I Haf von funny leedle poy,
Vot gomes schust to mine knee;
Der queerest chap, der createst rogue,
As efer you dit see.
He runs und schumps und schmashes dings
In all barts off der house;
But vot off dot? he vas mine son,
Mine leedle Yawcob Strauss.
He get der measles und der mumbs,
Und efferyding dot ’s oudt;...
Der boet may sing off “Der Oldt Oaken Bookit,”
Und in schveetest langvitch its virtues may tell;
Und how, ven a poy, he mit eggsdasy dook it,
Vhen dripping mit coolness it rose vrom der vell.
I don’d take some schtock in dot manner off trinking!
It vas too mooch like horses und cattle, I dink.
Dhere vas more sadisfactions, in my vay of...
The Jackdaw sat on the Cardinal’s chair!
Bishop and abbot and prior were there;
Many a monk, and many a friar,
Many a knight, and many a squire,
With a great many more of lesser degree,—
In sooth, a goodly company;
And they served the Lord Primate on bended knee.
Never, I ween,
Was a prouder seen,...
From “a Fable for Critics”
THERE are truths you Americans need to be told,
And it never ’ll refute them to swagger and scold;
John Bull, looking o’er the Atlantic, in choler.
At your aptness for trade, says you worship the dollar;
But to scorn i-dollar-try ’s what very few do,
And John goes to that church as often as you do.
No matter what...
From “The Biglow Papers,” No. III.
GUVENER B. 1 is a sensible man;
He stays to his home an’ looks arter his folks;
He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can,
An’ into nobody’s tater-patch pokes;—
But John P.
Robinson he
Sez he wunt vote for Guvener B.
My! ain’t it terrible? Wut shall we du?...
I Don’t appwove this hawid waw;
Those dweadful bannahs hawt my eyes;
And guns and dwums are such a baw,—
Why don’t the pawties compwamise?
Of cawce, the twoilet has its chawms;
But why must all the vulgah cwowd
Pawsist in spawting unifawms,
In cullahs so extwemely loud?
And then the ladies, pwecious deahs!—
I...
Arrayed in snow-white pants and vest,
And other rainment fair to view,
I stood before my sweetheart Sue—
The charming creature I love best.
“Tell me and does my costume suit?”
I asked that apple of my eye—
And then the charmer made reply,
“Oh, yes, you do look awful cute!”
Although I frequently had heard
My...
Many a long, long year ago,
Nantucket skippers had a plan
Of finding out, though “lying low,”
How near New York their schooners ran.
They greased the lead before it fell,
And then by sounding through the night,
Knowing the soil that stuck so well,
They always guessed their reckoning right.
A skipper gray, whose eyes...
Or, The Deacon’s Masterpiece
A Logical Story
HAVE you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then of a sudden, it—ah, but stay,
I ’ll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits,—
Have you...
Pap’s got his patent right, and rich as all creation;
But where ’s the peace and comfort that we all had before?
Le’s go a-visitin’ back to Griggsby’s Station—
Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore!
The likes of us a-livin’ here! It ’s just a mortal pity
To see us in this great big house, with cyarpets on the stairs,
And the pump...
