Bill Nye's Chestnuts Old and New

"Do I repent?

"No – of nothing present or past;

"So skip, old preach, on gospel pap I won't be fed;

"My breath comes hard; I – am going – but – I – am game to the – last."

And reckless of the future, as the present, the cowboy was dead.

If we could write poetry like that, do you think we would plod along the dreary pathway of the journalist? Do you suppose that if we had the heaven-born gift of song to such a degree, that we could take hold of the hearts of millions and warble two or three little ditties like that, or write an elegy before breakfast, or construct an ionic, anapestic twitter like the foregoing, that we would carry in our own coal, and trim our own lamps, and wear a shirt two weeks at a time?

No, sir. We would hie us away to Europe or Salt Lake, and let our hair grow long, and we would write some obituary truck that would make people disgusted with life, and they would sigh for death that they might leave their insurance and their obituaries to their survivors.

POEMS BY BILL NYE

APOSTROPHE TO AN ORPHAN MULE.=

Oh! lonely, gentle, unobtrusive mule!
Thou standest idly 'gainst the azure sky,
And sweetly, sadly singeth like a hired man.
Who taught thee thus to warble
In the noontide heat and wrestle with
Thy deep, corroding grief and joyless woe?
Who taught thy simple heart
Its pent-up, wildly-warring waste
Of wanton woe to carol forth upon
The silent air?
I chide thee not, because thy
Song is fraught with grief-embittered
Monotony and joyless minor chords
Of wild, imported melody, for thou
Art restless, woe begirt and
Compassed round about with gloom,
Thou timid, trusting, orphan mule!
Few joys, indeed, are thine,
Thou thrice-bestricken, madly
Mournful, melancholy mule.
And he alone who strews
Thy pathway with his cold remains
Can give thee recompense
Of lemoncholy woe.
He who hath sought to steer
Thy limber, yielding tail
Fernist thy crupper-band
Hath given thee joy, and he alone.
'Tis true, he may have shot
Athwart the Zodiac, and, looking
O'er the outer walls upon
The New Jerusalem,
Have uttered vain regrets.
Thou reekest not. O orphan mule,
For it hath given thee joy, and
Bound about thy bursting heart,
And held thy tottering reason
To its throne.
Sing on, O mule, and warble
In the twilight gray,
Unchidden by th heartless throng.
Sing of thy parents on thy father's side.
Yearn for the days now past and gone;
For he who pens these halting,
Limping lines to thee
Doth bid thee yearn, and yearn, and yearn.

ODE TO SPRING.

FANTASIA FOR THE BASS DRUM; ADAPTED FROM THE GERMAN BY WILLIAM VON NYE.=

In the days of laughing spring time,
Comes the mild-eyed sorrel cow,
With bald-headed patches on her,
Poor and lousy, I allow;
And she waddles through your garden
O'er the radish-beds, I trow.

Then the red-nosed, wild-eyed orphan,
With his cyclopædiee,
Hies him to the rural districts
With more or less alacrity.
And he showeth up its merits
To the bright eternitee.

How the bumble-bee doth bumble
Bumbling in the fragrant air,
Bumbling with his little bumbler,
Till he climbs the golden stair.
Then the angels will provide him
With another bumbilaire.

THE PICNIC SNOOZER'S LAMENT

Gently lay aside the picnic,
For its usefulness is o'er,
And the winter style of misery
Stands and knocks upon your door.

Lariat the lonely oyster,
Drifting on some foreign shore;
Zion needs him in her business —