O Sextant of the meetin house, wich sweeps
And dusts, or is supposed to! and makes fires,
And lites the gass, and sumtimes leaves a screw loose,
in wich case it smells orful, worse than lamp ile;
And wrings the Bel and toles it when men dyes,
to the grief of survivin pardners, and sweeps paths
And for the servusses gets $100 per annum,
...
-
-
A Geological Address
“A human skull has been found in California, in the pliocene formation. This skull is the remnant, not only of the earliest pioneer of this State, but the oldest known human being…. The skull was found in a shaft one hundred and fifty feet deep, two miles from Angel’s, in Calaveras County, by a miner named James Matson, who gave it to Mr. Scribner, a merchant,... -
Say there! P’r’aps
Some on you chaps
Might know Jim Wild?
Well,—no offence:
Thar ain’t no sense
In gettin’ riled!Jim was my chum
Up on the Bar:
That ’s why I come
Down from up thar,
Lookin’ for Jim.
Thank ye, sir! you
Ain’t of that crew,—
Blest if you are!Money?—Not...
-
1856
DOW’S Flat. That ’s its name.
And I reckon that you
Are a stranger? The same?
Well, I thought it was true,
For thar isn’t a man on the river as can’t spot the place at first view.It was called after Dow,—
Which the same was an ass;
And as to the how... -
I Reside at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful James:
I am not up to small deceit or any sinful games;
And I ’ll tell in simple language what I know about the row
That broke up our Society upon the Stanislow.But first I would remark, that ’t is not a proper plan
For any scientific gent to whale his fellow-man;
And, if a member don’t... -
Popularly Known as “The Heathen Chinee”
WHICH I wish to remark—
And my language is plain—
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar:
Which the same I would rise to explain.Ah Sin was his name;
And I shall not deny
In regard to the same
What that name might... -
There was an ape in the days that were earlier;
Centuries passed, and his hair grew curlier;
Centuries more gave a thumb to his wrist,
Then he was a Man and a Positivist. -
Thou who, when fears attack,
Bid’st them avaunt, and Black
Care, at the horseman’s back
Perching, unseatest;
Sweet when the morn is gray;
Sweet, when they ’ve cleared away
Lunch; and at close of day
Possibly sweetest:I have a liking old
For thee, though manifold
Stories, I know, are told,
Not... -
Prologue
WOULDN’T it jar you, wouldn’t it make you sore
To see the poet, when the goods play out,
Crawl off of poor old Pegasus and tout
His skate to two-step sonnets off galore?
Then, when the plug, a dead one, can no more
Shake rag-time than a biscuit, right about
The poem-butcher turns with gleeful shout
And sends a batch of... -
’t IS 1 a dozen or so of years ago,
Somewhere in the West countree,
That a nice girl lived, as ye Hoosiers know
By the name of Deborah Lee;
Her sister was loved by Edgar Poe,
But Deborah by me.Now I was green, and she was green,
As a summer’s squash might be;
And we loved as warmly as other folks,—
I and my...