Cobwebs from a Library Corner

“Hi thinks as ’ow you dagoes is the cuss o’ this ’ere land,
With wuthy citizens like me ’most starved on every ’and.
Hi vows hif I’d me wi at all hi’d order hout a troop,
Hand send the bloomin’ lot o’ yer ’ead over ’eels in soup.
Git hout, yer nahsty grabber yer; hewacuate the stoop.”

Then when the snow had melted off, Fitzjohn Augustus went
And humbly asked his master for two dollars that he’d spent
In paying Napolini di Vendetta Pasquarelle;
While Nap went back to Italy, the land that loved him well,
Convinced that when he sailed that time his country to forsake,
He must have got aboard the ship when he was half awake,
And got to London, not New York, by some most odd mistake.

MY COLOR

My best-loved color? Well, I think I like
A soft and tender dewy green – for grass.
Sometimes a pink my fancy too will strike —
In lobster purée or a Sauterne glass.

Blue is a color, too, I greatly love.
It’s sort of satisfying to my eyes.
’Tis their own color; and I’m quite fond of
This hue also for soft Italian skies.

For blushes, give me red, nor hesitate
To pile it on; I like it good and strong
Upon the cheeks of her I call my Fate,
The loveliest of all the lovely throng.

On golden-yellow oft my fancy dwells.
’Tis almost godlike, as it sparkles through
The effervescent fizz; and wondrous spells
It casts o’er me when coined in dollars, too.

Hence, friend, it is I cannot specify
What hues particular my joys enhance.
I like them all; their popularity
At special times depends on circumstance.

CONTENTMENT IN NATURE

I would not change my joys for those
Of Emperors and Kings.
What has my gentle friend the rose
Told them, if aught, do you suppose —
The rose that tells me things?

What secrets have they had with trees?
What romps with grassy spears?
What know they of the mysteries
Of butterflies and honey-bees,
Who whisper in my ears?

What says the sunbeam unto them?
What tales have brooklets told?
Is there within their diadem
A single rival to the gem
The dewy daisies hold?

What sympathy have they with birds
Whose songs are songs of mine?
Do they e’er hear, as though in words
’Twas lisped, the message of the herds
Of grazing, lowing kine?

Ah no! Give me no lofty throne,
But just what Nature yields.
Let me but wander on, alone
If need be, so that all my own
Are woods and dales and fields.

THE HEROIC GUNNER

When the order was given to withdraw from battle for breakfast, one of the gun-captains, a privileged character, begged Commodore Dewey to let them keep on fighting until “we’ve wiped ’em out.” — War Anecdote in Daily Paper.

At the battle of Manila,
In the un-Pacific sea,
Stood a gunner with his mad up
Just as far as it could be —
Stood a gunner brave and ready
For the hated enemy.

Near the Isles of Philopena
Raged the battle all the morn,
And the plucky Spanish sailors
By the shot and shell were torn;
And the flag that floated o’er them
To oblivion was borne.

Every cannon belched projectiles,
Every cannon breathed forth hell,
Every cannon mowed the foeman
From the deck into the swell,
When amid the din of battle
Rang the silvery breakfast-bell.

“Stop your shooting! Come to breakfast!”
Cried the gallant Commodore.