Dear wife, last midnight, whilst I read
The tomes you so despise,
A spectre rose beside the bed,
And spake in this true wise:
“From Canaan’s beatific coast
I ’ve come to visit thee,
For I am Frognall Dibdin’s ghost,”
Says Dibdin’s ghost to me.
I bade him welcome, and we twain
Discussed with buoyant hearts...
To the FOUNTAIN OF BANDUSIA
O FOUNTAIN of Bandusia!
Whence crystal waters flow,
With garlands gay and wine I ’ll pay
The sacrifice I owe;
A sportive kid with budding horns
I have, whose crimson blood
Anon shall dye and sanctify
Thy cool and babbling flood.
O fountain of Bandusia!
The Dog-star’s hateful...
Sleep, little pigeon, and fold your wings,—
Little blue pigeon with velvet eyes;
Sleep to the singing of mother-bird swinging—
Swinging the nest where her little one lies.
Away out yonder I see a star,—
Silvery star with a tinkling song;
To the soft dew falling I hear it calling—
Calling and tinkling the night along.
...
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe—
Sailed on a river of misty light
Into a sea of dew.
“Where are you going, and what do you wish?”
The old moon asked the three.
“We have come to fish for the herring-fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we,”
I Ain’t afeard uv snakes, or toads, or bugs, or worms, or mice,
An’ things ’at girls are skeered uv I think are awful nice!
I ’m pretty brave, I guess; an’ yet I hate to go to bed,
For, when I ’m tucked up warm an’ snug an’ when my prayers are said,
Mother tells me “Happy dreams!” and takes away the light,
An’ leaves me lyin’ all alone an’ seein’ things...
Jim was a fisherman, up on the hill,
Over the beach lived he and his wife,
In a little house—you can see it still—
An’ their two fair boys; upon my life
You never seen two likelier kids,
In spite of their antics an’ tricks an’ noise,
Than them two boys!
Jim would go out in his boat on the sea,
Just as the rest of us...
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...
