Puslapio vaizdai
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And have our motives misconstrued, Are better comrades than a Kaiser.
Reviled, maligned, misunderstood.
Jolly companions! three times three,
Let us confess what fools we be!

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THE GREAT CRITICS.

WHOM shall we praise?
Let's praise the dead!
In no men's ways
Their heads they raise,
Nor strive for bread
With you or me,-
So, do you see?

We'll praise the dead! Let living men

Dare but to claim From tongue or pen

Their meed of fame, We'll cry them down, Spoil their renown, Deny their sense, Wit, eloquence, Poetic fire,

All they desire.

Our say is said,

Long live the dead!

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He pressed my hand and kissed my cheek;

Then, warmer growing, kissed the other,

While I exclaimed, and strove to shriek,

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"Be quiet, do! —I'll call my And oft this little, very little,

mother!"

He saw my anger was sincere,

And lovingly began to chide me; Then wiping from my cheek the tear,

He sat him on the grass beside

me,

He feigned such pretty amorous

woe,

Breathed such sweet vows one after other,

I could but smile, while whispering low,

"Be quiet, do!-I'll call my mother!"

He talked so long, and talked so well,

And swore he meant not to deceive me;

I felt more grief than I can tell, When with a sigh he rose to leave

me.

"O John!" said I; "and must thou go?

I love thee better than all other; There is no need to hurry so,I never meant to call my mother."

THE LITTLE MAN.

THERE was a little, very little,
Quiet little man,

He wore a little overcoat

The color of the tan;

And when his weekly wage was earned

On Saturday, at night,

He had but half-a-crown to spare
To keep his spirits light;

Happy little man,

Would talk a little to himself About the great world's plan: "Though people think me very poor,

I feel I'm very glad,

And this I'm sure could scarcely be If I were very bad.

Rich knaves who cannot rest o' nights,

At every turn I see,
While cosy sleep unbidden comes

To a quiet man like me.

"For though I'm little, very little,
Do whate'er I can,

Yet every morning when I shave,
I shave an honest man;
And every night when I go home,
My winsome little wife,
Receives me smiling at the door,

And loves me more than life:And this is joy that kings themselves,

If thoughts were spoken free, Might give their sceptres to exchange

With a little man like me.

"And I've a little, quite a little, Bonnie little child,

A little maid with golden hair,

And blue eyes bright and mild;
She sits and prattles on my knee,

She's merry as a song,
She's pleasant as a ray of light,

She keeps my heart from wrong. And so, let kingdoms rise or fall, I'll earn my daily fee,

And think the world is good enough

For a little man like me."

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So high at last the contest rose,

When luckily came by a third-
To him the question they referred;
And begged he'd tell them, if he
knew,

Whether the thing was green, or blue?

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Sirs," cried the umpire, 66

The

your pother,

cease

creature's neither one nor
t'other;

I caught the animal last night,
And viewed it o'er by candle-light;
I marked it well- 'twas black as jet;
You stare! but, sirs, I've got it yet,
And can produce it." "Pray, sir,
do;

I'll lay my life the thing is blue."

"And I'll engage that, when you've

seen

The reptile, you'll pronounce him green.'

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"Well, then, at once, to ease the doubt,"

Replies the man, "I'll turn him out; And, when before your eyes I've set

him,

If you don't find him black, I'll eat him."

He said; then full before their sight Produced the beast, and lo- 'twas white!

Both stared; the man looks wondrous wise!

"My children," the chameleon cries (Then first the creature found a tongue),

"You all are right, and all are

wrong;

When next you talk of what you view,

Think others see as well as you;

From words they almost came to Nor wonder if you find that none

blows;

Prefers your eyesight to his own."

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In old times when the god of song Drew his own two-horse team along, Carrying inside a bard or two Booked for posterity "all through," Their luggage, a few close-packed rhymes

(Like yours, my friend, for aftertimes)

So slow the pull to Fame's abode That folks oft slumbered on the road; And Homer's self sometimes, they

say,

Took to his nightcap on the way. But now, how different is the story With our new galloping sons of glory, Who, scorning all such slack and slow time,

Dash to posterity in no time!

Raise but one general blast of puff To start your author- that's enough: In vain the critics sit to watch him Try at the starting-post to catch him; He's off-the puffers carry it hollow

The critics, if they please, may follow;

Ere they've laid down their first positions,

catch the Unread One comes too late;

And nonsense, littered in a hurry, Becomes immortal" spite of Mur

ray.

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[From The Fudge Family in Paris]. EXTRACTS FROM MISS BIDDY'S LETTERS.

WHAT a time since I wrote! - I'm a sad naughty girl

Though, like a tee-totum, I'm all in a twirl,

even (as you wittily say) a tee

totum

Yet Between all its twirls gives a letter to note 'em.

But,

Lord, such a place! and then,
Dolly, my dresses,

My gowns, so divine!-there's no
language expresses,
Except just the two words "su-
perbe," "magnifique,'
The trimmings of that which I had
home last week!

It is called-I forget — à la · something which sounded Like alicampane — but, in truth, I'm confounded

And bothered, my dear, 'twixt that troublesome boy's (Bob's) cookery language, and Ma-. dame Le Roi's:

What with fillets of roses, and fillets of veal, Things garni with lace, and things garni with eel,

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I scarce understood What he wished me to do, I said, thank him, I would.

Off we set and, though 'faith, dear, I hardly knew whether

My head or my heels were the uppermost then,

For 'twas like heaven and earth, Dolly, coming together,

Yet, spite of the danger, we dared it again.

From a lighted pavilion, high up in And oh! as I gazed on the features

the air,

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And rattle you down, Doll · hardly know where. These vehicles, mind me, in which you go through

This delightfully dangerous journey, hold two.

Some cavalier asks, with humility, whether

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