Two Men

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As he leaves the house, bare-headed, and goes out to feed the stock,

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

They's something kindo' hearty-like about the atmosphere, When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is hereOf course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees, And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the

bees;

But the air's so appetisin'; and the landscape through the haze

Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pictur that no painter has the colorin' to mock-
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

The husky, rusty rustle of the tossels of the corn,

And the raspin' of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;
The stubble in the furries-kindo' lonesome-like, but still
A-preachin' sermons to us of the barns they growed to fill;
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
The hosses in theyr stalls below-the clover overhead!—
O, it sets my heart a-clickin' like the tickin' of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock!
James Whitcomb Riley.

TWO MEN

THERE be two men of all mankind
That I should like to know about;
But search and question where I will,
I cannot ever find them out.

Melchizedek he praised the Lord,

And gave some wine to Abraham;
But who can tell what else he did
Must be more learned than I am.

Ucalegon he lost his house

When Agamemnon came to Troy;
But who can tell me who he was-
I'll pray the gods to give him joy.

There be two men of all mankind
That I'm forever thinking on;
They chase me everywhere I go,—

Melchizedek, Ucalegon.

Edwin Arlington Robinson.

A FAMILIAR LETTER TO SEVERAL
CORRESPONDENTS

YES, write if you want to-there's nothing like trying;
Who knows what a treasure your casket may hold?
I'll show you that rhyming's as easy as lying,

If you'll listen to me while the art I unfold.

Here's a book full of words: one can choose as he fancies.
As a painter his tint, as a workman his tool;
Just think! all the poems and plays and romances
Were drawn out of this, like the fish from a pool!

You can wander at will through its syllabled mazes,
And take all you want-not a copper they cost;
What is there to hinder your picking out phrases
For an epic as clever as "Paradise Lost"?

Don't mind if the index of sense is at zero;

Use words that run smoothly, whatever they mean; Leander and Lillian and Lillibullero

Are much the same thing in the rhyming machine.

There are words so delicious their sweetness will smother That boarding-school flavour of which we're afraid; There is "lush" is a good one and "swirl" is another; Put both in one stanza, its fortune is made.

With musical murmurs and rhythmical closes

You can cheat us of smiles when you've nothing to tell; You hand us a nosegay of milliner's roses,

And we cry with delight, "Oh, how sweet they do smell!"

A Familiar Letter

Perhaps you will answer all needful conditions
For winning the laurels to which you aspire,
By docking the tails of the two prepositions

I' the style o' the bards you so greatly admire.

As for subjects of verse, they are only too plenty
For ringing the changes on metrical chimes;
A maiden, a moonbeam, a lover of twenty,

Have filled that great basket with bushels of rhymes.

Let me show you a picture-'tis far from irrelevant-
By a famous old hand in the arts of design;

'Tis only a photographed sketch of an elephant;

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The name of the draughtsman was Rembrandt of Rhine.

How easy! no troublesome colours to lay on;

It can't have fatigued him, no, not in the least;

A dash here and there with a haphazard crayon,

And there stands the wrinkled-skinned, baggy-limbed beast.

Just so with your verse-'tis as easy as sketching;
You can reel off a song without knitting your brow,
As lightly as Rembrandt a drawing or etching;
It is nothing at all, if you only know how.

Well, imagine you've printed your volume of verses;
Your forehead is wreathed with the garland of fame;
Your poem the eloquent school-boy rehearses;

Her album the school-girl presents for your name.

Each morning the post brings you autograph letters;
You'll answer them promptly-an hour isn't much
For the honour of sharing a page with your betters,
With magistrates, members of Congress, and such.

Of course you're delighted to serve the committees
That come with requests from the country all round;
You would grace the occasion with poems and ditties
When they've got a new school-house, or poor-house, or
pound.

With a hymn for the saints, and a song for the sinners,
You go and are welcome wherever you please;
You're a privileged guest at all manner of dinners;
You've a seat on the platform among the grandees.

At length your mere presence becomes a sensation;
Your cup of enjoyment is filled to its brim
With the pleasure Horatian of digitmonstration,

As the whisper runs round of "That's he!" or That's him!"

But, remember, O dealer in phrases sonorous,

So daintily chosen, so tunefully matched,

Though you soar with the wings of the cherubim o'er us, The ovum was human from which you were hatched.

No will of your own, with its puny compulsion,
Can summon the spirit that quickens the lyre;
It comes, if at all, like the sibyl's convulsion,
And touches the brain with a finger of fire.

So, perhaps, after all, it's as well to be quiet,

If you've nothing you think is worth saying in prose, As to furnish a meal of their cannibal diet

To the critics, by publishing, as you propose.

But it's all of no use, and I'm sorry I've written;

I shall see your thin volume some day on my shelf; For the rhyming tarantula surely has bitten,

And music must cure you, so pipe it yourself.

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS

I WROTE Some lines once on a time
In wondrous merry mood,

And thought, as usual, men would say
They were exceeding good.

The Height of the Ridiculous

They were so queer, so very queer,
I laughed as I would die;
Albeit, in the general way,
A sober man am I.

I called my servant, and he came;
How kind it was of him,

To mind a slender man like me,
He of the mighty limb!

"These to the printer," I exclaimed,
And, in my humorous way,

I added (as a trifling jest),
"There'll be the devil to pay."

He took the paper, and I watched,
And saw him peep within;
At the first line he read, his face
Was all upon a grin.

He read the next, the grin grew broad,
And shot from ear to ear;

He read the third, a chuckling noise
I now began to hear.

The fourth, he broke into a roar;

The fifth, his waistband split;

The sixth, he burst five buttons off,

And tumbled in a fit.

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,
I watched that wretched man,

And since, I never dare to write

As funny as I can.

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Oliver Wendell Holmes.