The Schoolmaster You wouldn't? Then think of how kind you The noise of those sheep-bells, how faint it Then yon desolate eerie morasses. The haunts of the snipe and the hern— How it interests e'en a beginner The boundless ineffable prairie; The splendor of mountain and lake And this wold with its heathery garment- But although there is not any harm in't- On their charms to a dull little varmint Of seven or eight. Charles Stuart Calverley. 65 A APPEAL FOR ARE TO THE SEXTANT OF THE OLD BRICK MEETINOUSE BY A GASPER THE sextant of the meetinouse, which sweeps As zero, and like as not green wood for kindlers; Which's more than gold, wich doant cost nothin, in short, jest "fre as arc" out dores. But o sextant, in our church its scarce as piety, Speshally the latter, up in a tite place, some is fevery, some is scrofilus, some has bad teeth, But every 1 on em breethes in and out and out and in, Cupid's Darts And then agin, and so on, till each has took it down, of brethen his own are, and no one's else; O sextant, don't you know our lungs is bellusses, goin out; and how can bellusses blow without wind, Are is the same to us as milk to babes, Or water to fish, or pendlums to clox Or roots and airbs unto an injun Doctor, Or boys to gurls. Arc is for us to brethe, 2 let a little are into our church. (Pewer are is sertin proper for the pews) (It luvs to come in whare it can git warm): And sperrit up the preacher, and stop garbs, As wind on the dry Boans the Profit tells of. 67 'rabella Willson. CUPID'S DARTS WHICH ARE A GROWING MENACE TO THE Public Do not worry if I scurry from the grill room in a hurry, Dropping hastily my curry and retiring into balk; Do not let it cause you wonder if, by some mischance or blunder, We encounter on the Underground and I get out and walk. If I double as a cub'll when you meet him in the stubble, Do not think I am in trouble or attempt to make a fuss; Do not judge me melancholy or attribute it to folly If I leave the Metropolitan and travel 'n a bus. Do not quiet your anxiety by giving me a diet, Or by base resort to vi et armis fold me to your arms, And let no suspicious tremor violate your wonted phlegm or Any fear that Harold's memory is faithless to your charms. For my passion as I dash on in that disconcerting fashion Is as ardently irrational as when we forged the link When you gave your little hand away to me, my own Amanda As we sat 'n the veranda till the stars began to wink. And I am in such a famine when your beauty I examine That it lures me as the jam invites a hungry little brat; But I fancy that, at any rate, I'd rather waste a penny Then be spitted by the many pins that bristle from your hat. Unknown. A PLEA FOR TRIGAMY I've been trying to fashion a wifely ideal, And find that my tastes are so far from concise That, to marry completely, no fewer than three'll Suffice I've subjected my views to severe atmospheric My first must be fashion's own fancy-bred daughter, Proud, peerless, and perfect-in fact, comme il faut; A waltzer and wit of the very first water For show. A Plea for Trigamy 69 But these beauties that serve to make all the men jealous, Heaven's angels incarnate (the novelists tell us) But so much for appearances. Now for my second, She must know all the needs of a rational being, I complete the ménage by including the other As my housekeeper, nurse, or it may be, a mother Total three! and the virtues all well represented; With fewer than this such a thing can't be done; Though I've known married men who declare they're con tented With one. Would you hunt during harvest, or hay-make in winter? And how can one woman expect to combine Certain qualifications essentially inter necine? You may say that my prospects are (legally) sunless; I state that I find them as clear as can be: I will marry no wife, since I can't do with one less Owen Seaman. |