Many a mark did her body bear;
She had been a target for all things known; On many a scar the dusky hair
Would grow no more where it once had grown;
Many a passionate, parting shot
Had left upon her a lasting spot.
Many and many a well-aimed stone,
Many a brickbat of goodly size,
And many a cudgel swiftly thrown
Had brought the tears to her loving eyes,
Or had bounded off from her bony back
With a noise like the sound of a rifle-crack.
Many a day had she passed in the pound
For helping herself to her neighbor's corn
Many a cowardly cur and hound
Had been transfixed on her crumpled horn;
Many a teapot and old tin pail
Had the farmer-boys tied to her time-worn tail.
Old Deacon Gray was a pious man,
Though sometimes tempted to be profane,
When many a weary mile he ran
To drive her out of his growing grain.
Sharp were the pranks she used to play
To get her fill and to get away.
She knew when the deacon went to town.
She wisely watched when he went by;
He never passed her without a frown,
And an evil gleam in each angry eye;
He would crack his whip in a surly way,
And drive along in his "one-horse shay."
Then at his homestead she loved to call,
Lifting his bars with crumpled horn
Nimbly scaling his garden wall,
Helping herself to his standing corn;
Eating his cabbages, one by one,
Hurrying home when her work was done.
His human passions were quick to rise,
And striding forth with a savage cry,
With fury blazing from both his eyes
As lightnings flash in a summer sky,
Redder and redder his face would grow,
And after the creature he would go.
Over the garden, round and round,
Breaking his pear and apple trees;
Tramping his melons into the ground,
Overturning his hives of bees,
Leaving him angry and badly stung,
Wishing the old cow's neck was wrung.
The mosses grew on the garden wall,
The years went by with their work and play,
The boys of the village grew strong and tall,
And the gray-haired farmers passed away
One by one, as the red leaves fall;
But the highway cow outlived them all.
A HINDOO died; a happy thing to do,
When fifty years united to a shrew.
Released, he hopefully for entrance cries
Before the gates of Brahma's paradise.
"Hast been through purgatory?" Brahma said.
"I have been married!" and he hung his head.
"Come in come in! and welcome to my son!
Marriage and purgatory are as one."
In bliss extreme he entered heaven's door,
And knew the bliss he ne'er had known before.
He scarce had entered in the gardens fair,
Another Hindoo asked admission there.
The self-same question Brahma asked again:
"Hast been through purgatory?" "No; what then? '
"Thou canst not enter! did the god reply.
"He who went in was there no more than I."
"All that is true, but he has married been,
And so on earth has suffered for all his sin."
"Married? 'Tis well, for I've been married twice."
"Begone! We'll have no fools in paradise.”
Si bene commemini causæ sunt quinque bibere-
Hospitis adventus, præsens sitis, atque futura,
Aut vini bonitas, aut quælibet altera causa.
"If I the reasons well divine,
There are just five for drinking wine
Good wine, a friend, or being dry,
Or lest you should be by and by,
Or any other reason why."
Ascribed by Notes and Queries to Dr. Henry Aldrich, Dean of
Christ Church, Oxford, a. D. 1689-1711.
PHILIP RAY and Enoch Arden
Both were "spoons
"" on Annie Lee.
Phil did not fulfil her notion-
She preferred to wed with E.
Him she married and she bore him
Pretty little children three;
But becoming short of "rhino,"
Enoch started off for sea,
Leaving Mrs. Arden mistress
Of a well-stocked village shop,
Selling butter, soap, and treacle,
Beeswax, whipcord, lollipop.
Ten long years she waited for him,
But he neither came nor wrote;
Therefore she concluded Enoch
Could no longer be afloat.
So when Philip came to ask her
If she would be Mrs. Ray,
She, believing herself widowed,
Could not say her suitor nay.
So a second time she married,
Gave up selling bread and cheese-
And in due time Philip nursèd
A little Ray upon his knees.
But, alas! the long-lost Enoch
Turn'd up unexpectedly,
And was vastly disconcerted
At this act of bigamy.
But on thinking o'er the matter,
He determined to atone
For his lengthen'd absence from her
By just leaving well alone.
So he took to bed and dwindled
Down to something like a shade;
Settled with his good landlady,
Then the debt of nature paid.
And when both the Rays discovered
How poor Enoch's life had ended,
They came down in handsome manner,
And gave his corpse a fun'ral splendid.
This is all I know about it.
If it's not sufficient, write
By next mail to Alfred Tenny
son, M. P., Isle of Wight.
A SODDEN gray in the chilly dawn,
A burst of the red gold sun at noon;
A windy lea for the dying day,
And a wail at dusk like the distant loon;
A ghost at night in the leafless larch,
A sigh and a moan,
A frown in the morning black and dim;
A smile when the day is half-way run;
A moan when the wind comes up from the sea,
And tosses the larch when the day is done.
A penitent, changeful, grewsome thing,
Is this fierce love child
It is mad with the love of an unloved one,
It is chill with the winters that long have set;
It is sad at times and anon it laughs,
And is warm with the summer that is not yet. And its voice laughs loud in the leafless larch, But to sigh again,
A dose of quinine when the sun comes up
From its tossed-up bed in the eastern sea;
Some castor-oil when the moon has sped,
A blue pill dark and catnip tea;
A decoction made from the leafless larch,
And another blue pill,
OUT on the margin of moonshine land,
Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs,
Out where the whing-whang loves to stand,
Writing his name with his tail on the sand,
And wipes it out with his oogerish hand;
Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs.
Is it the gibber of gungs and keeks?
Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs,
Or what is the sound the whing-whang seeks,
Crouching low by winding creeks,
And holding his breath for weeks and weeks?
Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs.
Anoint him the wealthiest of wraithy things!
Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs.
"T is a fair whing-whangess with phosphor rings,
And bridal jewels of fangs and stings,
And she sits and as sadly and softly sings,
As the mildewed whir of her own dead wings;
Tickle me, dear; tickle me here;
Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs.
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.
A GIRL'S A GIRL FOR A'THAT.
Is there a lady in the land
That boasts her rank and a' that? With scornful eye we pass her by,
And little care for a' that:
For Nature's charm shall bear the palm,—
A girl's a girl for a' that.
What though her neck with gems she deck,
With folly's gear and a' that,
And gayly ride in pomp and pride?
We can dispense with a' that:
An honest heart acts no such part, -
A girl's a girl for a' that.
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