were collected by the tramp, - When he bid ’em all good evenin’ and went out into the damp, - And was followed briefly after by the one who made the speech, - And who showed by good example how to practise as to preach. - - Which soon around the corner the couple quickly met, - And the tramp produced the specie for to liquidate his debt; - And the man who did the preachin’ took his twenty of the sum, - Which you see that out of thirty left a tenner for the bum. - - And the couple passed the summer at Bar Harbour with the rest, - Greatly changed in their appearance and most elegantly dressed. - Any fowl with change of feathers may a brilliant bird become: - Oh, how hard is life for many! oh, how sweet it is for some! - - - - - MULTUM IN PARVO - - - “Great thoughts are oft expressed in fewest words,” - And I remember how long years ago, - When a great lady in her diary - Of a short visit to the Scottish land, - Recorded of a sorrowful event, - “To-day poor little Vicky, by mischance, - Sat on a wasps’ nest.” All the newspapers - Declared it was a perfect masterpiece - Of excellent conciseness. Yet I think - It was outdone by a Red Indian— - One of the Quoddy tribe—who did the same; - Since he, like “little Vicky,” also sat - Upon a seat as hot; and when he rose, - Briefly exclaimed in his vernacular:— - “_H’lam-kikqu’!_” and being asked what this - Might mean, responded in the English tongue: - “_Heap hell!_” O reader! if the soul of wit - Be brevity, this Indian was there. - - - - - THE ORGANIST OF BERGAMO - - - “For blowing is not playing on the flute, - To do that well you must put fingers to’t.” - - GERMAN PROVERB. - - This is a Merry Tale of Bergamo. - - It chanced in Fifteen Hundred Twenty-Eight - [As I do find the fact recorded in - A pleasing book of Sixteen Thirty-Six - Entitled _Scelta di Facetie_— - A little yellow, quaint, italic tome, - Which looks as if it were behind the age, - And would have been black letter if it could] - That in fair Venice raged a pestilence - Whereof in time full many people died, - And among these a trusty servitor - Who blew the bellows for the organist - All in the great Cathedral of Saint Mark, - Whose billowy pavement truly seems to roll - In time and measure with the music sweet, - So perfect were the harmonies of Art - Which men imagined in the olden time. - - Now as this man had died while at his work, - Even while blowing a _Magnificat_ - All in the holy church, it was adjudged - That he almost deserved to be a saint. - And he who preached the sermon over him - Said that “his soul had risen on the notes - Of the grand anthem which he had inspired, - And having reached the Music all divine - Had softly sunk, as light is lost in light, - Into the pure Celestial.” Here he stopped. - Men were great preachers in the olden time. - - It happened that a certain Giannolo, - _Facchino Bergamasco_, or a man - From Bergamo, a porter by his trade, - Who carried heavy burdens, yet withal - Was not o’erburdened with a load of wit, - Hearing this sermon, got it in his head— - And no great wonder either—that the late - Departed bellows-blower must have been - The Chief Musician of the Holy House; - And knowing that the man who bloweth up - A pair of bagpipes also is the one - Who plays upon the same—drew inference - That the deceased was the true organist, - And he who played thereon his humble aid, - Who only worked to keep the tune in time. - - Now being smitten with a deep desire - To rise in life and also to be called - A Child of Art—with a nice salary— - And have a sermon preached o’er him when dead, - Giannolo unto the Bishop went, - And made a great entreaty to be placed - Among the holy followers of Saint Mark, - And that the aim of his ambition was - _Alzare i mantici quando suonava_ - _gli organi_—that’s to say: - “To lift the bellows when the organ played.” - And as he was a stout and lusty knave - Who might be useful in a hundred ways, - They gladly took him on, so there he stayed - Blowing the bellows faithfully in time. - - I ween there is not in all Italy - A man—unless he came from Bergamo— - Who could have blown an organ seven years - In the full faith that he was playing it, - And was indeed the real organist. - Yet this, in fact, unless the legend lies, - Was what befell Giannolo. By this time, - Having laid by a very handsome sum, - And being well attired though modestly, - As is becoming to a Son of Art, - He went a-visiting his native place, - Where all who were related unto him— - That is to say about one-half the town— - Did greatly marvel at his handsome clothes - And at his air of stately dignity, - But most of all when he informed them that - He was no more a porter: he had felt - Immortal longings in him to arise - Above that vulgar calling, and to soar - “’Mid palpitations sweet and pleasures soft, - The manifestations of that beauteous life - Diffused unseen throughout eternal Space” - Which men call Music; and that he had risen - Even to a monthly salary of ten francs, - Wherewith were many pleasing perquisites; - And that he played the organ in Saint Mark’s, - As all the world allowed, in perfect time. - - Up rose a buzz of strangest wonderment, - Or, as ’tis writ, _Di che restarono_ - _Più maravigliati_; for they all - Were much amazed that such a common man— - _Si vile e si rozzo_—such a boor— - Had risen to the pinnacle of Art - In Venice, where all Art was at its height, - And gained the crown of glory—_Iddio_! - “Ten francs a month besides the perquisites!” - They bowed before him with deep reverence, - Hoping he’d stay with them a little time. - - Then some one spoke with hesitating tone, - As if in fear to take a liberty, - And said: “Your Excellence—if we might dare— - Since we would celebrate the kind return - Of such an Honour to our noble town, - Would you not grace the occasion, and increase - Our joy and sense of deep respectfulness, - By playing Vespers for us in the Dome - On Sunday next?” Giannolo bowed low, - And in a speech adorned with many flowers, - Which he had culled from sermons in Saint Mark, - Acceded gracefully to their request, - And said he would be there to play, in time. - When Sunday came there came with it a crowd - Such as Bergamo never saw before, - For in her streets and past her palaces - Thousands in holiday attire swept on, - And even afar there was a thundering roar, - From time to time, which rolled from square to square, - As when the incoming ocean, with a tide - Urged by a tempest, breaks among the rocks. - Yea, there were many—_tanto popolo_— - All that the church would hold, and then outside - A vast, impatient, brilliant multitude, - Such as had ne’er been there at any time. - - And at the appointed hour Giannolo came, - Rising before the people in his state, - Waiting awhile the appearance of the man - Who was to play the organ while he—blew! - And all the congregation waited too, - All staring steadily at the great man - In anxious expectation, till at last - Giannolo from the pulpit cried aloud: - “Where is the man who is to touch the keys? - What is the use of making music, hey— - And filling up the thing with melody, - As I have come to do, unless there be - Some one to click the bones and let it out? - You don’t suppose that I can raise the wind, - And steer, and sail the ship as well, my friends. - Such things were ne’er beheld at any time.” - - There was an instant’s silence—deep and strange; - In all the great cathedral rang no sound. - All stared at one another open-eyed, - Or at Giannolo—just as if some power - Before unknown in life had seized on them - With a tremendous sense of dire amaze, - Not knowing what the devil it could mean; - When all at once they _took_—and from them all - There rose a roar of laughter like a crash - Of thunder, and so near it that one seemed - To miss the lightning—or, as I might say, - ’Twas like a flash of sound—and then again - It came re-echoed from the multitude - Gathered outside, as the electric peal - Resounds, repeated by the mountain tops. - Yea, such a peal of laughter as the book - Declares “at vespers ne’er was heard before,” - And ne’er again will be at any time. - - * * * * * - - _Moral._ I pray you think upon it well. - There are full many people in this world - Who think that they are wondrous wise in ART, - And who, as Critics, write about the same - In transcendental phrase with capitals, - And call it Faith, and Love, and Heaven knows what, - And cannot think of it without a gasp - And uttering phrases silly, mystical,— - Because they are the empty, windy ones, - Inflating and inflated, who but blow - The bellows of the organ, yet believe - That they are leaders in the Realm of Art! - - - - - THE GOTH AND THE PIGEON - - - Among the merry tales of olden time - Which are still current in fair Italy - Are many told in taverns or in type - About the rude barbarians of the North - Who cross the Alps, even as they did of yore, - When they invaded fertile Lombardy, - And helped themselves to all which pleased their eyes, - And paid for it in iron and with blood: - Those times are fled, but Northmen still are here; - States fall, arts fade, but English yet abound, - And Austrian-Germans and Americans - Stalk proudly through the streets with Baedeker, - Or Murray, with the very gait and air - Of their barbarian ancestors—although - They are cleaner washed and more completely shaved— - Bet high upon the latter; for as once - They came to rob the natives of their goods, - The latter now do live by spoiling them. - And thus strange things do happen in this world. - - Thus we may note that all these foreigners, - Be it the daintiest English dame alive, - Or damsel born in fair America, - Or Russians of a royal family, - Or Frenchmen of the very noblest stock, - Or Viennese as elegant and _fesch_[12] - As even Viennese can be produced— - Wherein they wellnigh rival Baltimore— - Are still regarded by the Italian with - A doubtful smile, who as he smiles exclaims: - “_Sono forestieri_”—which indeed - Means “They are foreigners”—and yet the word - Comes from _Foresto_—savage—desert—wild— - And so do ancient thorns live round the rose. - And thus strange things do happen in the world. - - Now it befell that in the Lombard time - When Dieterich-Theodoric was king, - And from Ravenna ruled all Italy, - The court religion was the Arian, - To which men nowadays an Unit add, - Yet do not add by the process—that I see— - Aught to its value; but the odd result - Was that the Gothic warriors nothing knew - About the mystery of the Trinity,— - Nay, they were even far more ignorant - Than was the English curate, who when asked - What he did understand by the Holy Ghost, - Replied: “I am not sure, but I believe - It is a kind of pigeon.” These poor Goths - Had never learned so much as this youth knew. - And thus strange things do happen in the world. - - Now it befell that once a Visigoth - Stately, while all unconscious of his state, - And proud while nothing thinking of his pride, - Went stalking onwards through the streets of Rome, - Unheeding all the casual passers-by - Who turned to look at him—as a grave bull - Might walk through many sheep—or as my lord - Guy de Plantagenet just now walked by - Before my window, where I writing sit, - In Florence—true he came _bien à propos_. - And thus strange things do happen in this world. - - Well then, this fierce barbarian from the North, - Who as I said was densely ignorant - Of Trinitarian theology, - Was not much further in the Italian tongue, - Seeing that that which he essayed to speak - Was of the _pidgin_ kind,—oh, marvel strange! - Oh, wondrous miracle!—lo, how the Muse - Brings up that word to keep me to my tale! - Ah! what strange things do happen in this world! - - Now as he strode along the Roman street, - With thoughts of dinner flitting through his soul, - Lifting his eyes he saw upon a sign - The picture of a dove with outspread wings - Above the door of a _trattoria_, - Which means a place where you can treat yourself - To what you want—that is, a restaurant. - And ’neath the bird he read inscribed in gold: - _Spirito Santo_; and he gazed at it, - And took an object-lesson, and exclaimed: - “So _that_ is the Italian for a dove! - I must remember it.” So in he went - Repeating ever to himself the words - “_Spirito Santo! Santo Spirito!_” - Those who o’erheard him deemed him a devout - And fervid follower of the Trinity. - And thus strange things do happen in the world. - - And having sat him down, the waiter came - And asked His Excellence what he would have; - To which his Gothic Excellence replied: - “I want a bottle of your noblest wine, - With it a soup of highest quality, - And after that a roast San’ Spirito!” - “A roasted—WHAT? Signore,” cried the man, - As one who had not rightly understood, - While all the guests around did glare amazed. - “I said,” resumed the Northern warrior, - “A _Spirito Santo_, such as you have got - Upon your sign outside—a _bird_, you know, - That moves its wings like this”—and here he moved - His bended arms like wings, both up and down, - While with his voice he murmured _Coo-oo-oo!_ - Or what is called in French a _roucoulement_, - Or _girren_ in the German. Hearing this, - All who were present promptly understood; - And though they all were naturally polite, - And never laughed at any foreigner - Before his face, because he erred in words, - This was too—too—too much, and all burst out - In a tremendous—an Homeric roar. - They drew the line at pigeons; and the Goth - When ’twas explained laughed loudest of them all; - And thus it was he learned another word. - And thus strange things do happen in the world. - ------ - -[12] A very peculiar Viennese slang word, signifying stylish or elegant. -It is supposed to be an abbreviation of the mispronunciation of the -English word fashionable—_Germanicé_, _feshionable_. - - - - - REFLECTIONS IN A PRINTING-OFFICE - - - Faust means a fist—a fist can hit, I ween: - Faust made the greatest hit that e’er was seen. - - I know not if ’twas Guttenberg - Or Faust who first began - To print—the honour was too great - For any single man. - - Printing is called the Art of Arts, - And typos then are artists—right— - They are the nobler counterparts - Of those who work in Black and White. - - - - - APPENDIX - - - ORBUS IN TACTU MAINET.—P. 2 - -THERE were in Philadelphia, forty years ago, two sailors’ groggeries in -Water Street, both having the sign of The Boy and Barrel, derived from -the infant Bacchus. One of these had for motto the words exactly as here -misspelt and divided. - - TIME FOR US TO GO.—P. 64 - -In one of his admirable papers, “At the Sign of the Ship,” published in -the _Cornhill Magazine_, Mr. Andrew Lang, in discussing Sea Songs, wrote -the following:— - -“In an unpublished play by Mr. Henley and Mr. R. L. Stevenson, a play -called _Admiral Guinea_, that veteran ruffian, Mr. Pew of Treasure -Island, makes his appearance. He has been a sailor of Admiral Guinea’s -in the slave trade, and he haunts the evangelical and remorseful Admiral -like an evil conscience, singing snatches of the following ‘Slaver’s -Song.’ Mr. Henley has kindly copied out the whole piece, which was -published in Mr. Leland’s ‘Captain Jonas Fisher’ in _Temple Bar_ about -fourteen years ago. Whether the ballad is traditional and collected by -Mr. Leland, or whether to himself is due the great credit of the -authorship, I am not aware.” - -Truly I am not the author of the song which I picked up in Philadelphia -before the War, nor do I know who wrote it. I am tolerably certain, -however, that I, having slightly retouched it, republished it in _Temple -Bar_ as quoted. There are, however, others besides Mr. Lang who think I -wrote it, so I give it here in order to make truth known, but chiefly -because it is in keeping with other specimens of sailors’ lyrical -folk-lore in these pages, and will be acceptable to all who like such -ballads. - - SAMUEL JACKSON.—P. 99 - -“And of the heathen natives with their suppositious wiles.” - -I once crossed the Atlantic in a sailing-vessel, sharing my state-room -with a veteran sea-captain who had been for forty years in the whaling -service. He had an inexhaustible stock of sea-folk-lore, which he freely -imparted to me who was an eager listener, and as the voyage lasted -_thirty-five_ days I had opportunity to gather much. I am indebted to -him for this amusing interchange of words. When telling me that he once -went incognito to revisit his old home in Connecticut he said, “I passed -under a superstitious name.” - - THE END - _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_ - - - - - N E W N O V E L S. - _At all the Libraries._ - - - JOHN DARKER By AUBREY LEE. - A ROMANCE OF DIJON By M. BETHAM-EDWARDS. - POSTE RESTANTE By C. Y. HARGREAVES. - MARGARET DRUMMOND By SOPHIE F. F. VEITCH. - PAUL ROMER By C. Y. HARGREAVES. - MY INDIAN SUMMER By Princess ALTIERI. - THE CURB OF HONOUR By M. BETHAM-EDWARDS. - BORN IN EXILE By GEORGE GISSING. - THE GREAT CHIN EPISODE By PAUL CUSHING. - THE LAST TOUCHES By Mrs. W. K. CLIFFORD. - A TANGLED WEB By Lady LINDSAY. - THE PHILOSOPHER’S WINDOW By Lady LINDSAY. - CAP AND GOWN COMEDY By ASCOTT R. HOPE. - UNDER TWO SKIES By E. W. HORNUNG. - - - - ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK, - SOHO SQUARE, LONDON. - - - - - THE - - POETICAL - - WORKS - - OF - - SIR WALTER SCOTT, Bart. - - Selected and Edited, with Introduction and Notes, - - BY - - ANDREW LANG - - In 2 vols., Crown 8vo, Price 5s. in Cloth; or 6s. Half-Bound - - Uniform with the Dryburgh Edition of the - Waverley Novels - - - ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK, - SOHO SQUARE, LONDON. - - - - - TRANSCRIBER NOTES - - -Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. - -Inconsistencies in punctuation have been maintained. - -[The end of _Songs of the Sea and Lays of the Land_, by Charles Godfrey -Leland.] - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Songs of the Sea and Lays of the Land, by -Charles Godfrey Leland - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONGS OF THE SEA, LAYS OF THE LAND *** - -***** This file should be named 50666-0.txt or 50666-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/0/6/6/50666/ - -Produced by Larry Harrison, Cindy Beyer, Ross Cooling and -the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at -http://www.pgdpcanada.net with images provided by The -Internet Archives-US - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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