AFTER DINNER
VERSE
A collection of impulsive
and impromptu verses con-
taining repartee in verse,
Poems on Panes, Rhyming
Wills, Old Tavern Signs,
Envelope Poetry, Etc. V? >?
Compiled and Edited l»y
RODNEY BLAKE
A. L. Burt Company, Publishers
New YorK & & # # & ^
PREFACE
"All Men are Poets"
—rAnon.
SOME MEN CAN WORK AND OTHERS FIGHT,
And others watch the stars at night,
Some men can paint, and some, who sing,
Can bubble poetry like a spring;
Make a verse all in a minute,
Write a couplet or a sonnet—
Mix a hasty poem pudding—
On a death, or on a wedding;
For since the history of time,
Sage and wit have turned to rhyme.
Wo 11 G
CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface.....• * « * 5
I. The Rhymes of Silas Wegg 9
II. Repartee in Verse * « * 12
III. Poetry on Panes . 0 • * * • 19
IV. For Book Borrowers * • . 23
V. Poems on Places • . . 35
VI. In the Law Courts • • * • • 43
VII. Rhyming Wills * * . 67
VIII. House Inscriptions; * * 70
IX. Lines of Litterateurs * • 74
X. Old Tavern Signs . • # * • 90
XL Impromptu Epitaphs • . * .95
XII. Death Bed Verses.....100
XIII. Advertisements in Rhyme „ • .105
XIV. Autographs in Verse . 109
XV. Journalistic Jingles.....114
XVI. Envelope Poetry . . „ , .116
XVII. Army and Navy Rhymes . 118
XVIII. Poetical Clergymen . 121
XIX. Various Verses......125
XX. Famous Poems ••«»»• 143
I
THE RHYMES OP SILAS WEGG
The ideal maker of impromptus, was that well remem-
bered wooden man with a wooden leg who wrote such
wooden verses,—Mr. Silas Wegg—who didn't know
why Silas and who didn't know why Wegg.
In the immortal pages of " Our Mutual Friend,"
wherein Mr. Dickens introduces us to Silas Wegg and
Boffin's Bower, we turn quite naturally to listen to the
words of " that knotty man with a face carved out of
very hard material", who drops into poetry as grace-
fully as a duck into a mill pond.
Silas Wegg, impulsive poet, makes his bow with some
verses descriptive of family circumstance:
" Beside that cottage door, Mr. Boffin,
A girl was on her knees;
She held aloft a snowy scarf, sir,
Which (my eldest brother noticed) fluttered in the
breeze.
She breathed a prayer for him, Mr. Boffin ;
A prayer he could not hear,
And my eldest brother leaned upon his sword, Mr.
Boffin,
And wiped away a tear."
This literary man—with a wooden leg— tells us
later on:
" The gay, the gay and festive scene,
The balls, the balls of dazzling light."
9
to UXSTY PUDDING POEMS
And then through the instrumentality of Mrs. Boffin,
the wooden legged poet continues his lay:
"I'll tell thee how the maiden wept, Mrs. Boffin,
When her true love was slain, ma'am,
And how her broken spirit slept, Mrs. Boffin,
And never woke again, ma'am.
I'll tell thee (if agreeable to Mr. Boffin) how the steed
drew nigh,
And left his lord afar;
And if my tale (which I hope Mr. Boffin might
excuse) should make you sigh,
I'll strike the light guitar."
Subsequently this exquisite bit of pathos is given us
by the versatile Mr. Wegg:
" Thrown on the wide world, doom'd to wander and
roam,
Bereft of my parents, bereft of a home,
A stranger to something and what's his name joy,
Behold little Edmund, the poor peasant boy."
And when Mr. Wegg's independence as a man became
elevated, he says: " Now, I no longer
Weep for the hour,
When to Boffin's Bower,
The lord of the valley with offers came;
Neither does the moon hide her light
From the heaven to-night,
And weep behind the clouds o'er any individual in the:
present Company's shame."
Of his father—Christian name Thomas—who was
promoted for his merits from his occupation as a water-
man to a situation under the Government, Mr. Wegg
wrote:
WHE RHYMES OF SILAS WEGG i*
"Then farewell, my trim-built werry,
Oars and coat and badge farewell!
Never more at Chelsea ferry
Shall your Thomas take a spell!"
" But", adds Wegg, " my father got over it, and so
shall I."
II
REPARTEE TN VERSE
From the earliest days, men and women of good birth
and breeding, whose educational advantages were seem-
ingly not neglected, have dropped into poetry in mak-
ing apt reply and witty response, thus adding a most
delightful charm to repartee.
In 1764, at a meeting of the Literary Club in London,
it was proposed by Goldsmith that the members should
write burlesque epitaphs upon each other. Garrick
upon hearing the proposal, immediately said: " Goldy,
I've written yours already:
" Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
Who wrote like an angel, and talked like poor Poll."
Dr. Watts when a boy was scolded by his father for
speaking in rhyme. Being threatened with punishment
the lad fell upon his knees saying:
" Pray father do some pity take,
And I will no more verses make."
The Margravine of Anspach being told by a friend
that he never found time to look into a book, said to
him: " I believe you, sir," and taking out her pencil,
instantly wrote the following lines:
" Like the high Alps, the head of Clodius shows,
(Tho* odd perhaps the simile may sound),
Without as white as their eternal snows,
Within as barren as their rocky ground."
12
REPARTEE IN VERSE 13
King Charles II. is said to have defied the Earl of
Rochester, of dubious memory, to make a rhyme to
Lisbon, but the witty favorite at once replied:
" Here's a health to Kate,
Our sovereign's mate,
Of the Royal house of Lisbon;
But the devil take Hyde,
And the bishop beside,
That made her bone of his bone!"
Xuttrell made an amusing couplet on the wife of
44 Anastatius" Hope, famous for his own wealth and
her own jewels:
" Of emerald, diamond and topaz,
Such as the charming Mrs. Hope has!"
It is related that at the wedding of the Princess
Mary, daughter of the Duke of York (afterwards King
James II.) to the Prince of Orange (afterwards King
William III.), one of the guests jestingly challenged
another to make a rhyme with the word " porringer ",
and offered to bet that he could not do it. The chal-
lenge was accepted and the bet was won by producing
the following lines:
" The Duke of York a daughter had,
He gave the Prince of Orange her;
And now, my lord, I claim the prize
For making rhyme to porringer/*
Carlyle tells how a great difficulty was surmounted by
an ingenious versifier who succeeded in finding a rhyme
to the word " perpendicular ". Thus
" The brave General Wolfe, without dread or fears,
Marched up at the head of his bold grenadiers,
And what was astonishing and very particular,
They climbed up the rocks that were quite perpen-
dicular."
H HASTY PUDDING POEMS
Matthew Prior, soon after his return from France,
went to Cambridge to visit the master of St. John's.
The master kept his seat and left the queen's ambas-
sador to stand. Piqued at this treatment, Prior wrote
the following extempore epigram and addressed it to
the master;
" I stood, sir, patient at your feet,
Before your elbow chair;
But make a bishop's throne your seat,
I'll kneel before you there.
One only thing can keep you down,
For your great soul too mean;
You'd not to mount a bishop's throne
Pay homage to the queen."
Albert Smith wrote in an album:
" Mont Blanc is the monarch of the mountains,
They crown'd him long ago;
But who they got to put it on
Nobody seems to know."
Under the foregoing Thackeray wrote:
" I know that Albert wrote in a hurry,
To criticize I scarce presume;
But methinks that Lindley Murray,
Instead of who had written whom."
Samuel Warren made a slip in writing in an album,
misquoting Moore, writing " glory's throb " instead of
" glory's thrill". The mistake formed the subject of
the following impromptu lines by Digby Seymour:
" Warren thy memory was poor
The Irish bard to rob,
Had you remembered Tommy Moore,
Glory would ' thrill', not * throb' **.
REPARTEE IN VERSE
15
In early manhood, Edwin Paxton Hood called upon
Bulwer Lytton without an introduction. The servant
told him that his master could not be seen. Imme-
diately Hood took pencil and paper from his pocket and
wrote as follows:
"A son of song, to fame unknown,
Stands waiting in your hall below;
Your footman tells him to begone;
Say, mighty Bulwer, shall he go ? "
These impromptu lines proved an effective intro*
duction.
Robert Fergusson, the Edinburgh poet, was a student
at St. Andrew's University from 1763 to 1768. It was
the duty of each student, in turn, to ask a blessing at
the dinner table. One day, to the consternation of all,
the youth repeated the following lines:
" For rabbits young, and for rabbits old,
For rabbits hot, and for rabbits cold,
For rabbits tender, and for rabbits tough,
Our thanks we render, for we've had enough."
At one of Burns" convivial dinners he was desired to
say grace, and he gave the following impromptu:
"O Lord, we do Thee humbly thank
For what we little merit—
Now Jean may tak* the flesh away,
And Will bring on the spirit."
Rev. Samuel Wesley and a friend were entertained
at dinner by a host noted for his avarice and oddity.
16 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
Mr. Wesley returned thanks with the following im-
promptu lines:
" Thanks for the feast, for it's no less
Than eating manna in the wilderness,
Here meagre famine bears controlless sway,
And even drives each fainting wretch away.
Yet here, O how beyond a saint's belief,
We've seen the glories of a chine of beef;
Here chimneys smoke, which never smoked before,
And we have dined, where we shall dine no more/'
A score of British authors were asked to state the
number of words they wrote daily. Mr. Blackmore
replied to the inquiry in verse:
" The proper point about a book—
Or be it praised or smitten—
Is not to ask how long it took,
But what it is when written."
Thomas Moore published his first volume of poems
under the name of Thomas Little. It is stated that a
lady found a copy of the book under her maid's bed
and wrote on it in pencil:
" You read Little, I guess;
I wish you'd read less."
The servant was equal to her mistress, and wrote:
" I read Little before,
Now I mean to read Moore'9
Dr. Balguy, a preacher of great celebrity, after Hav-
ing delivered an excellent sermon, the text of which
REPARTEE IN VERSE
»7
was. " All wisdom is sorrow ", received the following
extempore but elegant compliment from Dr. Watson:
" If what you advance, dear doctor, be true,
That wisdom is sorrow, how wretched are you."
The subjoined lines on Dean Swift were affixed on
the night of his installation, in 1713, to the doors of the
Cathedral of Saint Patrick:
This place he got by wit and rhyme
And other ways most odd;
And might a bishop be—in time—
Did he believe in God.
Look down, Saint Patrick!—look, we pray,
On this thy church and steeple:
Convert thy dean on this great day,
Or else God help the people.
A certain Mr. Gould commented on his own marriage
in these terms:
" So you see, my dear sir, tho' I'm eighty years old,
A girl of eighteen is in love with old Gould."
And a wag gave him a retort courteous:
"A girl of eighteen may love Gould it is true,
But believe me, dear sir, it is gold without u."
A pretty girl asked her lover which he thought the
prettier flowers, roses or tulips.
" O, give me your two-lips ", said he, " before all the
roses in the world ".
The lady instantly made the following reply:
"That may be, sir; but this you'll understand,
The man who takes my lips must take my hand"
18 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
A clergyman and a physician lived in an English vil-
lage on terms of great intimacy. The clergyman seized
of an attack of gout, was attended gratuitously by the
physician. Later the physician was married and the
clergyman declined a fee for officiating at the cere-
mony. In doing so he wrote the following impromptu:
" To the doctor, the parson's a sort of brother;
And a good turn for one, deserves one of the other;
So take back your guineas, dear doctor, again;
Nor give—what you so well can remedy—pain.
May health, fame and wealth attend you thro* life,
And every day add to the bliss of your wife."
Ill
POETRY ON PANES
A former custom peculiar to the rural districts of
England was the scratching upon window panes, more
especially in old inns and public houses, of humorous
and philosophical reflections in verse. Some of the best
examples have been copied and preserved.
In the old coaching days, the Dog and Doublet at
Sandon, Staffordshire, was a popular roadside house.
A transient guest wrote on one of its window panes the
following recommendation:
" Most travellers to whom these roads are known,
Would rather stay at Sandon than at Stone;
Good chaises, horses, treatment, and good wines,
They always meet with at James Ballantine's."
An old Yorkshire parson appears to have been greatly
pleased with an inn near Boroughbridge, for he visited
it daily to enjoy his pipe and glass. On one of its win-
dow panes he inscribed these lines:
" Here in my wicker chair I sitt,
From folly far, and far from witt,
Content to live, devoid of care,
With country folks and country fare;
To listen to my landlord's tale,
And drink his health in Yorkshire ale;
Then smoke and read the York Courant;
I'm happy and 'tis all I want.
Though few my tythes and light my purse,
I thank my God it is no worse."
19
so HASTY PUDDING POEMS
Following is an example from an old wayside inn
near Harewood-bridge, on the Leeds and Harrogate
road:
" Gaily I lived, as Ease and Nature taught;
And passed my little Life without a thought;
I wonder, then, why Death, that tyrant grim,^
Should think of me, who never thought of him."
Another patron of the inn wrote these lines under the
foregoing:
" Oh! why forget that Death should think of thee;
If thou art Mortal, such must surely be;
Then rouse up reason, view thy hast'ning end,
And lose no time to make God thy friend."
A penniless poet wrote these lines on a tavern win-
dow:
" O chalk! to me, and to the poor, a friend,
On thee my life and happiness depends;
On thee with joy, with gratitude I think,
For by thy bounty, I both eat and drink.9'
An Englishman visiting Belgium in 1793, inscribed
the following verse upon the window pane at his hotel:
" I love but one, and only one,
Ah, Damon, thou art he 1
Love thou but one, and only one,
And let that one be me!"
It was formerly the custom for actors to write their
names upon the panes in one of the windows of the
York Theatre. On the glass of the same window were
found the following lines:
" The rich man's name embellished stands on brass;
The player simply scribbles his on glass,
POETRY ON PANES 21
Appropriate tablet to the wayward fate—
A brittle, shining, evanescent state:
The fragile glass destroyed—farewell the name;
The actor's glass consumed—farewell his fame."
This epigram was written under a pane disfigured
with autographs:
" Should you ever chance to see "
Another example is inscribed to Her Majesty, the
Queen:
" ' The Queen's with us ', the Whigs exulting say;
' For when she found us in, she let us stay \
It may be so; but give me leave to doubt
How long she'll keep you when she finds you out."
Here is a window verse which has been ascribed to
Robert Burns:
" The graybeard, Old Wisdom, may boast of his treas-
ures; ^
Grant me with gay Folly to live;
I grant him his calm-blooded, time-settled pleasures;
But Folly has raptures to give."
Burns wrote many other lines on window panes. Thd
following was written at Ellisland:
" O lovely Polly Stewart,
O charming Polly Stewart,
There's not a flower that blooms in May,
That's half so fair as thou art."
Polly was the daughter of the factor of Closeburn
estate when the poet resided at Ellisland.
HASTY PUDDING POEMS
Following are lines written by Burns on a pane of
glass at the Queensbury Arms, Sanquhar:
" Ye gods! ye gave to me a wife,
Out of your grace and favour,
To be a comfort to my life;
And I was glad to have her.
But if your providence divine
For other ends design her,
To obey your will at any time,
I'm ready to resign her."
IV
FOR BOOK BORROWERS
So long as people steal books, or, perhaps, forget to
return them to their rightful owners, the man who
loves his books as he might his children, will adopt
due precaution to retain possession of his treasures.
The book lover therefore has naturally written or had
printed a form of " warning" to be placed upon the
inside cover or the fly leaves of his volumes in order
to advise the book borrower of what may be expected
if the book be not returned. For ages these " warn-
ings " have found expression in verse—impromptu lines
—quite frequently scribbled with a pen with little care
or forethought.
The following admonition is full of salutary advice to
book borrowers:
Neither blemish this book nor the leaves double down,
Nor lend it to each idle friend in the town;
Return it when read; or, if lost, please supply
Another as good to the mind and the eye.
With right and with reason you need but be friends
m And each book in my study your pleasure attends.
The following was taken from an old family hymn
book, a product of the family rhymster and never pub-
lished. This book remained in the old church pew for
23
24 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
years, and no one was ever called upon to suffer the
penalty:
Who steals this book
Will end the strife,
With name erased
From " Book of Life."
A Massachusetts man wrote this:
This Book I lend, to give you pleasure,
To read and ponder at your leisure,
To steal it would be mean.
Turn down no leaves, but treat it well,
Who next may read it, none can tell,
So please to keep it clean.
'Tis lent you, for your own perusal,
So please to give a quick refusal
To those that would it borrow.
Your pleasure sated, let it be
Promptly returned again to me,
And thereby keep from sorrow.
Yours truly,
Sam Taylor.
In a copy of Burns' songs is this one:
Afore ye tak in hand this beuk
To these few lines jist gie a leuk.
Be sure that baith ye'r hands are clean*
Sic as are fitten to be seen,
Free fra a' dirt, and black coal coom;
Fra ash-hole dust, and chimley bloom;
O' creesh fra candle or fra lamp,
Upon it leave nae filthy stamp.
Fd rather gie a siller croon,
Than see a butter'd finger'd loon,
Wi' parritch reeming fra his chaps,
Fast fa'ing doon in slav'ring draps
TOR BOOK BORROWERS
Upon the beuk. Hech! for each sowp,
I'd wish a nettle in his doup ;
For every creeshie drap transparent,
I'd wish his neck wi' a sair hair in't;
Sic plague spots on ilk bonnie page
Wad mak a sant e'en stamp wi' rage,
Reader, ye'll no tak amiss
Sic an impertinence as this;
Ye'r no the ane that e'er wad do't—
An' use a beuk like an old cloot;
Ye wadna wi' ye'er fingers soil it—
Nor creesh, nor blot, nor rend, nor spoil it.
In the book of a Brooklyn man these lines
written:
If this booklet you would keep,
Store each word in memory deep,
Then each page and cover, too,
Send to me when you are through.
Following are two stray verses:
" Though lost to sight, to memory dear,
Our volumes lent, that disappear
With borrowers neglectful.
O, stay not midst that band of gnomes,
But send to me my cherished tomes.
Pray do not be forgetful."
" I lent a book to—Somebody,
And if again that book I had
I should, indeed, be very glad;
But I'm afraid that—Somebody
Though blest with sense,
Would take offense
Were I to say: I miss to-day
The book I lent to—Somebody."
26 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
M. W. Gushing Bamburgh, of El Mora, N. J., finds
in an old copy of the " Odes and Satyrs of Horace ":
If this I lend to any One
Pray Keep it not too long
Keepe Clean and fair and send with care
To whom it doth Belong.
And in a copy of Terence's comedies, London, 1718,
I recently found this verse, dated 1723;
Here do I put my name for to betraye
The theife yt steals my booke away.
In a copy of Bunny's " Parsons Booke of Christian
Exercise," (1615), Mr. Richard H. Thornton, of Port-
land, Oregon, finds this, in a seventeenth century hand:
Valentine Lawrence oweth this booke
& he that stealeth it shalbe hanged on a crooke.
Here are two quaint bits of doggerel found in old
New England books:
Look ye, my friend,
If this booke I lend,
Be sure to return,
Or in-----will ye burn.
Solemnly do you swear
This same book not to tear,
Nor dirty nor fray?
For your soul will I pray
If the return you delay.
The following are taken from Notes and Queries:
This book is mine
By right divine;
And if it go astray,
FOR BOOK BORROWERS *7
I'll call you kind
My desk to find
And put it safe away.
This book is mine—that you may know,
By letters two I will you show;
The first is J, a letter bright,
The next is S in all men's sight.
But if you still my name should miss,
Look underneath, and here it is:—
John Smith.
Whoe'er this book, if lost, doth find,
I hope will have a generous mind,
And bring it to the owner—me,
Whose name they'll see page fifty-three.
The following macaronic is taken from a copy of the
" Companion of the Festivals and Feasts," 1717:
To the Borrower of this Book.
Hie Liber est meus,
Deny it who can,
Samuel S.howell, Jr.,
An honest man.
In vico corvino (locale appended)
I am to be found,
Si non mortuus sum,
And laid in the ground.
At si non vivens,
You will find an heir
Qui librum recipiet:
You need not to fear,
Ergo cum lectus est
Restore it, and then
Ut quando mutuaris
I may lend it again.
At si detineas,
So let it be lost
Expectabo Argentum
As much as it cost (viz., 5s.).
2% HASTY PUDDING POEMS
Here are three interesting examples:
Small is the wren,
Black is the rook;
Great is the sinner
That steals this book.
This is Thomas Jones' book—
You may just within it look;
But you'd better not do more,
For the Devil's at the door,
And will snatch at fingering hands;
Look behind you—there he stands!
To the Finder.
If I this lose and you it find,
Restore it me, be not unkind;
For if not so, you're much to blame,
While as below you see my name.
(Name appended.)
Another macaronic runs as follows:
Si quisquis furetur
This little libellum,
Per Bacchum per Jovem!
I'll kill him, I'll fell him,
In venturum illuus
I'll stick my scalpellum,
And teach him to steal
My little libellium.
On the title page of a book called " Gentlemen, Look
About You," is the following curious request:
Read this over, if you're wise.
If you're not, then read it twice;
If a fool, and in the gall
Of bitterness, read not at all.
TOR BOOK BORROWERS 29
The two following are very common in village
schools:
This is Giles Wilkinson his book;
God give him grace therein to look;
Nor yet to look, but understand
That learning's better than house and land;
For when both house and land are spent,
Then learning is most excellent.
John Smith is my name;
England is my nation,
London is my dwelling place,
And Christ is my salvation.
And when I'm dead and in my grave,
And all my bones are rotten,
When this you see, remember me,
Though I am long forgotten.
This pretty presentation verse is occasionally nstt
with:
Take it—'tis a gift of love
That seeks thy good alone;
Keep it for the giver's sake,
And read it for thy own.
The following has also been of service. This verse is
taken from an old copy book:
All you, my friends, who now expect to see
A piece of writing, here performed by me,
Cast but a smile on this my mean endeavor,
I'll strive to mend, and be obedient ever.
On the fly leaf of a Bible may sometimes be seen:
Could we with ink the ocean fill.
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And were the skies of parchment made
And every man a scribe by trade,
3<> HASTY PUDDING POEMS
To tell the love of God alone
Would drain the ocean dry!
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
Of course we all remember what ridiculous doggerel
some of the scholars used to write at school, as for
example:
" This book is John Smith's,
My fist is another;
You touch one
And you'll feel the other."
Then again:
" Steal not this book, my honest friend,
For fear the gallows be thy end."
The following rather severe lines were used by a
Massachusetts man:
" Stern power of Justice, lift thy wand
In spite of mercy's look,
Strike him who with presumptuous hand
Purloins this valued book."
An unique thing of its kind is the following, which
appears in the books in the library of a well-known
divine:
" My friends include all sorts of men,
From bank directors down to cooks,
But whether knights of pen or hen,
They all excel in ' keeping books/
Each man the Gabriel of his kind,
They would not steal an ounce of dross,
But this invariably I find
That their's the * profit,' mine the * loss/
FOR BOOK BORROWERS 31
Ye sons of Conscience, heed these wrongs,
Unless ye seek to hear a growling;
Nor please forget, this book belongs
To Rev. George Thomas Dowling."
And this:
" Not that imparted knowledge doth'
Diminish learning's store;
But books, I find, if often lent,
Return to me no more."
An old gentleman who had suffered much from
book thieves, wrote the following lines and placed them
in each of the volumes in his library:
"Of thieves there are a great variety,
Found even in the best society;
Some steal our books with charming looks
Whilst others—don't return our books."
In the early sixties this verse was written:
" Steal not this book for fear of shame,
For here you see the owner's name;
[Here the name appeared.]
Or in the court the Judge will say
Where is that booke you stole away?
Up the ladder and down the rope
You'll hang there until you choke.'1''
This is another:
If thou art borrowed by a friend,
Right welcome shall he be
To read, to study, not to lend,
But to return to me.
Not that imparted knowledge doth
Diminish Learning's store;
But books, I find, if often lent,
Return to me no more.
3* HASTY PUDDING POEMS
The following is an inscription in an old Latirt
grammar:
" Hie liber est metis,
And that you may know,
Si aliquis rapit,
I'll fetch him a blow.
Per Jovum per Bellum,
I vow I will fell him
And into his ribs
I will stick my scapellum."
Here is another:
Please use me kindly,
Turn no leaves down.
Send me back promptly
To James H. Brown.
A New Jersey man wrote this:
I once had volumes and a friend,
On both I set great store—
I loaned my volumes to my friend
And got his thanks therefor.
I asked my volumes of my friend,
And naught but words I got.
I lost my volumes and my friend,
For sue him I would not.
If I had volumes and a friend,
As I had once before,
I'd keep my volumes and my friend,
And play the fool no more.
Here are some verses found on the fly-leaf of a vol-
ume of Tennyson:
Ask me no more; the moon may draw the sea,
The cloud may stoop from heaven, and you to me,
But oh, too fond! when I have answered thee,
Ask me no more!
FOR BOOK BORROWERS 33
Ask me no more! I once did lend thee books
And you returned them not;
And what on earth's become of them, odzooks!
No man doth wot:
Ask me no more!
Ask me no more; the moon may draw the sea,
But you can draw no more books out of me!
George Wightwick, a Plymouth architect and author,
had a printed copy of the following verses inserted in
each of the books belonging to him:
To whomsoe'er this book I lend,
I give one word—no more;
They who to borrow condescend
Should graciously restore.
And whosoe'er this book should find
(Be't trunkmaker or critick,)
I'll thank him if he'll bear in mind^
That it is mine—George Wightwick.
Following is a verse found on the flyleaf of an old
Greek Testament:
Not that unparted knowledge doth
Diminish learning's store,
But books I find—if often lent—
Return to me no more.
The next is from an old copy of Virgil:
Under the seal of friendship
To thee I do confide
This veal memento erudite
Of Latin race the pride,
Into its charms and beauties
I trust you'll full revel,
But don't forget when through with it
To send it back to L. (Room 19.)
HASTY PUDDING POEMS
are two other pieces:
The wisdom, learning, knowledges
This old book may contain
I do unto thee friend, extend
With all my heart and main,
But the gross material receptacle
Which the treasure doth contain
I hope you'll have the goodness to
Return to me again.
The abstract treasures in this tome
To you I do bequeath
As a friend, and hope you'll prove
Unlike the sordid thief
Who of its contents thinks so well
As the lender to overlook,
When gorged to his capacity,
Forgets to return the book.
V
POEMS ON" PLACES
In the folk-lore of England very numerous and
curious examples are given of verses entirely impromptu
composed about various localities. The lines as a rule
are pointed if not poetic.
An old Norfolk rhyme says:
" Rising was a seaport town,
And Lynn it was a wash;
But now Lynn is a seaport town,
And Rising fares the worst."
In Norwich this verse was composed:
" Caistor was a city ere Norwich was none,
And Norwich was built of Caistor stone."
These lines were once current in Derbyshire:
" When Leechfield was a market town,
Chesterfield was gorse and broom;
Now Chesterfield's a market town,
Leechfield a marsh is grown."
This was written of a village in Somersetshire:
" Nertoun was a market-town
When Taunton was a furzy down."
A rhyme that became very popular reads:
" Lincoln was, London is and York shall be
The fairest city of the three."
35
36 HASTY PUDDING POEMS,
Of Hull this was written:
" When Myton is pulled down,
Hull shall become a great town/*
A Yorkshire rhyme says:
" When Oliver's Mount puts on his hat,
Scarboro' town must pay for that."
In the same locality a couplet reads:
" When Ingleboro' wears a hat,
Ribblesdale'll hear o' that."
An old English distich says:
" When clouds are on the hills
They'll come down by the mills."
Of Derbyshire folk this was said:
" Derbyshire born and Derbyshire bred,
Strong in the arm but weak in the head."
But Derbyshire people retaliated thus:
" Ripley ruffians
Butterly blocks
Swannick bulldogs
Alfreton shocks."
The town of Alfreton was once the stake at a game of
cards, and the loser exclaimed on the cards being dealt:
" If I have not an ace, a deuce and a tray,
Farewell, Alfreton, for ever and aye."
Another card player who wagered his farm and lost,
exclaimed.
" Ace, deuce, and tray,
Landscales go thy way."
POEMS ON PLACES 37
Here are two Kentish rhymes:
" Sutton for beef
Kerby for mutton,
South Darie for gingerbread
Dartford for a thief."
And:
" English lord, German count, and French marquies,
A yeoman of Kent is worth all three."
Selling church bells brought forth many impulsive
verses, like the following examples:
" Arlesey, Arlesley, wicked people;
Sold their bells to build their steeple."
" Poor Scartho people
Sold their bells to repair its steeple."
" The poor Hutton people,
Sold the bells to build up the steeple."
" Ornersby's parish,
Wicked people,
Sold their bells
To build a steeple."
On the walls of Newington church, London, in 1793,
was written this rhvme:
" Pious parson, pious people,
Sold the bells to build the steeple;
A very fine trick of the Newington people,
To sell the bells to build a steeple."
Here is a satirical couplet:
" Ugley church, ugley steeple,
Ugley parson, ugley people."
38 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
A Buckinghamshire rhyme describes certain places in
that county as follows
Brill upon the Hill,
Oakley in the hole,
Shabby little Ickford,
Dirty Worminghall.
A somewhat similar rhyme is current in Northamp-
tonshire :
Armston on the Hill,
Polebrook in the Hole,
Armston turns the mill,
Oundle burns the coal.
Respecting certain places in Norfolk we find this
rhyme:
Halvergate hares, Reedham rats,
Southwood swine, and Cantley cats,
Acle asses, Moulton mules,
Beighton bears, and Freethorpe fools.
Of Ely, in Cambridgeshire, we are told:
Three things you may at Ely see—
A windmill, mounted up on high,
The lantern chapel of St. Mary,
A vineyard yielding wine yearly.
The inhabitants of certain villages between Cromer
and Norwich are thus alluded to:
Blicking flats, Aylsham fliers,
Marsham peewits, and Hevingham liars.
In Sussex there is an amusing rhyme to this effect:
Arundel mullet—stinking fish,
Eats it off a dirty dish,
VOBMS ON PLACES 39
which is said by the people of Offham to the folk of
Arundel; the retort is:
Offham dingers, churchbell ringers,
Only taters for your Sunday dinners.
A rhyme referring to Rockingham in Rutlandshire
says:
Rockingham, poor people,
Nasty town, castle down,
One bell, wooden steeple.
Of Hbveton, in Norfolk, it is said:
Hoveton church, with never a steeple,
Sickly parson, ungodly people
Wooton-under-Weaver, in Staffordshire, is described
as:
Wooton-under-Weaver,
Where God came never.
In Oxfordshire we are told that:
Dirty Banbury's proud people
Built a church without a steeple.
The old church was pulled down in the year 1793.
The present edifice is an ugly structure in the Italian
style, and its want of a spire and the character the town
formerly had for dirt gave rise to the couplet.
At Bowden, in Northamptonshire, the rhyme runs:
Little Bowden, poor people,
Leather bells, wooden steeple.
Of Stoke Golding, in Leicestershire, it is said:
Stoke Golding, Stoke Golding,
Where the boys kiss the girls without holding.
4© 'HASTY PUDDING POEMS
A particularly appropriate rhyme is:
Stow-on-the-Wold,
Where the wind blows cold.
A rhyme respecting certain villages in Lincolnshire is
very curious:
Waddingham bite all, Snitterby smite all,
Atterby stands in the clay;
Norton hogs and Glentham dogs
Scared Caenby all away;
Normandy pots, Owmby pans,
And Saxby new milk cheese*
f Spridlington hares, Hackthorne fairs,
And Welton bumble bees.
In Cheshire we are told:
The Mayor of Altrincham and the Mayor of Over,
The one is a thatcher and the other a dauber.
—apparently references to the humble callings followed
by the former Mayors of those two towns.
Respecting Bewdley, in Worcestershire, we find this
couplet:
For ringers, singers, and a crier,
Bewdley excels all Worcestershire.
Petworth, in Surrey, is thus alluded to:
Proud Petworth, poor people,
High church, crooked steeple.
A Kentish rhyme runs:
Deal, Dover, and Harwich,
The devil gave his daughter in marriage,
And by a codicil of his will,
He added Helvecot and the Brill.
FOEM'S r0N PHAGES 4*
In the County of Durham we find the following
couplet:
Seaton Sluice and Hartlepool Mill,
The one goes round, the other stands still.
And in the same county we are told:
When Yarm swims and Ecclescliff swims,
Ainslaby will be a market town.
Yorkshire rhymes are very numerous. At Stainton,
near Barnard Castle, we have set forth the virtues of a
most valuable spring:
The water of Hessie well
Will make tea by itsell.
Again, in the same county, there is St. Diana's Well,
whose pure water has long been proverbial:
Whoever eats Hammer nuts
And drinks Diana's water,
Will never leave Witton while
He has a rag or tatter.
The places to which allusion is made in the next
couplet are also situate in Yorkshire:
Birstall for ringers, Heckmodwike for singers,
Dewsbury for peddlers, and Cleckheaton for sheddlers.
These places are close to each other in the West Rid-
ing. To " sheddle," in the Yorkshire dialect, is to
swindle.
At Argam, near Bridlington, it is believed there is an
underground water course, hence the saying:
Put a duck at Argam well
And it will come up at Grindall Kell.
42 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
Several finglish counties are thus characterized in
a popular rhyme:
Cheshire for men,
Berkshire for hogs,
Bedfordshire for naked flesh,
Lincolnshire for bogs,
Derbyshire for lead,
Devonshire for tin,
Wiltshire for hunting plains,
And Middlesex for sin.
The next rhyme refers to four noted cities:
Oxford for learning,
London for wit,
Hull for fair women,
And York for a tit
VI
IN THE LAW COURTS
Lawyers are not unfamiliar with the rules of verse
and numerous instances are recorded where they have
impulsively turned to poetry as a means of exemplifying
their legal points.
In Kansas some years ago an action at law was
pleaded, argued and passed upon by the court in rhyme.
The case was entitled "The State vs. Lewis (19 Kas.,
260)." Attorney Eugene F. Ware of Fort Scott re-
ported the case as follows:
In the Supreme Court, State of Kansas.
George Lewis, Appellant, ads. The State of Kansas,
Appellee. (Appeal from Atchison County.)
SYLLABUS.
Law—Paw, Guilt—Wilt
When upon thy frame the law
Places its majestic paw,
Tho' in innocence or guilt,
Thou art then required to wilt.
Statement of Case.
This defendant, while at large,
Was arrested on a charge
Of burglarious intent,
And direct to jail he went.
43
44 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
But he somehow felt misused,
And through prison walls he oozed,
And in some unheard-of shape
He effected his escape.
Mark you, now: Again the law
On defendant placed its paw,
Like a hand of iron mail,
And resocked him into jail—
Which said jail, while so corraled,
He by sockage tenure held.
Then the court met, and they tried
Lewis up and down each side,
On the good, old-fashioned plan;
But the jury cleared the man.
Now, you think that this strange case
Ends at just about this place;
Nay, not so. Again the law
On defendant placed its paw;
This time takes him round the cape
For effecting an escape.
" Wrongly did they me arrest,
As my trial did attest,
And while rightfully at large
Taken on a wrongful charge,
I took back from them what they
From me wrongly took away."
When this special plea was heard
Thereupon the State demurred.
The defendant then was pained,
When the court was heard to say,
In a cold and passive way,
" The demurrer is sustained."
Back to jail did Lewis go,
But as liberty was dear,
He appeals, and now is herd
IN THE VAW COURTS 45
To reverse the Judge below,
The opinion will contain
All the statements that remain.
Argument and Brief of Appellant:
As a matter, sir, of fact,
Who was injured by our act,
Any property, or man?
Point it out, sir, if you can.
Can you seize us when at large
On a baseless, trumped-up charge,
And if we escape, then say
It is crime to get away—
When we rightfully regained
What was wrongfully obtained?
Please, the court, sir, what is crime?
What is right, and what is wrong?
Is our freedom but a song,
Or the subject of a rhyme?
Argument and Brief of Attorney for the State:
When the State, that is to say,
We, take liberty away—
When the padlock and the hasp
Leaves one helpless in our grasp,
It's unlawful then that he
Even dreams of liberty;
Wicked dreams that may in time
Grow and ripen into crime—
Crime of dark and damning shape;
Then, if he perchance escape,
Evermore remorse will roll
O'er his shattered, sin-sick soul,
Please, the court, sir, how can we
Manage people who get free?
46 HASTY PUDDING POEMSt
Reply of Appellant:
Pleasei the court, sir, if it's sin,
Where does turpitude begin?
Opinion of Court, per curiam:
We—donft—make—law we are bound
To interpret it as found.
The defendant broke away;
When arrested, he should stay.
This appeal can't be maintained,
Tor the record does not show
Error in the court below,
And we nothing can infer.
Let the judgment be sustained-
All the Justices concur.
Note by the reporter
" Of the sheriff, rise and sing.
Glory to our earthly King! "
When Judge Logan E. Bleckley took his leave of the
Georgia Supreme Court, after serving as an associate
Justice for five years, he took up a sheet of paper and
read therefrom the following lines, which were drawn
up in the form of a regular judicial opinion:
In the Matter of Rest.
Bleckley, J.
I.
Rest for the hand and brow and breast,
For fingers, heart and brain!
Rest and peace! a long release
From labor and from pain;
Pain of doubt, fatigue, despair;
Pain of darkness everywhere,
And seeking light in vain.
IN THE LAW COURTS 47
II.
Peace and rest! Are they trie best
For mortals here below?
Is soft repose from work and woe
A bliss for men to know?
Bliss of time is bliss of toil;
No bliss but this, from sin and soil,
Does God permit to grow.
Judge Bleckley read the lines slowly and with empha-
sis. By order of the Court they were spread on the
minutes in honor of their author.
Before his retirement Judge Bleckley delivered this
decision in the case of the Central Railroad vs. Roberts:
The groom and bride each come within
The circle of each other's kin,
But kin and kin are still no more
Related than they were before.
A breach of promise suit in England turned on the
question whether the defendant actually made an offer
of marriage. The affirmative evidence was the follow-
ing verse, which he sent to the plaintiff:
Believe my sighs, my tears, my dear—
Believe the heart you've won:
Believe my vows to you sincere,
Or Jane, I am undone.
Oh, come, my charmer, let's away
To church and end this strife;
How blest will be each night and day
When, Jane, you are my wife.
The jury deemed this a fair and square matrimonial
offer, and awarded Jane £40 damages.
48 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
The following is said to be an exact copy of an
amended return of nulla bona filed in the office of the
clerk of the Circuit Court of Dade county, Fla.:
Return, in this case, I had thought was well ended,
But I am advised it is better amended,
So now a return that will speak the whole truth
Is offered in lieu of the other, forsooth.
This darned execution I've tried for to levy
Against the defendant who calls himself Aiken;
I've gone for him good and come down on him heavy,
But find he's no goods that can ever be taken.
The other defendant has acted much " Wilder."
Suspicions I have, if I put it some milder.
For though he had lands and many a chattel,
And fought to the finish an oft-losing battle,
This Abner N. Wilder, the other defendant,
Upon his lawyer's deep shrewdness dependent,
Transferred his estate all away.
So I find in making my levy to-day
He, too, has no goods I can take,
For all are exempt, or a d------d empty fake,
In the name of triumphant and complaisant spouse,
And execution's returned with " Nix-coom-er-ouse."
This history I file of sorrowful deficit.
And hope this return is sufficiently explicit.
R. J. Chillingworth,
Sheriff, Dade County, Florida.
An opulent farmer applied to an attorney about a
lawsuit, but was told he could not undertake it, being
already engaged on the other side: at the same time, he
gave him a letter of recommendation to a professional
friend. The farmer, out of curiosity, opened it and read
as follows:
" Here are two fat wethers, fallen out together;
If you'll fleece one, I'll fleece the other,
And make 'em agree like brother and brother."
IN THE LAW COURTS 49
At Newark, N. J., one morning some years ago, in the
door of the Police Court stood a little old man, the
breast of his coat covered with badges, brass and nickel
medals and gaudy ribbons. Some of the medals were
fully four inches in diameter. He wore his hair long;
he wore a mustache and he wore spectacles.
His little medals tinkled and his big medals clanged
as he crossed the floor and took up a position in front
of the Judge. Once more bowing, he began to state
his grievance, emphasizing the words with sweeping mo-
tions of the arms, and intoning the lines in sing-song
style. He sang:
" Behold Adelbert Von Berge,
Poet, also a brushmaker of renown.
At 29 Bedford street I have my home.
There is in this town a schuflicker;
His name is Carl Jaehnel;
He claims to be a poet like me.
Herr Richter, ist das richt?
With my hands and feet tied
I can better poetry make
Than Carl Jaehnel.
Oh, shame! Carl Jaehnel! "
"Well, but what's this court got to do with that?"
asked the Judge.
" Worthy Herr Richter, have patience!
It is beautiful like the sunshine in
The beer gardens—
(Ah, Carl Jaehnel could not that say IX
But as I was saying,
What right has the landlord
To put notices my house on
That mem room to let is ?
Herr Richter, ist das richt ? "
SO HASTY PUDDING POEMS
" My good man, I think we can do nothing for you,"
said the Judge, kindly.
" Yet graciously listen, Herr Richter.
The watchmaker, like a villain,
Like a schuhflicker,
Wanted to charge 75 cents for fixing it;
I got the watch from the Kaiser Wilhelm;
Likewise this medal, also.
This I got from Queen Victoria,
And—but where is my Persian dagger?"
" But what about the watchmaker ? Wonrt he give
you the watch?" asked the Judge.
" Herr Richter, I offer him two brushes,
Double brushes they were;
And also I would poetry for him make;
But he the money wants;
With a laugh he my offer had,
And he my feelings hurt
When that loafer word he said—
When he said ' Nit/
Herr Richter, ist das richt ? "
" I am sorry, but we can clo nothing for you here ",
said the Judge. The man did not seem to understand.
Clerk Pearson, who had been gradually falling into the
poetic ecstasy, leaned across the bench toward the old
man and said impressively:
" Good sir, I beg leave to report
That this is a criminal court:
Elsewhere you will have to resort,
Jurisdictions must never conflict;
Go down to the Second District—
Jah—800 Broad—das ist richt.
This court deals with folks that do evil,,
The other tries suits that are civil-
Go there or else go to a lawyer."
IN THE LAW COURTS 51
Tfie old man's face brightened up. He seized Mr.
Pearson's hand and bent over it reverently. He had met
a brother song-smith. He went out happy, bowing and
smiling, with his medals all a-jingle.
A San Francisco lawyer named Jolison combined law
with rhyme as follows :
Precedents in Justices' Court Pleadings,
by
James L. Jolison.
Demurrer to complaint by assignee of cause of action for
goods sold and delivered.
(Title of Court and Cause.)
Personally now appears defendant in this court
And, within the time the summons tells him that he
ought,
Interposes this demurrer to the dry complaint,
Wherein the plaintiff seeks in musty terms of law to
paint
The wrongs which at defendant's hands he claims he
has sustained
By bills which he alleges have too long past due
remained.
First: Defendant says that it appears upon the face
Of said Complaint, this court is clearly not the proper
place
Where said defendant should be sued, and therefore
that it lacks
Jurisdiction of his person; wherefore, by the tax
Or burden of a judgment he'd be wrongfully annoyed,
And forced to make objection that such judgment would
be void.
Second: This defendant also makes to the complaint,
Objection that, upon its face, it clearly is attaint
With vice of plaintiff's legal incapacity to sue
In this or any other court for any debt or due.
52 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
Third : Defendant, though he much dislikes to criticise
A brother lawyer's pleadings or his errors advertise,
Is forced to say that such complaint doth wholly fail to
state
Sufficient facts to constitute or make or predicate,
A cause of action upon which defendant may be sued
Whate'er the light in which the said complaint be read
or viewed.
Wherefore, this defendant asks that plaintiff hence de-
part
And go without a day—and that he make an early start.
Thus, by rights of which the Code has made defendant
owner,
James L. Jolison
Here signs in propria persona.
As is usual in such cases, Mr. Jolison foresaw that his
demurrer might be overruled, so that the court might
decide upon the facts of the case as presented. Antici-
pating such action on the part of the court, he prepared
an answer to the complaint^ couched in the same satirical
style and similar metre.
FORM OF ANSWER TO COMPLAINT IN JUSTICES' COURT
AFTER DEMURRER OVERRULED.
(Title of Court and Cause.)
Cometh now defendant, and unto the court's decree
Overruling his demurrer, bows and bends his knee,
And to said most wise decision no exception takes,
But within the time allowed him, thus his answer
makes:
First: As in this forum he, by statute, is permitted
To make denial general of all things not admitted,
He doth deny each allegation, matter, word and thing
Against him which the plaint of plaintiff doth allege
and bring
'IN THE LAW COURTS 53
Admitting nothing, thus he puts the plaintiff to his
proof
Of all the fabric of his case in web and warp and woof.
And, to be more specific, he denies he ever bought
Said goods or wares or merchandise, or anything or
aught
Of plaintiff or his assignors or any other per—
Son, as in the complaint aforesaid plaintiff doth aver.
Denies he also that the same he purchased then or there
At time or place the plaintiff doth allege, or anywhere;
And doth deny that he or they delivered him or sold
Him any goods or wares as in said complaint is told.
And while he is denying wholesale thus, he might as
well,
And, therefore, doth deny that they had any g6ods to
sell.
Defendant also doth deny he ever promise made
That plaintiff or his assignors, should, as alleged, be
paid
The price or sum which is averred of dollars sixty-four
And thirty-five or any cents or any sum therefor;
And denies that any promise, or agreement or intent,
Was made that interest upon said sum at seven per cent,
Or any rate, or any sum—be such sum great or small—
Should be by this defendant paid to anyone at all.
Second: This defendant for a separate defense,
As reason why this court should bid the plaintiff get him
hence
Doth say said goods and merchandise had many grave
defects,
Videlicet—that is to say—to wit: in these respects:
That when defendant bought said goods they seemed in
all things sound,
But when he opened them at home, he then and there
first found
That they were badly damaged; and he here and now
alleges,
They were soiled and torn and crumpled and unravelled
at the edges.
54 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
Wherefore, this defendant prays that nothing by his
suit
The plaintiff take and that he pay defendant's costs to
boot.
And having thus his answer made in the foregoing lines
In propria persona
James L. Jolison
Here signs.
Miss Moore, a maiden lady of Clinton, N. Y., pos-
sessed what she termed " a harmless, necessary cat."
The cat was noisy, however, and his caterwaulings
offended the ears of two professors of Hamilton Col-
lege, who sacrificed the cat in the interest of science
and silence. Miss Moore promptly brought suit for
damages. The Albany " Law Journal" printed the
complaint and answer, as follows:
Anna Q. Moore against Albro D. Morrill and Joseph
Searle.
This plaintiff was the owner of and in possession of
a valuable family cat, being of great value on account
of being of the seven-toed variety, and particularly valu-
able to this plaintiff on account of its domestic disposi-
tion and its great usefulness in ridding the house, barn
and premises, where plaintiff resides, with her mother,
of rats, mice and other pests, the value of the same
being $75.
That on or about the ------day of March, 1897, at the
residence of plaintiff, on College Hill, the above de-
fendants unlawfully and wickedly and wilfully took
aforesaid cat from the premises of this plaintiff, and
carried away and killed the same, to this plaintiff's dam-
age in the sum of $75.
Anna £„ J/Iopre, Plaintiff.
L. M. Martin, Counsel for Plaintiff,
W THE TAW COURTS $5
This unique answer to the complaint was filed by D.
V. Searle of Rome, the defendant's attorney:
For answer to complaint herein
Defendant most respectfully
Denies the same, disputes the claim,
And utterly, rejectfully.
This maiden plaintiff's Thomas cat
Was filled with bad propensity
To prowl and fight, and scratch and bite,
And howl with great intensity.
The feline ferae naturae
Would go with great velocity,
Not after rats, but neighbors* cats,
And claw them with ferocity.
He was a mangy, flea-bit thing,
And mingled with bad company;
No high-born cat, aristocrat,
But nasty, vile, and vicious he.
His sire was mean, and mean his dam
And damned thro'out eternity
By neighbors sad and neighbors mad,
Whose dams meant not maternity.
Felis damage-feasant was
Sic scripsit magna curia;
To stop his breath and cause his death
Damnum absque injuria.
We tried to rid us of this pest,
"The cat came back" and squalled defiance;
Not knowing that 'twas plaintiff's cat
We thought we'd offer him to science.
His fur and carcass plaintiff took,
And when from life that body parted
She should be glad, for then she had
A better cat than when she started.
56
HASTY PUDDING POEMS
And now we ask this learned Court
For judgment in this cause unholy;
In justice's name, dismiss the claim
With costs and soothe our melancholy.
Mirabeau L. Towns of Brooklyn, N. Y., known as
" the poetic lawyer," filed a brief written in verse, in the
Eagle Savings and Loan Company against Jennie Sam-
uels, in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court.
The suit was begun to foreclose a " so-called mort-
gage," and Mr. Towns was counsel for the defendant-
appellant. He divides his brief into " facts" and
" points ". The third division, " poetry ", is not so en-
titled because, it is suggested, perhaps, verse is one of
Mr, Towns's strongest " points ", or because here it is
gracefully strewn throughout the brief.
The first poetic outburst comes after the following:
" Was ever such a rush made to pay two thousand times
what one has contracted to pay as was made on the part
of all of the five hundred and seventy-three members of
this association ? *
This " rush" suggested the Balaklava charge pi the
six hundred, and Mr. Towns sings (without apologies
to Tennyson) :
Into the cashier's den
Rode the six hundred,
To pay what they owed not, then
/ Swift to be plundered.
Earth had not known such men,
Free, open-handed;
Paying two thousand times
What was demanded.
Mr. Towns continued thus for a number of verses, in
the course of which he refers to the " humbug to the
W THE LAW COURTS
SI
right of them " and the " falsehood to the left of them ",
and says it was " theirs but to pay the cash, theirs but
to go to smash".
John Donnelly finding himself in a New York prison
wrote the following poetic appeal to Justice Cornell:
There is mercy in each ray of light
That mortal lips e'er draw;
There is mercy in the God above,
And, I hope, in courts of law.
There is mercy in each bird and beast
By Heaven's indulgent plan:
There is mercy upon Judge Cornell—
So, discharge me like a man.
These lines were headed, " Poem a la Pen," and were
prefaced by a few lines in prose stating that the writer
had been four months in durance vile, and that if he
were discharged he could get work as a rockman on the
rapid transit tunnel.
Justice Cornell endeavored in vain to hide his emotion
as he read the appeal. He considered for a moment,
then seized his pen and dashed off this:
What, ho! Where are you, Chief Clerk Bloch ?
Bring forth a discharge, a poet's in hock.
To jail he was sent, filled up with booze,
The jail he'll out on account of his Muse.
This order was handed to Mr. Bloch, and a discharge
for Mr. Donnelly was prepared.
Judge Hanecy of Chicago granted William Schinecke-
bier a divorce when shown the new " Ten Command-
5» HASTY PUDDING POEMS
ments" William's wife had set up for his observance.
Here they are:
These are the new commandments ten
Which wives now make for married men:
1. Remember that I am thy wife,
That thou must cherish all thy life.
2. Thou shalt not stay out late at night
When lodges, friends and clubs invite.
3. Thou shalt not smoke, indoor or out,
Or chew tobacco " round about".
4. Thou shalt with praise receive my pies,
Nor pastry made by me despise.
5. My mother thou shalt strive to please
And let her live with us in ease.
6. Remember 'tis thy duty clear
To dress me well throughout the year.
7. Thou shalt in manner mild and meek
Give me thy wages every week.
8. Thou shalt not be a drinking man,
But live on prohibition plan.
9. Thou shalt not flirt, but must allow
Thy wife such freedom anyhow.
10. Thou shalt get up when baby cries
And try the child to tranquilize.
These my commandments from day to day
Implicitly thou shalt obey.
Schineckebier also showed that his wife had been un-
faithful.
The following from the pen of David Garrick was
sent by him to Counsellor Hotchkin, at a time when
Garrick was involved in a law-suit, respecting the pos-
session of a house at Hampton:
Garrick to His Counsellor
" On your care must depend the success of my suit,
The possession I mean of the house in dispute;
Remember, my friend, an attorney's my foe,
And the worst of his tribe; though the best are so-soj
IN THE LAW COURTS $9
In law, as in life, I well know 'tis a rule,
That the knave should be ever too hard for the fool;
To this rule one exception your client implores,
That the fool may for once kick the knave out of
doors."
In the complaint in a suit for $io,ooo damages for
personal injuries in the pursuit of his work for the
Armour Packing Company at Kansas City, Kan., one
Andy Dupont, a pugilist of local note as well as an
Armour employee, stated his case in rhyme and asserted
that he would suffer his life long by reason of defend-
ant's wrong. The defendant replied in the same sweet
strains, and, not to be outdone, the plaintiff rejoined in
real poetry. It is an odd contribution to the court
records.
A local newspaper in reporting the case caused the
following poetic headlines to cover the text:
THIS KANSAS BARD WITH FEELINGS
HARD AGAINST THE CORPORATION,
Because, He Claimed, His Limbs Were
Maimed While Working at
Its Station,
Burst Forth in Rhyme, to Bring the Crime
Before the Court's Attention,
Defendant Spake 'Twas Plaintiff's Wake, and Not
Worth Legal Mention.
The papers in full follow:
60 'HASTY PUDDING POEMS
Within the Court of Common Pleas of Wyandotte
County, Kansas.
Andy Dupont, Plaintiff, vs. The Armour Packing Com-
pany, Defendant, (Petition No. ------).
I.
Comes now the plaintiff here in court
And by complaining, does report
That this defendant is and was
A corporation, made by laws.
That by its corporation power,
It butchered cattle by the hour,
And often killed both hogs and sheep,
And placed their meats on ice to keep.
And of the times he doth complain,
Defendant owned, and still remain
The owners of a certain station,
From which^ it ships, to every nation,
Large quantities of well-dressed meat,
That those who pay, may freely eat.
Said station stands in Wyandotte,
The county where defendant got
A great big pull in taxing rates,
In Kansas, too, the best of States.
Now plaintiff further doth declare
Defendant did not treat him fair;
For in the month of lovely May,
In ninety-seven, here we say,
This plaintiff then defendant's servant,
Obeyed his orders, which were urgent;
And never stole an idle minute,
But labored hard for what was in it.
Defendant did, sad to relate,
Own a machine on that said date,
A rusty, worn and broken frame,
Eight hooks, eight wheels, all built the same.
IN THE TAW COURTS 61
Each hook and wheel was worn and broken,
Said wheels of which we here have spoken,
Together with said broken frame,
Were placed on rails, broke just the same.
And these said rails, along their border,
Were altogether out of order;
Were worn with rust and badly bent,
And were not worth a single cent.
There was, also, a large steel spring,
In which was placed an iron ring.
Said spring was used to close the track,
The ring was used to pull it back,
And let said wheels and frame go through,
Then pass beyond, a rod, or two—
To where defendant loaded meat
Into its cars for men to eat.
But plaintiff now doth here declare
Said spring was not in good repair,
For it was loose and weak and light
And did not close the track up tight.
Now all said wheels, hooks, rails and spring,
Together with said iron ring,
Were elevated high o'er head
Extending from the cooler-bed,
And used to carry frozen sheep
To well iced cars, where they would keep.
Now all said defects, here we say,
Three months before the first of May,
Defendant then full knowledge had,
And knew said spring and rails were bad,
Or with small care might know it well,
Long prior to the time it fell.
But through neglect and want of care
Defendant failed to make repair
Upon said spring, said hooks and rails,
Through carelessness, defendant fails.
And thus within said month of May
The plaintiff chanced to pass that way.
6* 'HASTY PUDDING POEMS
By reason of said broken spring,
The rusty rails, the iron ring,
Said wheels ran off their rusty track
And fell upon the plaintiff's back.
And also fell and hit his head,
And nearly struck the plaintiff dead.
Said hooks caught in the plaintiff's arm
And did him great and serious harm.
Said wheels fell on his big right toe
And mashed it flat, as you may know.
The frame struck his right shoulder blade,
And broke the bone, the plaintiff said.
It also hit the plaintiff's ear
And made him deaf, for life, we fear.
It mashed his nose, it bruised his eyes,
And now with pain the plaintiff cries.
It caused his head to ache with pain,
Now he's driven 'most insane.
It hurt his liver, lungs and spine,
Both hands were mashed to atoms, fine,
Broke every bone from heels to head,
And still the plaintiff is not dead.
It made him dumb and deaf and blind,
Yet death came not to ease his mind.
It left him maimed and ruined for life,
A burden to himself, and wife,
Yet each and every injury here
To plaintiff, caused through want of care,
With which we charge defendant here.
There was no fault on plaintiff's part,
He did not cause said wheels to start,
He did not do a single thing
To hooks, or frame, or track, or spring.
Defendant, by its own neglect,
Through want of care and self-respect,
It failed to keep said track and spring
In the repair it should have been.
IN THE LAW COURTS 63
Thus by its sole neglect alone
The plaintiff has been ruined, as shown,
And made to suffer his life long
By reason of defendant's wrong.
Therefore, in right it surely follows
The plaintiff should be paid in dollars.
By reason of said injuries done
The pain and anguish all in one,
Together with his broken bones
And injuries which the plaintiff owns
Will damage him the full extent
Of ten thousand dollars, to a cent.
Wherefore, the plaintiff makes demand,
And let defendant understand
That plaintiff prays for judgment here,
For just ten thousand dollars, clear,
'Gainst said defendant, and the cost,
Which worries clerks and sheriffs most.
Attorneys for Plaintiff.
Within the Court of Common Pleas of Wyandotte
County, Kansas.
Andy Dupont, Plaintiff, vs. The Armour Packing Com-
pany, Defendant. State of Kansas, Wyandotte County
—ss. No. ------.
I do solemnly swear, affirm and declare
The causes of action, as written out here,
Are honest and truthful, yea, righteous and just
And further I swear, for by swearing, I must
Declare the petition prefixed here, I say
Should be filed without bond or even delay;
For poverty now and the time I have lost
Are the reasons I cannot give bond for the cost.
Subscribed and sworn to before me this------day of
------, 1897.
$4 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
Within the Court of Common Pleas of Wyandotte
County, Kansas.
Andy Dupont, Plaintiff, vs. The Armour Packing Com-
pany, Defendant. Precipe. No. ------.
The clerk of said court, named above,
Please write, without a flaw,
A summons for defendant named,
And return it as by law.
Direct it to the Sheriff, too,
Tell him to make report
When he has brought defendant in
To answer here in court.
Within the Court of Common Pleas of Wyandotte
County, Kansas.
Andy Dupont, Plaintiff, vs. The Armour Packing Com-
pany, Defendant, State of Kansas, Wyandotte County
—ss. No.------■.
The defendant herein named above, and all its law-
yers, too,
Will hereby read and quickly heed, this notice sent to
you,
That C. C. Dail and L. F. Bird, as partners, doth report
Now holds a claim and has a claim on plaintiff's rights
in court.
That whatsoever is his due, now held within your hands,
No matter whether it be cash or property or lands;
All things of each and every kind in judgment or in
court
Which plaintiff thinks you owe him of this we claim a
part,
As balance due, for labor done, by us, in bringing suit;
And looking up the law, you see, and other things to
boot.
IN THE LAW COURTS «S
So now be warned, and do not dare a settlement to make
With plaintiff, lest you break the law and make a sad
mistake.
Our claim herein, as you have seen, is drawn, so that it
follows
That all we claim within this lien, is just one thousand
dollars.
Attorneys for Plaintiff.
Attorneys for Defendant.
Accepted this------day of---------, A. Dv 1897.
DEFENDANTS ANSWER.
Within the Court of Common Pleas of Wyandotte
County, Kansas.
Andy Dupont, Plaintiff, vs. The Armour Packing Com-
pany, Defendant. Answer. (No. 3,126.)
Comes now in Court—defendant here,
And makes his answer full and clear.
First—it here admits the corporation,
As charged in plaintiff's strange petition,
Defendant also, says the station
Is proper as to its location;
Admits, also, the allegation
As to its trade with every nation.
It also will herein admit
The plaintiff worked a little bit
For this defendant, at the date
As the petition doth relate,
But as to all the rest herein
Which said petition doth contain,
Defendant here doth it deny
And brands it as a joke or lie.
For further answer and defense,
Where plaintiff claims a recompense,
66
'HASTY PUDDING POEMS
Each" claim of plaintiff we resist
Because he is a pugilist;
And whether it be wrong or right,
His duty is to stand and fight ;
Not in the court, but with his fist,
Is where the plaintiff should resist,
And not let some poor slaughtered sheep
Knock plaintiff out and make him weep.
Defendant also here will state,
If plaintiff got a wounded pate,
It was by his own want of care,
For by us he was treated fair.
Wherefore, defendant should go hence,
With cost, for this is its defense.
Attorneys for Defendant.
PLAINTIFFS REJOINDER
Within the Court of Common Pleas of Wyandotte
County, Kansas.
Andy Dupont, Plaintiff, vs. The Armour Packing Com-
pany, Defendant. Reply (No. 3,126.)
Comes plaintiff here and in reply
To answer filed, he doth deny
Each allegation or admission
Which controverts the filed petition.
And thus demands in language clear
Said judgment on the pleadings here.
Attorneys for Plaintiff.
VII
BITS-MINX* WILLS
Not a few instances are handed down to us of last
wills and testaments being written impulsively in verse.
Here is an early example made by William Hunnis,
Chapel-master to Queen Elizabeth, which was allowed
to pass without the slightest opposition :
To God my soule I do bequeathe, because it is His owen.
My bodye to be layd in grave, where to my friends best
knowen;
Executors I will none make; thereby great stryfe may
grow,
Because the goods that I shall leave wyll not pay all I
owe."
The following is the poetical effort of one John
Hedges, who died at Finchley, near London, more than
one hundred and fifty years ago:
This fifth day of May,
Being airy and gay,
To hip not inclined,
But of vigorous mind,
And my body in health,
I'll dispose of my wealth,
And of all I am to leave
On this side the grave,
To some one or other,
I think to my brother;
But because I foresaw
That my brothers-in-law,
If I did not take care,
Would come in for a share,
6?
68 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
Which I in no wise intended
Till their manners were mended—
And of that, God knows, there's no sign;
I therefore enjoin
And strictly command,
As witness my hand,
That nought I have got
Be brought to hotch-pot;
But I give and devise,
As much as in me lies,
To the son of my mother,
My own dear brother,
To have and to hold
All my silver and gold,
As the affectionate pledges
Of his brother.
John Hedges.
Another specimen is the following made by one of the
principal clerks in the firm of Messrs. Fuller & Co.,
London:
" I give and bequeath,
(When I'm laid underneath)
To my loving two sisters most dear
The whole of my store,
Were it twice as much more,
Which God's goodness has granted me here.
And that none may prevent
This my will and intent
Or occasion the least of law racket,
With a solemn appeal
I confirm, sign and seal
This the true act and deed of Will Jacket.
"London, 1760."
In the Chamber's Journal was published a will made
in rhyme as follows:
RHYMING WILLS 69
" As to all my worldly goods now or to be in store,
I give to my beloved wife, and hers forevermore.
I give all freely; I no limit fix;
This is my will, and she's my executrix."
Here is another authenticated example of a rhyming
will:
When my Wife's a Widow of me bereft,
She shall inherit all Fve left;
And when she's finished her career,
It shall then go to my Daughters dear.
In equal Shares to save all bother;
Not flesh to one and fish the other.
They are all kind and dear to me,
So no distinction shall there be.
VIII
HOTTSE INSCRIPTIONS
Many impromptu verses are to be found on the
doors and walls and over the fireplaces of country
houses, especially in England.
On the portico of Arley Hall, the seat of the War-
burton family, there is inscribed this welcome:
" This gate is free to all men good and true;
Right welcome thou, if worthy to pass through."
Montacute House, Somerset, has these two lines
carved:
" Thro' this wide-opening gate
None come too early, none return too late."
Under a variety of forms, we find the same maxim on
different houses, and at Ferray Hall, in the parish of
Almondbury, over one of the doorways, are the words,
" An honest man may enter,*' and on the reverse side
facing the spectator when leaving the premises, " A
cheat may be off."
In front of some almshouses at Leominster there is
the quaint stone figure of a man holding a hatchet in
his hand, and underneath there is this inscription:
" He who gives his money before he is dead
May take up a hatchet and cut off his head."
70
MOUSE INSCRIPTIONS It
The story current in the neighborhood says that the
founder of these almshouses came to want through
being involved in building expenses for chem, and
actually had to seek refuge within their walls as one
of the inmates. And on a set of widows' almshouses
adjoining Ford House, Devonshire, there is an equally
quaint inscription:
" Is't strange a prophet's widow poore should be?
If strange, then is the Scripture strange to thee."
At Bridge of Allan there is a house in connection
with which there is a local legend that the man who
built it, after ostentatiously signing his name, was
obliged to sell off, whereupon his opposite neighbor in-
scribed this couplet on his house:
" Here I forbeare my name or arms to fix,
Least I or mine should sell these stones and sticks."
It is related, too, how Matthew Beckwith put over the
door of his house, " If religion flourish I live," where-
upon the rector, who lived opposite him, wrote above
his own:
" I do not heed the man the more
That hangs religion at his door."
On a small house at Towcester, Northamptonshire,
there is an inscription, bearing the date 1689, which runs
thus:
" He that earneth wages
By labour and care, by
The blessing of God may
Have something to spare."
7» HASTY PUDDING POEMS
John Case, the astrologer, over his door inscribed
this verse:
" Within this place
Lives Doctor Case."
And Addison says he made more money by this distich
than Dryden by all his poetical works.
At Grafton, Worcestershire, was a famous old manor-
house belonging to the Talbots, and more anciently to
the Staffords. It was, unfortunately, burnt down in the
last century, except the doorway and entrance. Over
one of the windows was this inscription:
" While every man is pleased in his degree,
There is both peace and unity;
Solomon saith there is none accord
When every man would be a lord/'
And at the old school at Great Blencowe, which was
rebuilt in the year 1798, and where Lord Ellenborough
received his education, are inscribed these lines:
" Ye youths rejoice at this foundation
Being laid for your edification."
It is said that on the belfry wall of All Saints' church
at Hastings, England, are written these verses:,
" If you ring in spur or hat,
Sixpence you pay—be sure of that;
And if a bell you overthrow
Pray pay a groat before you go."
Over the door of Hempsted Rectory, Gloucestershire,
lis this couplet:
" Whoe'er shall pass within this door
Thank God for Viscount Scudamore."
wovse TNScmPTiam. n
And Mr. Hawker, the Cornish poet, put up the fol-
lowing lines over his parsonage at Morwenstow:
" A house, a glebe, a pound a day,
A pleasant place to read and pray,
Be true to Church, be kind to poor;
A minister for evermore.."
At the home of Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Long
Island Sound, are many autographs written by the poet's
guests on the walls of the dining room. One is by
Edwin Markham, author of " The Man With the Hoe."
It is printed in fine, large characters, with splendid ver-
milion initials. He said:
" A place where passing souls can rest
On the way, and be their best."
In an artistic dining room of a suburban house on
the Hudson there hangs over the fireplace a wide, shal-
low board, tinted in a delicate shade of brown, on which
in graceful letters of a darker brown is inscribed this
sentiment
Old wine to drink,
Old wood to burn,
Old friends to greet.
On the opposite wall, over the sideboard, hangs
another one fashioned after the sign of an old English
inn, with the nails and weather beaten edges faithfully
copied, and on this is written Burns's impromptu grace,
said in response to his host's request at dinner when
visiting the Earl of Selkirk at St. Mary's isle:
Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
And may the Lord be thankit.
IX
LINES OF LITTERATEURS
Authors are quite naturally given to making im-
promptu verses, and the poets particularly have in all
ages been regarded by their fellows as well-springs of
impulsiveness, ready and willing at any moment to
break forth in song to suit any and all occasions.
Walter Savage Landor once wrote of Wordsworth:
" The first time I ever met him * * * he spoke
contemptuously of Scott, and violently of Byron. He
chattered about them incoherently and indiscriminately.
In reality, Scott had singularly the power of imagina-
tion and construction; Byron had little of either; but
this is what Wordsworth neither Said nor knew. His
censure was hardened froth. I praised a line of Scott's
on the dog of a traveller lost (if I remember) on Skid-
daw. He said it was the only good one in the poem,
and began instantly to recite a whole one of his own
upon the same subject. This induced me afterwards
to write as follows on a fly-leaf in Scott's poems:—
"' Ye who have lungs to mount the Muse's hill,
Here slake your thirst aside their liveliest rill:
Asthmatic Wordsworth, Byron piping hot,
Leave in the rear, and march with manly Scott/ "
Lord Byron made his unhappy marriage the subject
of two impromptu epigrams:
74
UNBS 'OF UTTEKATEUKS 75
ON HIS WEDDING DAY
" Here's a happy new year! But with reasori
I beg you'll permit me to say—
Wish me many returns of the season,
But as few as you please of the day."
At a later period he wrote:
" This day, of all our days, has done
The worst for me and you:
'Tis just six years since we were one,
And five since we were two."
The residences of Wordsworth, Southey and Cole-
ridge near the English Lakes, suggested the title of
lake poets, and prompted the Rev. Henry Townshend
to write:
" They come from the lakes—an appropriate quarter,
For poems diluted with plenty of water."
Professor John Wilson wrote a severe critique on
the earlier poems of Alfred Tennyson. In reply the
Laureate wrote the following impromptu lines:
TO CHRISTOPHER NORTH
" You did late review my lays,
Crusty Christopher;
You did mingle blame and praise,
Rusty Christopher.
When I learnt from whom it came.
I forgave you all the blame,
Musty Christopher;
I could not forgive the praise,
Fusty Christopher."
1& HASTY PUDDING POEMS
Some parts of Thomas Moore's poem " Lalla Rookh "
having been translated into Persian, a Mr. Luttrell
wrote the following note to Moore:
" I'm told dear Moore, your lays are sung,
(Can it be true, you lucky man?)
By moonlight, in the Persian tongue,
Along the streets of Ispahan."
The fourth Earl of Chesterfield, on seeing a whole-
length portrait of Nash between the busts of Sir
Isaac Newton and Pope, took paper and pencil and
wrote as follows:
" Immortal Newton never spoke
More truth than here you'll find,
Nor Pope himself e'er penn'd a joke
More cruel on mankind.
" The picture plac'd the busts between,
Gives Satire all its strength,
Wisdom and Wit are little seen,
But Folly at full length."
Ben Jon son, on one occasion being thirsty, went to
the Half Moon Tavern only to find it closed. He took
himself to the Sun Tavern nearby where he sat down
and dashed off this impulsive epigram:
" Since the Half Moon is so unkind
To make me go about,
The Sun my money now shall have,
The Moon shall go without."
In the last days of Swift's lunacy he was shown a
new powder magazine in Phcenix Park. He thereupon
produced the following lines, the last he ever wrote s
UNES OF LITTERATEURS 77
** Behold a proof of Irish sense!
Here Irish wit is seen,
When nothing's left for our defense
We build a magazine/'
A poor poet once sent a poem to Mr. Pope conclud-
ing with these lines:
"The most I seriously would hope,
Is just to read the words, A. Pope,
Writ, without sneer, or show of banter,
Beneath your friendly imprimantur."
When Pope had read the poem he sent a subscription
for two sets of the poor poet's book, accompanied by the
following couplet:
" May these put money in your purse
For I assure you I've read worse."
Frank Smedley, the author of " Frank Fairleigh/'
addressed to a lady friend the following letter in
verse:
"TO MRS. G. H. VIRTUE."
"Thou better half of Virtue, gentle friend,
Fairly to thee, I, Fairleigh, greeting send;
Frankly I give what frankly you desire;
You thus Frank Fairleigh's autograph acquire.
To make assurance doubly sure, this medley
Of Franks and Fairleighs this I sign
Frank Smedley/'
The celebrated Lord Cole wrote the subjoined dis-
tich, which he religiously observed in the distribution
of his time:
Six hours to sleep—to law's grave study six-
Four spend in prayer—the rest to nature fix*
?3 'HASTY PUDDING POEMS
But Sir William Jones, a wiser economist of the fleet-
ing hours of life amended the sentiment as follows:
Seven hours to law—to soothing slumber seven—-
Ten to the world allot—and all to heaven.
The combination of the two verbs, said and did, has
seldom been better applied than in the epigrammatic
verse which Rochester composed on seeing a picture of
Charles II.:
Behold a witty, foolish king,
Whose faith no man relies on;
Who never said a foolish thing,
Nor ever did a wise one.
Dr. William Newell, the genial and beloved minis-
ter of the Unitarian Church at Harvard Square, Cam-
bridge, occasionally dropped into verse in a quaint,
Herrick-like fashion. He folded up these lines within
a pair of gloves sent to a friend:
" The right glove
Holds my love,
And the left glove
My wife's love;
And both the gloves
Both our loves—
Lovely gloves! "
The English poet Swinburne sent to a London hos-
pital fair souvenir a little fantasy, " At a Dog's Grave ":
" To die a dog's death once was held for shame.
Not all men so beloved and mourned shall lie
As many of these, whose time untimely came
To die.
UNES OF LITTERATEURS 79
"His years were full; his years were joyous; why
Must love be sorrow, when his gracious name
Recalls his lovely life of limb and eye?
" If aught of blameless life on earth may claim
Life higher than death, though death's dark wave rise
high,
Such life as this among us never came
To die/'
Owen Seaman of London wrote the following im-
promptu for an Omar Khayyam Club dinner:
" Master, in memory of that Verse of Thine,
And of Thy rather pretty taste in Wine,
We gather at this jaded Century's end,
Our Cheeks, if so we may to incarnadine.
" Thou hast the kind of Halo which outstays
Most other Genii's. Though a Laureate's bays
Should slowly crumple up, Thou livest on,
Having survived a certain Paraphrase.
" The Lion and the Alligator squat
In Dervish Courts—the Weather being hot—
Under Umbrellas. Where is Mahmud now?
Plucked by the Kitchener and gone to Pot."
When Thomson published his " Winter," he pre-
sented a copy of it to Joseph Mitchell, who promptly
gave his opinion of it in verse:
" Beauties and faults, so thick lie scattered here,
Those I could read, if these were not so near."
To this Thomson replied:
" Why all not faults, injurious Mitchell, why
Appears one beauty to thy blasted eye?
Damnation worse than thine, if worse can bes
Is all I ask and all I want from thee."
8o HASTY PUDDING POEMS
The Quaker poet, John Greenleaf Whittier, was re-
garded as one of the most dignified of men, and yet
he could not resist the temptation to indulge in flights
of delicious nonsense for the amusement of those he
loved. A little girl mourning for her favorite cat,
Bathsheba, asked the poet to commemorate its memory
in verse, which Whittier did off-hand in this classi-
cal bit:
Bathsheba! to whom none ever said scat-
No worthier cat
Ever sat on a mat,
Or caught a rat.
Requiescat!
The following lines by Whittier were written at the
request of a friend visiting him from the West, who
asked for his autograph:
The years that, since we met, have flown,
Leave, as they found me, still alone,
Nor wife, nor child, nor grandchild dear
Are mine, the heart of age to cheer.
More favored thou; with hair less gray
Than mine, canst let thy fancy stray
To where thy little Constance sees
The prairie ripple in the breeze:
For one like her to lisp thy name
Is better than the trump of Fame!
The subjoined verses were written by Whittier on
the back of a note in March, 1890. The poem was
never finished and the manuscript is in the almost illeg-
ible style of his first rough drafts:
" For the land that gave me birth;
For my native home and hearth;
For the changes and overturning
Of the times of my sojourning;
LINES OF LITTERATEURS 81
For the world-step forward taken;
For an evil way forsaken;
For cruel law abolished;
For idol shrines demolished.
" For the tools of peaceful labor
Wrought from broken gun and sabre;
For the slave chain rent asunder
And by free feet trodden under;
For the truth defeating error;
For the love that casts out terror;
For the truer, clearer vision
Of humanity's great mission;
For all that man upraises,
I sing this song of praises/'
Mr. Longfellow had a very keen sense of the humor-
ous, and many a witty impromptu was occasioned by
some slight incident or accident. One summer, when
the Appletons were living in Lynn, the poet's son
Charles, who was very fond of sailing and who has
since become a famous yachtsman, came in his boat one
day to make a call. The surf was high and the boat
was capsized, and he was thrown into the water and,
of course, was compelled to make an entire change of
clothing. Captain Nathan Appleton, in place of shoes,
lent him a pair of slippers, which he wore home. Mr.
Longfellow, the poet, returned the slippers a few days
afterward done up in a neat package with this little
stanza:
Slippers that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er the Bay of Lynn,
A forlorn or shipwrecked nephew,
Seeing, may purloin again.
Nathan Appleton and Mr. Longfellow were travel-
ling in Switzerland. They reached Zurich, where the
82 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
landlord charged very exorbitant prices for their en-
tertainment. Mr. Appleton wrote his name on the
books and paid while demurring at the price charged.
" I have put my name on the books," said Mr. Long-
fellow, " and if you will allow me I will treat the inn-
keeper as he deserves.',
The name of the inn was the " Raven." He took
the book away, and soon returned with these lines:
Beware of the raven of Zurich,
'Tis a bird of omen ill,
"With an ugly, unclean nest
And a very, very long bill.
Emerson wrote a striking epigram in the album of a
well-known firm of photographers to whom he sat for
a photograph during his last English visit. When asked
to write something, he without hesitation penned these
words:
" The man who has a thousand friends
Has not a friend to spare;
But he who has one enemy
Will meet him everywhere."
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, while visiting a country
charitable fair, Was entreated to furnish a letter for the
post office, He took a sheet of paper, and between its
folds placed a $i bank note; turning to the first page he
wrote the following:
Dear lady, whosoe'er thou a$t,
Turn this poor page with trembling care;
But hush, oh hush thy beating heart,
The one thou lovest will be there!
'LINES OF LITTERATEURS 83
The page turned disclosed the attractive greenback. On
the third page, opposite the bank note:
Fair lady, lift thine eyes and tell
If this is not a truthful letter;
This is the one thou lovest well,
And naught (o) would make thee love it better!
A familiar bit by Eugene Field was the following
paraphrase of the inscription on Shakespeare's tomb:
" Swete friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare
To buy ye boke thou findest here,
For that when I do get ye pelf,
I meane to buy ye boke my selfe.
" Eugene Field."
This was found on a slip of paper in a costly volume
on the shelf of a Chicago bookseller.
Visiting a Chicago book shop one day when the pro-
prietor was away, Field finding a print of him, wrote
under the picture in his microscopic hand writing:
" This is the robber as sure as you're born,
Against whose guile I fain would warn
The bibliomaniac, tattered and torn,
Who pauses to look at some second-hand book
That lies on the shelf all covered with dust,
And is marked " Four dollars, for cash, no trust."
In a gloomy corner that smells of must,
Down in the shop that Morris built.
" Eugene Field/'
It was Eugene Field's habit to write personal verses
about his children. There is none among this collec-
tion surpassing in quaint beauty the verse inscribed on
84 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
a silver plate which he gave to Roswell Francis, usually
called Posey, at his birth:
" Onto Roswell Francis Field his father, Eugene
Field, giveth this counsel with this plate. Sept. 2,
1893:
" When thou shalt eat from off this plate,
I charge thee, be thou temperate.
Unto thy elders at the board
Do thou sweet reverence accord.
Though unto dignity inclined,
Unto the serving folk be kind.
Be very mindful of the poor
Nor turn them hungry from the door,
And unto God for health and food
And all that in thy life is good
Give thou thy heart in gratitude."
Among Field's verses to his friend Wilson I find
this
" In answer to your loud petitions
To autograph your ' First editions/
This shall the world apprise
That I have quit all biblio-madness,
And view with penitential sadness
This tome which you peruse with gladness
And mildly criticise.
Oh, would that you might change for better,
Bursting each bibliomaniac fetter
To join your grateful friend and debtor
Collecting butterflies."
This was written in the No. 1 large-paper copy of
Stone's " First Editions of American Authors/' to
which Field wrote the " Ad Lectorem."
'LINES OF LITTERATEURS 85
William Black, the novelist, wrote the following let-
ter in verse to his friend, Henry James, Jr., under date
of December 16, 1890:
" Dear James
In case the fog should keep me late
(A thing that I should hotly hate)
Do not for me a moment wait,
As soon as ever I'm alive
I'll make for number forty-five
As quick as e'er a cab can drive!!!
Yours ever,
William Black/'
Frank R. Stockton, the author, has a unique souve-
nir of a watch-night banquet of the Authors' Club,
which he treasures for its humor, and as a full-fledged
type of that rara avis, the genuine impromptu. One
of the club members having remarked that he had long
desired to write a poem on " self-government," but
could find but one word—" astronomy "—to rhyme with
autonomy, Dr. John S. White responded with the fol-
lowing lines, which he had penciled upon his cuff:
THE AUTONOMIST
He has the greatest belief in autonomy,
Yet his main characteristic is bonhomie;
With a charming conceit
That he'll arrive with both feet,
And an expression that says " You ought to know me!n
For the first pat case of autonomy,
Not practiced for the sake of economy—
" Don't muzzle the ox,
Treading corn in the box "—
See twenty-fifth, fourth, Deuteronomy.
86 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
Now whose is this fad for autonomy?
There's no reason to think you should honor me,
Though with Stedman away
And Rossiter J------,*
Your choice must fall on Stockton or me!
The six rhymes upon the word autonomy, the pat
quotation, and the humorous concert of the verses
brought a storm of applause and merriment, and Mr.
Stockton begged the cuff as a souvenir. It was after-
ward framed and sent him by Dr. White, and now
hangs upon the wall of the author's sanctum.
Mr. Stockton acknowledged the receipt of the souve-
nir in these lines:
My Dear Mr. White:
A kiss for a blow,
And thanks for a cuff.
This is all I can say,
Though it isn't enough.
Yours sincerely,
Frank R. Stockton.
Mr. Austin Dobson wrote the following lines in a
copy of the works of Poe:
I wonder when America will know
That much her greatest bard is Edgar Poe,
I say this reminiscent and defiant
Of Boker, Tabb, and Longfellow, and Bryant.
Mr. Israel Zangwill evidently has his periods of lit-
erary relaxation, and he has produced the following
delightful little verse in an unguarded moment
* Rossiter Johnson.
tlNES OP LITTERATEURS %1
DOGGEREL IMPROMPTU
With a Four-foot Note
By I. Zangwill
(To Scamp Valentine ******* £> £> y
(On his third birthday, February 14, 1900.)
0 demi-god * of maiden gay,
Accept these humble birthday lines.
If every dog must have his day,
How blest to have St. Valentines!
No loving fingers tie my bow,
Nor mix my substitute for grog;
1 do not take the biscuit—oh
If she would treat me like a dog!
Gelett Burgess, the author, wrote the following at a
dinner party given in Boston:
" A wild Bohemian was he,
And spent his money fast and free;
He thought no more of spending dimes
On some debauch of pickled limes
Than you would think of spending nickels
To buy a pint of German pickles.
Fitz willie boy was so blase
He burned a Transcript up, one day."
The " he " of the verse was the regent of the Orchid
Club, an esthetic organization of which Boston was
fondly proud.
* This dog-star is to throw light. Scamp belongs
equally to two mistresses, only one of whom was pres-
ent at the impromptu. The space before D. D. shows
him cut up into little stars, like Romeo.
88 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
Father John B. Tabb, the poet, wrote on a postal card
to a Press Cutting Bureau this verse:
GENTLEMEN I
When one has done the best he can,
I Why call on him to pay—
As if he were their serving man—
For what the critics say?
John B. Tabb.
Some years ago at the home of the novelist, George
W. Cable, in Northampton, Mass., there was a double
celebration—that of his own silver wedding and the
marriage of his eldest daughter, whose advent inspired
her father's only published verses:
There came to port the other day
The queerest little craft,
Without a stitch of rigging on,
I looked and looked and laughed.
It seemed so strange that she should come
Across that stormy water
And anchored there, right in my room,
My daughter, oh, my daughter!
The humorist, Josh Billings, was fond of the White
Mountains, and a spring of crystal water discovered
near where he was accustomed to sojourn was named
after him. He fastened there a cup and chain and
wrote this inscription:
" He who steals this little cup
Will by bears be eaten up."
This couplet inspired a rival to write beneath it in
pencil:
" He who breaks this little cup
Must buy another, and hang it up."
VINES OF LITTERATEUR'S «9
Further down appeared this:
" And when you come this spring to tast*
And of its cup can make no fillings,
Just try another that won't waste,
And drink to good Josh Billings."
These verses were all capped by another:
"At great Saratoga, far famed through the land,
When travellers drink, 'tis proper to stand,
But this little spring, being granted renown,
Requires the drinker to stoop and sit down."
The climax, however, was reached by a lady, who
wrote:
" This cup has gone, I know not where:
Now, Josh Billings, bring on your bear."
X
OLD TAVERN" SIGNS
The romantic, poetic and humorous inscriptions oii
signs found in front of hotels, inns and public houses
were characteristic of British life in the last century,
and to a certain extent this may be said of America in
the colonial days.
Some examples still exist in this country, as we find
under a sign of a lion in Philadelphia these lines:
The Lion Roars, but do not fear,
Cakes and beer sold here.
Tigers are quite rare in England, but bears are a
drug in the market. A public housekeeper had for a
sign an elephant being led by an oriental with a gown
and flowing sleeves, which the ignorant supposed to be
a friar and his place became known as the " Elephant
and Friar/' This man bore the name of Priest, and he
wrote beneath his sign:
He is a priest who lives within,
Gives advice gratis and administers ginv
Dean Swift's barber one day informed him that he
had opened a tavern in connection with his barber-
shop, and asked Swift to write a few lines to place
upon the sign. The dean took out his pencil and wrote
the following, which long graced the barber's sign:
" Rove not from pole to pole, but stop in here,
Where naught excels the shaving but the beer."
90
OLD TAVERN SIGNS 9*
Under a fifty-year-old sign of the late Queen at Coop-
ersdale, in Essex, is the inscription:
The Queen some day
* May pass this way
And see our Tom and Jerry;
Perhaps she'll stop
And stand a drop
To make her subjects merry.
At a certain place in Warwickshire a fellow started
a public house near four others with signs, respectively,
of The Bear, The Angel, The Ship, and Three Cups.
Yet quite undaunted at the prospect of disastrous oppo-
sition, he put up the sign of The White Horse, and
under it wrote the following spirited and prophetic
rhyme :
My White Horse shall bite the Bear
And make the Angel fly,
Shall turn the Ship her bottom up
And drink the Three Cups dry.
And so he did. He made a hit with his rhyme and
got the custom.
The Jovial Dutchman was a good sign for a drink-
ing resort, with the lines beneath:
Death's not to be—so Seneca doth think;
But Dutchmen say 'tis death not to drink.
In front of tobacco stores a common sign shows a
Scotchman, a Dutchman and a sailor, with the lines:
We three are engaged in one good cause;
1 snuffs, I smokes and I chaws.
$2 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
The "Dog in the Pot" shows a slatternly woman
who wipes dishes with the tail of a mastiff which has
its head in a pot. The verse is:
All sluts behold, take view of me,
Your own good housewifery to see.
It is, methinks, a cleanly care
My dishclout in this sort to spare,
Whilst dog, you see, doth lick the pot,
His tail for dishclout I have got.
Not a few signs represent proverbs or proverbial
expressions:
A bird in hand far better 'tis
Than two that in the bushes is.
This is a deliberate way of saying no credit:
NO TRUST.
The changes are rung on a warning to this effect,
very common in both England and America:
Drink here and drown all sorrow;
Pay to-day, I'll trust to-morrow.
Sacred to the memory of Poor Trust, who fought
hard at the battle of Deception, but fell under General
Bad Pay.
A very general inscription is
This is a good world to live in, ^
To lend or to spend or to give in,
But to beg or to borrow or to get a man's own
It is such a world as never was known.
OLD TAVERN SIGNS.
93
Here is another:
Since man to man is so unjust
I can not tell what man to trust;
My liquor's good, 'tis no man's sorrow,
Pay to-day, I'll trust to-morrow.
At the Maypole near Hainault Forest will be found
this brusquely delivered warning:
My liquor's good,
My measure just,
Excuse me, sirs,
I can not trust.
The following, first seen at Norfolk, has been much
copied:
| More | Beer • | Score | Clerk |
| For | My | My | Their |
| Do | Trust | Pay | Sent |
| I | I | Must | Have |
| Shall | If | I | Brewers |
| What | And | And | My* |
of two pipes crossed and a pot of beer, presents this:
Call softly,
Drink moderately,
Pay honourably,
Be good company,
Part friendly.
Go home quietly.
Let these lines be no man's sorrow;
Pay to-day and I'll trust to-morrow.
♦Read backwards.
$4 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
From Cork comes this:
Within this hive we are all alone,
With whisky sweet as honey.
If you are dry step in and try,
But don't forget the money.
Thomas Haywood composed a rare conceit playing
upon the names of the taverns, of which the following
are specimen verses:
The gentry to the King's Head,
The nobles to the Crown,
The knights unto the Golden Fleece
And to the Plough the clowne.
The churchmen to the Mitre,
The shepherd to the Star,
The gardener hies him to the Rose
To the Drum the man of war.
The huntsman to the White Hart
To the Ship the merchants goe,
But you that do the muses love
The sign called River Po.
XI
IMPROMPTU EPITAPHS
It is not the purpose of the compiler to overburden
this little volume with many of the million or more
epitaphs which have been preserved and which find their
way into the public prints from time to time. There are
certain quaint inscriptions however that are impromptu
and needs must be included here.
At the Mermaid Tavern in Bread street, London,
many famous poets used to dine. On one occasion,
when Jonson and Shakespeare were making merry at
this tavern, Jonson began an epitaph:
" Here lies Ben Jonson,
Who was once one—"
He gave it to Shakespeare to complete, who wrote:
" That while he lived, was a slow thing,
And now, being dead, is nothing."
A wag visiting in the country came across this in-
scription upon a tomb in the churchyard: -
" As you are now so once was me;
As I am now so you must be;
Therefore prepare to follow me."
whereupon the wag wrote upon the tomb:
" To follow you I'm not content
Unless I know which way you went**
95
9^ HASTY PUDDING POEMS
A Long Island wit composed the following im-
promptu lines upon the death of a neighbor's dog:
No more poor Fido will be coaxed
To climb the slippery stairs—
Another bark is lost at sea,
Relieved from earthly cares.
Perhaps in some bright land beyond,
Where all expect to go,
We'll hear him sneeze while catching fleas
And hear his " tail" of woe.
One of the most pathetic epitaphs ever erected is
that placed over the spot where Mr. Carew lies buried
at Yokohama. It was prepared by his wife, who is now
in prison, convicted of having poisoned him.
In loving memory of my husband, who died Oct., 1896.
Aged 43 years.
Twilight and evening star
And one clear call for me;
And may there be no moaning at the bar
When I put out to sea.
A little trust that when we die,
We reap our sowing, and so " Good-by."
No name. Simply a veiled tragedy. Some sorrow,
regret, yearning, resignation, penitence, let us hope,
are all mingled in this last distich.
A Mr. Anderson, Provost of Dundee, having shuffled
off this mortal coil, it was resolved than an epitaph
should be composed by his four surviving colleagues.
They decided upon a rhymed stanza of four lines, one
line to be contributed by each. They put their heads
IMPROMPTU EPITAPHS 97
together, and with great labor and much formality pro-
duced the following effusion,—
" Here lies John Anderson, Provost of Dundee,
Here lies him, here lies he.
Hallelujah, Hallelujee,
A-B-C-D-E-F-G! "
This remarkable joint composition was engraved upon
the tombstone of the defunct provost, and the com-
posers received a vote of thanks from their delighted
fellow-townsmen.
A Block Island sea-captain who had been engaged in
the fishing business wrote this terse epitaph to be placed
on his tombstone,
" He's done a-catching cod,
And gone to meet his God."
The Rev. Michael McCullock, D.D., of Bothwell
(1787-1801), wanted his friend the Rev. Thos. Bris-
bane, of Dunlop, to write his epitaph. This is what he
got:
Here lies interred beneath this sod
That cycophantish man of God,
Who taught an easy way to heaven,
Which to the rich was always given;
If he got in he'll look and stare
To find some one he put there.
A man noted as a pyrotechnist, while travelling, read
this couplet over the grave of Composer Purcelh
He's gone where alone
His melodies can be exceeded.
9s
"HASTY PUDDING POEMS
Upon his return home, anxious to have something
similar, he directed the following to be placed on a
stone on his family plot:
He's gone where alone his
Fireworks can be exceeded.
In a Connecticut town there once lived a man of the
name of Sternhold Oakes, who before his death offered
a money prize for the best epitaph to be carved upon his
own headstone. All of those submitted were rejected
because they flattered the offerer of the prize and so he
wrote the following himself, which was afterward
placed over his grave:
Here lies the body of Sternhold Oakes,
Who lived and died like other folks."
Isaac Sirrine was a man of very eccentric character
in his day in Northeastern Ohio. Before his death he
wrote the first four lines of the following epitaph, which
can be seen upon his tombstone in a graveyard in
Cherry Valley, Ashtabula County, O. The last two lines
were added by his brother after his death:
Here the old man lies;
Nobody laughs and nobody cries.
Where he's gone, how he fares,
Nobody knows, nobody cares.
But his brother James and his wife Emeline
Were his good friends all the time.
A gifted poet perpetrated the following epitaph on
the notorious Floyd:—
Floyd has died and few have sobb'd,
Since, had he lived, all had been robb'd;
He's paid Dame Nature's debt, 'tis said
The only one he ever paid.
IMPROMPTU EPITAPHS 99
Some doubt that he resign'd his breath,
But vow he's cheated even death.
If he is buried, then, ye dead, beware,
Look to your swaddlings, of your shrouds take care.
Lest Floyd should to your coffins make his way,
And steal your linen from your mould'ring clay."
The famous Greek scholar Porson wrote the follow-
ing epitaph on a Fellow of his own College:—
" Here lies a Doctor of Divinity,
Who was a Fellow, too, of Trinity.
He knew as much about Divinity
As other Fellows do of Trinity."
When the Union troops entered Island No. 10, after
the surrender, they found a dilapidated old graveyard,
with one newly-made grave. At its head was a pine
board, on which was rudely cut with a jack-knife the
following inscription:
" Brave Southern friend, who fell
A fightin' at Island No. Ten,
Yourn were a glorious end,
Sweet Sperit rest in Heaven;
There be no Yankees thar."
XII
DEATH BED VERSES
Instances are known, though rare it is confessed,
where invalids and persons about to die have been in-
spired to put into verse their last thoughts before de-
parting from this world.
Richard Realf, the poet, committed suicide in 1878
at Oakland, California. At his bedside was found the
following remarkable poem written just before his
death:
THE SUICIDE'S FAREWELL
I
" De mortuis nil nisi bonwm!" When
For me the end has come, and I am dead,
And little, voluble, chattering daws of men
Peck at me curiously, let it then be said,
By some one brave enough to speak the truth:
" Here lies a great soul killed by cruel wrong/'
Down all the balmy days of his fresh youth,
To his bleak, desolate noon, with sword and song,
And speech that rushed up hotly from the heart
He wrought for liberty; until his own wound
(He had been stabbed), concealed with painful art,
Through wasting years, mastered him, and he swooned,
And sank there where you see him lying now,
With that word " Failure " written on his brow.
100
DEATH BED VERSES ioi
II
But say that he succeeded. If he missed
World's honors, and world's plaudits, and the wage
Of the world's deft lackeys, still his lips were kissed
Daily by those high angels who assuage
The thirstings of the poets—for he was
Born unto singing—and a burthen lay
Mightily upon him, and he moaned because
He could not rightly utter to the day
What God taught him in the night. Sometimes, nathless,
Power fell upon him, and bright tongues of flame,
And blessings reached him from poor souls in stress,
And benedictions from black pits of shame,
And little children's love, and old men's prayers,
And a great Hand that led him unawares.
Ill
So he died rich. And if his eyes were blurred
With thick films—silence! he is in his grave.
Greatly he suffered; greatly, too, he erred;
Yet broke his heart in trying to be brave.
Nor did he wait till freedom had become
The popular shibboleth of courtier's lips,
But smote for her when God himself seemed dumb,
And all His arching skies were in eclipse.
He was aweary, but he fought his fight,
And stood for simple manhood; and was joyed
To see the august broadening of the light,
And new earths heaving heavenward from the void.
He loved his fellows, and their love was sweet—
Plant daisies at his head and at his feet.
In 1891, a party of mining prospectors found a human
skeleton in the Colorado desert. In one of the pockets
of the dead man, written upon the pages of a small
account book, were found the following lines, not en-
tirely lacking in merit, which are supposed to have
been penned by the unfortunate prospector, when,
io2 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
parched with thirst and unable to proceed further over
the scorching sands, he had laid down to die:
" Out here on the desert's plain
Where the pale moon 'lumes the sky,
Will I leave the sad world's pain,
Give up life and with it sorrow,
Never more its ills to brave,
Never more Sol's scorching terrors;
Who will care when I shall die?
God forgive me all my errors
And from hell my sad soul save."
Dr. Roswell Field, a rather remarkable man, a farmer
and member of the American Society for the Advance-
ment of Science, whose taste for scientific pursuits
originated in the discovery of fossil footmarks on his
farm, died at Turner's Falls, Mass., aged 79 years. He
wrote the following poem a few days before his death:
This road leads sure to death; I near the end.
The milestones are all past—three score and ten.
I started with a crowd. Where are they now?
I lost them on the road, I know not how.
I lost them one by one; I know no more.
They were not left behind; they went before.
The way was full of hope, of joy and bliss;
Of pain, of woe and death—and happiness.
Life's journey has been short; that is to say,
'Twas morning, noon and night, but one short day.
I'll look the record o'er—yes, I am right,
The journey of a day, morn, noon and night.
My morn was spent in dreams, my noon was bright,
Clouds quickly gathered round, and now 'tis night.
My glass is almost run; why need I care?
The hand that led me here will lead me there.
DEATH BED VERSES i<>3
Now let the time be short when I may rest
My weary, aching head upon His breast.
I go from whence I came, life's journey o'er,
And be what I have been, and nothing more.
My dust returns to dust, all for the best:
My soul will go to God, and be at rest.
I've outlived all my cares, my hopes, my fears;
I have no place for mirth, and less for tears.
Dr. Thomas Osmond Summers, a yellow fever expert,
committed suicide in 1899. The following verses,
written a few hours before his death, were found among
his effects:
PERDIDI VITUM.
VALE MUNDUM.
Good night, old world, good-bye to all your joys,
Your sorrows, pleasures, passions, pomps, and noise.
I leave you for the eternal silence of starsj
The deepness of unbounded space, where bars
No longer hold the soul in durance vile.
Where naught can wound and nothing can defile,
Where the pure spirit shall despise the things
The sense on earth hath loved.
On wings bathed in the ether of eternity,
How sweet to feel from every passion free.
And yet it is an awful leap to take.
Into the great unknown, perchance to awake
To greater woes, indeed, than those we have
And hoped to bury in the silent grave.
But still the greater majority is there.
Why, then, should we turn pale with fear.
Or tremble when the hour supreme has come?
As soon or late it must.
Man's final home—
The grave—at least gives rest from troubles here,
And we may hope for sweet oblivion there.
Then, Charon, come;
I signal thee to-night.
Come—row me o'er the Styx; I've lost life's fight.
Osmond,
104 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
A German tinsmith committed suicide in New York
by inhaling gas. He left the following verses written
on a sheet of torn wrapping paper:
Oh, what's the use,
When you see nothing but trouble
And prospective abuse,
With worry and struggle,
And nothing to show in the end?
This world at best
Is one of unrest,
And he who has plenty
Is not always blest
With health and happiness.
. John Pepper of Chicago, a young man of twenty-four,
lay on his deathbed. Calling his sister, he asked her to
write down some words he had in his mind. Then
without any hesitation, save that which weakness im-
posed upon him, he dictated the following lines:
Will you come to my grave
When my spirit is fled,
And beneath the cold sod
I am laid with the dead,
And the heart that once loved you
Is turning to clay,
As in Calvary's cold ground
I am passing away?
" I wish," he said to his surprised sister, " you would
have these lines published with my death notice. I do
so wish to have my friends come to my grave after I
am gone." Six hours later he was dead.
xm
ADVERTISEMENTS IN RHYME
Mercantile proclamations and announcements written
in verse have been common in all ages and countries.
In recent years the advertisement in rhyme has become
unusually popular in America.
The following advertisement was found on a barber's
shop window in a London suburb:
Westward, Ho!
We are leaving this Rack Rented shop,
Removing three doors further west.
Blessed are the Poor, for they shall
inherit the Earth (in Coffins).
The Earth is the Landlords' and the
fulness thereof.
We deal with Razors, but not with
Rent Raisers.
The Independent (of) Labor
Party—The Landlords.
The Landlords' inhumanity to their
Tenants makes countless
thousands mourn (Robert Burns).
105
*o6 BASTY PUDDING POEMS
The following advertisement found posted outside a
country store may be commended for its pathos if not
for orthography:
Here Pize and Kakes and Bier I sell,
And Oisters stooed and in the shell,
And fried ones tew for them that chews,
And with despatch mends butes and shews.
A London tobacconist, having acquired a fortune, set
up a carriage and lest the public might forget how he
earned the means of keeping one, he had a coat of arms
made of three snuff boxes rampant, to which he added
these lines:
" Who would have thought it
That noses could have bought it."
Here is a humorous advertisement appearing in an
English newspaper:
"to single ladies."
To be Let, at a very desirable rate,
A snug little House, in a fine, healthy State;
'Tis a Bachelor's Heart, and the Agent is Chance^
Affection the Rent, to be paid in advance.
The Owner, as yet, has possessed it alone,
So the fixtures are not of much value; but soon
'Twill be furnished by Cupid himself, if a Wife
Takes a Lease for the term of a Natural Life.
The tenant will have a few taxes to pay—
Love, Honor and—heaviest item—Obey !
As for the Goodwill, the owner's inclined
To have that, if agreeable, settled in kind;
Provided true title by proof can be shown
To a heart unencumbered, and free as his own.
So ladies, dear ladies, pray do not forget,
Here's an excellent Bachelor's Heart to be Let
Apply to " Bachelor/' Gazette Office,
ADVERTISEMENTS IN RHYME i o 7
In Illinois, one William S. Williams, printed the fol-
lowing announcement, his wife Ann Eliza having left
his bed and board:
Ann Eliza, Ann Eliza,
Once I loved, but now despise her,
And as I no longer prize her
I will go and advertise her,
For although I'm not a miser
I won't pay for what she buys her.
The following notices written by husband and wife
appeared in the Ticonderoga (N. Y.) Sentinel:
NOTICE.
Whereas my wife Josephine has left my bed and
board without just cause or provocation, all persons are
hereby forbidden to trust or harbor her on my account,
as I shall pay no debts of her contracting hereafter.
W. O. Measeck.
notice.
No bed or board as yet we've had
From William O. or William's dad.
Since last September, when we were wed,
Have furnished him both board and bed;
And for just cause and provocation
Have sent him home to his relation.
Mrs. Josie Measeck.
The following unique advertisement appeared in a
Connecticut paper:
"Julia, my wife, has grown quite rude;
She has left me in a lonesome mood;
She has left my board;
She has took my bed;
She has given away my meat and bread;
io8 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
She has left me in spite of friends and church;
She has carried with her all my shirts.
Now ye who read this paper
Since she cut this luckless caper,
I will not pay one single fraction
Of any debts of her contraction."
One Finn, who in the early days was manager of a
Boston Theatre, was a most inveterate punster. Pre-
vious to taking a benefit, he published the following
lines in the newspapers for the perusal of his friends:
Dear Public, you and I, of late,
Have dealt so much in fun,
I'll crack you now a monstrous great
Quadruplicated pun!
Like a grate full of coals I'll glow,
A great full house to see;
And if I am not grateful too,
A great fool I must be!
XIV
AUTOGRAPHS IN VERSE
The custom of collecting the autographs of school-
mates was one of the prettiest and most profitable fads
—if you choose to call it such—which children ever
adopted. Many a grown person holds as one of the
most cherished relics of school days a little book with
pages liberally bethumbed and yellow; pages contain-
ing the names of friends, some of whom have grad-
uated from the stage of childhood and who have lived
to continue the friendships formed in youth, while oth-
ers have passed away, and have long since been forgot-
ten. Those little autograph albums were prized when
the owners were in their teens, but now, years having
elapsed since that happy period of life, the books are
thought more highly of than ever before. As in some
other things, time gives to the autograph album great
value.
In these tiny blankbooks are exploited in rhyme and
prose the early loves of youth, and in many instances
the witty boys and girls were in the habit of writing
above their names a few lines calculated to make the
owner of the album smile, possibly blush, when he or
she saw them. One young girl wrote in her friend's
autograph album:
109
no HASTY PUDDING POEMS
To------------.
To weave and spin was once
A girl's employment;
But now to dress and have a beau
Is all the girl's enjoyment.
Wasn't that rubbing it in a trifle hard?
A mother had this excellent advice to give above her
signature to the same young lady, whose sole enjoy-
ment was " to dress and have a beau: "
" When another term of school has begun,
Don't laugh and play and be having fun;
But study and work, so you can tell,
At the end of the year that you have done so well.,,
This is very good advice in a measure, but pray, what
would school children ever amount to if they did not
laugh and play and have fun?
School girls loved to give advice to their little friends.
For instance, one writes:
" When you are married
And live up stairs,
For goodness sake
Don't put on airs."
This is as much to say that the young lady to whom
the lines are addressed at the time they were written
did have " airs." Presumably the miss had no imme-
diate intention of marrying, and the lines might have
been indited with the hope that possibly the advice
would take effect without delay.
" May your head be crowned with roses,
And your children have pug noses,"
Was the prayer of a young girl who didn't mean what
she said, of course she didn't.
AUTOGRAPHS IN VERSE
Life's " stream" and life's "path" is much dis-
cussed by the young people of the autograph album,
and the verses relating to both the " path" and the
" stream" are liberally quoted, at least they were in
the days when the album was prized by the young
folk.
" May your path be strewn with roses
Bright and thornless to the end;
And when your life in death reposes,
May your Maker be your friend."
Here is another bit of " path " poetry:
" Like this album's snowy page,
May your path from youth to age
From each dark erasure free,
Beautiful and spotless be."
A facetious young lady inscribes these lines:
" As down life's narrow stream
You paddle your canoe,
May 3^ou have plenty to eat
And have room for two."
A grammar school maid once caused the cheeks of
her friend to blush because she wrote:
" Through the walks of life
We all need an umbrella;
May yours be upheld
By a handsome young fellow."
A young man starts out in terrible fashion, but
before you pass comment upon his lines read them
through: " To Miss ------. May disappointment fol-
low you through life." Is not that an unkind wish?
" But," he continues, " may it never overtake you,"
That last sentence fixes things all right.
H2 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
Evidently the young man and the young lady thought
very highly of the miss to whom the following lines are
ascribed:
" May your life be like a snow flake,
Which leaves a mark but not a stain."
is her wish. And his:
" May your joys be as deep as the ocean,
And your sorrows as light as the foam."
The old nursery rhyme states, " That if wishes were
horses, beggars would ride," and if the wishes of the
youthful signers in the autograph albums were in every
instance realized how wonderfully happy the owners of
those little books would be during the remainder of
their lives. Years come and years go. Time certainly
does fly, and in the hustle and bustle of work-a-day life
the grown-up men and women often lose sight of the
companions of their youth. One girl writes in an album
these four lines of poetry and then her name:
" There is a small and simple flower
That twines around the humblest cot,
And in the sad and lonely hours
It whispers low: ' Forget-me-not/ "
And the owner of the same autograph album is peti-
tioned by another girl friend in this fashion:
" When the golden sun is setting,
And your mind from care is free,
And of others you are thinking,
Will you sometimes think of me?"
It seemed to be the fear of nine out of ten of the
school children, who wrote in the albums, that they
AUTOGRAPHS IN VERSE 113
would soon be forgotten. More verses are devoted to
this subject than to all others put together.
" Don't forget our school days," cautions a very
young miss, and the request of another young lady is:
" Remember me in your hours of leisure;
Forget me not in the hours of pleasure;
And if forgotten in the hour of care,
Give me a thought in the hour of prayer."
Under an autograph written by Sir Henry Irving,
the comedian Billy Florence placed his own name, fol-
lowed by the couplet:
I feel myself so undeserving
To write my name 'neath Henry Irving.
The poet Young's couplet, which is recalled by Flor-
ence's, has never been surpassed as a specimen of the
fine art of compliment. Borrowing Stanhope Lord
Chesterfield's pencil he wrote:
Accept a miracle instead of wit—
See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ.
XV
JOURNALISTIC JINGLES
The poet in the newspaper editorial chair can seldom
withstand the temptation to drop into verse, considering
this rhyming trait to be a part of modern journalistic
requirements.
Colonel William McLean, of Terre Haute, Ind., was
not a newspaper man, but on the occasion of the wreck-
ing of a barge on the Wabash he was employed by the
editor of a Terre Haute paper to go at once to the
scene and " write it up." He did so, and gave a graphic
account of the shipwreck in verse. One of his verses
has since been widely quoted:
She heaved and sot, and sot and heaved,
And high her rudder flung,
And every time she heaved and sot
A worser leak she sprung.
On another occasion Colonel McLean was discussing
down in Arkansas the want of the poetic spirit in that
state, and some one said that General Pike was not
a poet and that no poet could ever be produced in
Arkansas, because the name of the state would not
rhyme with anything. Several amateurs tried thei**
hands making rhymes on the name of the state, but
failed. McLean promptly ground out the following;
114
10 URNAllSTIC JINGLES 1*5
A nice young man in Arkansaw
Can saw more wood than his pa can saw,
But give him an ax
And with a few whacks
He can cut more wood than his ma can saw.
Upon the appearance of the President's message to
Congress some years ago the following editorial review
was printed in the Atlanta, Ga., Constitution:
The Message.
" Strong."
"Too long."
" The same old song."
"Another ring of the golden gong."
" Weak"
" Cheek."
" 'Taint the day to speak."
" Nothing there that the people seek."
A happy Georgia editor made this rhymed announce-
ment :
The crops are fine
And the farmers happy,
Little boy at our house
To call us pappy.
XVI
ENVELOPE POETBY
One of the daintiest jokes Eugene Field ever played
was at the expense of the Postal Department of the
United States, though no doubt it repaid the service
with its provocation for smiles. When Kate Field was
preparing for her lecture tour in Mormon land, she
started an inquisitive correspondence with her name-
sake, whose humorous primer was at that time spread-
ing his fame. The two soon discovered that they were
cousins, a fact that inspired Field to thus address a
letter:
A maiden fair of untold age
Seeks to adorn our Western stage;
How foolish of her, yet how nice
To write me, asking my advice!
New York's the city where you'll find
This prodigy of female kind;
Hotel Victoria's the place
Where you will see her smiling face.
I pray the postman bear away
This missive to her sans delay.
These lines enclosed are writ by me—
A Field am I, a Field is she.
Two very fertile Fields I ween,
In constant bloom, yet never green,
She is my cousin; happy fate
That gave me such a cousin Kate!
Imagine the postal clerks unravelling this envelope
superscription, from Denver to New York, and you
116
ENVELOPE POETRY 117
may fancy the exquisite sense of humor that prompted
the composition.
Following is the humorous way in which Eugene
Field addressed an envelope containing a letter to Ed-
mund Clarence Stedman:
" There is herein a plaintive ditty
For E. C. Stedman, New York City;
In Broadway, 66, Fourth story,
You'll find the same in all his glory.
So take this packet to that Stedman,
Or, by St. Hocus! You're a deadman!"
While the actor Hay was performing at Bolton, Eng-
land, in 1802, he received a curiously marked envelope
containing a letter from Charles Dibdin, a brother actor.
The envelope was addressed as follows:
" Postman, take this sheet away,
And carry it to Mr. Hay;
And whether you ride mare or colt on
Stop at the theatre Bolton;
If in what county you inquire,
Merely mention Lancashire."
At the postoffice at Bridgeton, N. J., a letter arrived,
evidently from some lovelorn swain, which was ad-
dressed in this fashion:
Hello, Uncle Sam! May I go in your mail?
I've taken a notion to ride on the rail.
In the state of New Jersey there let me drop.
In the county of Cumberland there let me stop.
In the Bridgeton postoffice there let me lay
Until the good letter carrier takes me away.
At 85 Oak street there let me meet
Miss Millie Delancey, looking so sweet.
XVII
ARMY AND 3STAVY RHYMES
The following verses were written by Caspar Schenck
on board the United States Ship Portsmouth on Aug.
31, 1862, the day before the law abolishing grog in the
navy went into effect:
Come, messmates, pass the bottle 'round;
Our time is short, remember,
For our grog must stop and our spirits drop
On the first day of September.
Farewell, Old Rye, 'tis a sad, sad word,
But alas it must be spoken;
The ruby cup must be given up
And the demijohn be broken.
Yet memory oft will backward turn
And dwell with fondness partial
On the days when gin was not a sin,
Nor cocktails brought courts-martial.
Jack's happy days will soon be gone,
To return again, oh, never!
For they've raised his pay five cents a day,
But stopped his grog forever.
All hands to splice the main brace call,
But splice it now in sorrow,
For the spirit room key must be laid away
Forever on to-morrow.
Splicing the main brace was a term used for serving
an extra tot or portion of grog to the crew.
liS
AkMY AND NA Vt RHYMES * * 9
A homesick soldier wrote the following from his post
in the Philippines:
Convalescent Hospital,
Corregidor Island,
Manila Bay, February 26, 1899.
To the Adjutant General, United States Army, Wash-
ington, D. C. (through proper military channels)—
Sir:
I WANT TO GO HOME
I want to go home. Please grant my plea
And from your army set me free.
I've fought and bled with my comrades true,
And lived on hardtack and horse meat stew.
I've slept in a trench—and that's no lie—
When the rain, like bullets, fell from the sky.
When hist'ry's writ 'twill then be known
That I did my share; now I want to go home.
I want to go home. Of scenes of strife
I've had enough to last my life.
I want to live far from sounds of war,
The rifle's crash and cannon's roar,
In some small place to spend my days
In quiet pursuits and peaceful ways.
No more to wander, no more to roam—
Mr. Adjutant General, please send me home.
A soldier who died in Manila, sent shortly before his
death to his sweetheart in New York, the following
verse written on a piece of hardtack:
A SONNET TO A HARDTACK.
Oh thou biscuit
I must risk it,
Or else in hunger stay;
With beef embalmed
Thou hast charmed
My appetite away.
*20 'HASTY PUDDING POEMS
Far from home
In ground of loam,
I may be laid to rest;
Cause, shot—undodged
They'll find thee lodged
Twixt my throat and chests
A British nautical toast reads thus:
To Nelson's memory here's a health,
And to his gallant tars,
And may our British seamen bold,
Despite both wounds and scars,
Make France and Spain,
And all the main
And all the foes to know,
Britons reign o'er the main,
While the stormy winds do blow.
XVIII
[POETICAL OLERGYMEK
Rev. David G. Evans, of Middletown, N. Y., believ-
ing to interest the male population of his town, engaged
a public hall and gave smoking parties or " fumiga-
tors," as he called them. He wrote out an invitation
in rhyme which appeared in the local newspapers:
Come and spend a social hour
With of men the very flower,
Thursday night in Nearing Hall,
There you'll find your vestry gathered,
By a Grace Church rector fathered,
Fumes provided free for all.
A colored exhorter, while holding a meeting in
Georgia, solicited a special collection to defray the ex-
penses of the meeting. "We'll pass roun' de hat/' he
said, "endurin' de singin* of de hymn on Page No.
205—-' On Jordan's Stormy Banks.' " And then he pro-
ceeded to " line out" the hymn, but so intent was he
on the collection that he forgot whole lines of it, and
supplied others, with the following result:
On Jordan's stormy banks I stand
En cast a wishful eye
To Canaan's fair en happy land—*
,(Don't let dat hat pass by!)
121
122 TJASTY PUDDING POEMS
O de transportin', rapturous scene
Dat rises to my sight!
(Drap in dat nickel, Brudder Green!)
En rivers of delight!
Could I but stand whar Moses stood
En view de landscape o'er,
Not Jordan's stream, or Death's cold flood
(We wants ten dollars more).
Rev. Mr. McAnny, of Tarrytown, N. Y., once perpe-
trated a joke on his congregation. He said somebody
had sent him a poem about a deacon who wore fly paper
in the crown of his hat. One verse was as follows:
And so 'twas not singular that
This good deacon, solemn and fat,
Found a dollar or more
When collection was o'er
Sticking up in the crown of his hat.
The trouble with the deacons of his church, the min-
ister said, was not that they had fly paper in their hats,
but that they had it in their pockets. As he couldn't
live on nothing a year, he resigned.
Bishop Williams of Connecticut, senior prelate of
the Episcopal Church in the United States, is an enthu-
siast upon the subject of New England corn cake, and
incorporated in verse his views as to how the delicacy
should be made. The recipe, as it appeared in the
Hartford Times, had this prologue:
A forgetful old Bishop
All broken to pieces,
Neglected to dish up
For one of his nieces
A receipt for " Corn Pone **—
The best ever known.
POETICAL CLERGYMEN "3
So he hastes to repair his sin of omission,
And hopes that in view of his shattered condition
His suit for forgiveness he humbly may urge,
So here's the receipt, and it comes from Lake Georges.
THE RECIPE
Take a cup of cornmeal,
(And the meal should be yellow,)
Add a cup of wheat flour
For to make the corn mellow;
Of sugar a cup, white or brown at your pleasure,
(The color is nothing, the fruit is the measure) ;
And now comes a troublesome thing to indite,
For the rhyme and the reason they trouble me quite;
For after the sugar, the flour, and the meal
Comes a cup of sour cream, but unless you should steal
From your neighbors I fear you will never be able
This item to put upon your cook's table;
For " sure and indeed," in all towns I remember,
Sour cream is as scarce as June buds in December.
So here an alternative nicely contrived
Is suggested your mind to relieve,
And showing how you without stealing at all
The ground that is lost may retrieve.
Instead of sour cream take one cup of milk,
" Sweet milk! " what a sweet phrase to utter!
And to make it cream-like put into the cup
Just three tablespoonfuls of butter.
Cream of tartar, one teaspoonful, rules dietetic-
How nearly I wrote it down tartar emetic!—
But no; cream of tartar it is without doubt,
And so the alternative makes itself out,
Of soda the half of a teaspoonful add,
Or else your poor corn cake will go to the bad;
*H HASTY PUDDING POEMS
Two eggs must be broken without being beat,
Then of salt a teaspoonful your work will complete.
Twenty minutes of baking are needful to bring
To the point of perfection this " awful good thing."
To eat at the best this remarkable cake
You should fish all day long on the royal-named lake,
With the bright waters glancing in glorious light
And beauties unnumbered be wild'ring your sight,
On mountain and lake, in water and sky;
And then, when the shadows fall down from on high,
Seek " Sabbath Day Point," as the light fades away,
And end with this feast the angler's long day.
Then, there you will find, without any question,
That an appetite honest awaits on digestion.
XIX
VARIOUS VERSES
One of the most curious things about rhyming Is that
it sometimes occurs accidentally. In President Lin-
coln's last inaugural address occurs the following
instance of involuntary rhyme:
" Fondly do we hope,
Fervently do we pray,
That the mighty scourge of war
May speedily pass away;
Yet if it be God's will
That it continues until"-----
And here the rhyme ceases. In some passage of
Cicero's prose there are notable instances of poetic
rhythm.
Many years ago a Mr. Clinch was a custom's collector
in New York, and a Mr. Barker held a like position in
Philadelphia. Under a former tariff a question of
whether an article then being imported from Greece
was subject to duty, occasioned a collision of opinions
between importers and officials. Mr. Clinch, who
desired the opinion of Mr. Barker, his Philadelphia
friend, submitted the question thus:
The oils of Grease, the oils of Grease
Were burning shames to Goths and Vandals.
Where grew no arts of war or peace
By which to mold it into candles.
125
126 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
The mountains look on Marathon,
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing here an hour alone,
I deemed that Grease might still be free.
But the Collector says it pays as tallow.
"G'«
The return mail carried back this answer:
O tho' you say that Greece is free,
That lovely land of bards and beauty.
Yet Otho there exacts his fee,
And dares to subject Greece to duty.
The appraisers look on marrow bones,
For marrow-bones once tallow bore;
Report, and spare importers' groans,
" 'Tis Grease—but living Grease no more."
" B."
Among the papers left by N. C. Creede, the Colorado
mining millionaire, was the following manuscript poem,
evidently written by a life-long friend:
My Dear Creede:
If I were to write for the papers to print,
What here I indite I opine
That my critics would say
It was written that way
For so many dollars a line.
And so, with the view that I'm writing to you,
Where no critic's lances are hurled,
I'll touch the taut string of my lyre and sing
Of the best-hearted man in the world.
Hark back to the prospect in Poverty Gulch,
Before you found dirt that would pay,
When the hope in your breast, like the gold in the west,
Burned brightest at close of the day.
If I were but rich, or, if you were still poor,
And we sat where your cabin smoke curled,
Then in unstinted lays I could pour out the praise
Of the best-hearted man in the world.
VARIOUS VERSES
127
A young lady at boarding school wrote to her father
for money and received a characteristic reply. Both
request and response were in verse:
Dear Dad:
The rose is red,
The violet blue,
If you love me as I love you,
Send me fifty I O U.
Papa's answer:
The sky is blue,
The pink is pink,
I'll send you fifty,
I don't think.
The proprietor of an hotel at Tidioute, Penn., wrot6
the following on the back of his bill of fare:
You cannot cure hams with a hammer,
Or measure a dram with a drama.
Do sums with a summer,
Stew plums with a plumber;
Or yet shear a ram with a rammer.
It was left for a stationmaster at a little way station
in New Jersey to solve the problem of putting the
familiar notice " spitting on the floor," etc., into a
more agreeable if less forcible form, and, though less
forcible, it is as equally effective, if not more so, as the
notice that generally greets us.
In the station at Newport, N. J., this genius has
posted the following:
If on this floor you choose to spit,
Just pause, my friend, and think a bit.
Last night, when all was cold and still,
I carried water up the hill;
Washed this floor by the silver moon,
That you might use our new spittoon.
xa8 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
A Miss Morris, of Plymouth, England, is said to have1
been the first of her sex to venture under water in a
diving bell. She wrote to her father a rhyming epistle
saying:
" From a belle, my dear father, you've oft had a line,
But not from a bell under water;
Just now I can only assure you I'm thine,
Your diving and beautiful daughter."
Bloodgood H. Cutter was known as the farmer poet
of Long Island. He wrote impromptu verses for every
and any occasion. Dr. Merrill, of Albany, invited Mr.
Cutter to visit the capital and see the capitol, which he
had denounced as an extravagant piece of folly. Re-
plying, the poet said:
Your polite letter did receive;
My thanks to you I truly give;
I think it quite a compliment.
In my rude verse I plainly state,
I do it much appreciate.
If to Albany I should come,
Will try to see you at your home;
Then if you wish your place to show,
With pleasure then with you will go.
When turning round the things I see,
They are instructive then to me.
In many countries I have been,
And many rare things in them seen,
And in my own dear country, too,
In most every place where I do go.
A wing of the old County Court House at Mineola
was purchased by Cutter, removed to his farm and
rechristened " Poet's Hall," and here Mr. Cutter had
a birthday reception May 20, 1896. The invitations
were in rhyme, of course. Here is a sample verse:
VARIOUS VERSES **9
Come to the party in Poet's Hall,
The 20th of May, before nightfall;
Your friends and neighbors bring along,
And feast on cake, cream, jest and song.
There were little bags with the invitations and this
verse:
These bags, dear friends, you'll find will hold
A penny for each year you're old;
But if your age you will not tell,
A dollar or more will do as well.
Much of the writing found on old bank notes is due
to the love of scribbling possessed by many persons.
Much of it is ridiculous rhyme, unworthy of repetition,
but occasionally it is smart and apposite to the pur-
pose of bank notes. On an English pound note appears
the following:
Ye ugly, dirty, little scrap!
To look at, hardly worth a rap;
And yet I'll give my hearty vote
None can produce a sweeter note.
Another inscription:
It's odd that any man should wish
A dirty, scrabbit rag like this;
Yet mony a ane would cut a caper
To get a ween sic bits o' paper.
A contribution to bank-note literature is found iri
Lockhart's " Life of Scott." Lady Louisa Stuart sent
the great novelist a copy of some lines which were writ-
*3° HASTY PUDDING POEMS
ten on a guinea note then in possession of Lady Doug-
las. They were as follows:
Farewell, my note, and whereso'er ye wend
Shun gaudy scenes, and be the poor man's friend,
YouVe left a poor man; go to one as poor
And drive despair and hunger from his door.
Sir Walter expressed himself as very much pleased
with these lines.
In California, on a mountain road, the following lines
were found posted at the side of the highway:
This road is impassable,
Not even jackassable—
So please when you travel,
Just bring along your own gravel.
An old sea-captain in reciting the rules of the road
at sea, fell into verse as follows:
When both side-lights you see ahead,
Port your helm, and show your RED.
GREEN TO GREEN, or RED to RED,
Perfect safety—go ahead!
The explanation of which is that ocean steamers under
way must carry, besides the white light at the foremast
head, a green light on the starboard or right side and a
red light on the port or left side, and that " so long as
you keep a Green Light opposed to a Green Light, or
a Red Light opposed to a Red Light, no collision can
happen between passing ships.
Palmer H. Taylor, a Justice of the Peace, at Ionia
City, Michigan, used the following impromptu verses,
in officiating at a wedding ceremony:
VARIOUS VERSES
131
** Our spolcen words are sometimes lost, ■
Like thistledown when blown away.
The whispered one is often kept,
Like some rare, precious gem, for aye.
\
" You came to have me say these words: '
I now pronounce you husband, wife,
Each be unto the other true—
I speak for you a happy life.
" Forbid that in your cottage home
One thought of. jealousy arise;
That home so filled with love and joy—
You both shall call it Paradise."
It was the custom fifty years ago to publish humor-
ous verses in connection with marriage notices. The
following, found in an old Boston paper, is an example:
" Married, in Boston, May 22, 1850, by Rev. Mr. Stow,
Mr. Z. T. Taylor to Miss Mary Parrot, both of
Boston.
" ' Among all birds that fly or swim
There's but one of any use
To a tailor in his business,
And that one is a goose.
" ' But there's a Taylor who has pressed
His own suit very nice
With a Parrot that we hope will prove
A Bird of Paradise.' "
At a Republican convention in Mitchell county, Kan-
sas, a platform was adopted reading as follows:
We stand by the Flag of Our Country,
And its defenders stand by the flag.
Its stripes have streamed in glory
To foes a fear, to Friends a festal robe.
And spread in rhythmic lines the sacred story
Of Freedom's triumphs over all the globe.
13 a HASTY PUDDING POEMS
At Austin, Texas, a member of the State Legislature,
Mr. Rogers of Caldwell, surprised the other lawmakers'
by sending to the clerk's desk the following preamble
and resolution:
Whereas, the patient House is tired
Of the perpetual jaw
Which is so universally fired
At each prospective law;
And whereas, too, some are accused
Of assaulting bills that pass
With the very weapon Samson used—
The jawbone of an ass;
And whereas now the day has come
When our per diem shrinks
To such a small and paltry sum
It will not pay for drinks;
Therefore resolved, that we will hold
Two sessions every day,
And, whether it be hot or cold,
Will try to earn our pay.
In the Wisconsin State Senate, a bill to prohibit the
wearing of hats by women in theatres came up for
final action. Senator Putnam, the chairman of the
Committee of State Affairs, which had the bill under
consideration, reported for its indefinite postponement.
The report was made in verse as follows:
We think it a pity
That we, your committee,
And one of importance at that,
Are asked without reason
By this Mr. Risum,
To consider his " Tale of a Hat/'
We're expected to wrangle
And get in a tangle
When woman, we vows is so nice1
VARIOUS VERSES *33
That we will stand by her,
Though she builds her hat higher;
All we ask to be low is the price.
High hats we're not defending,
But the shows we've been attending
Were those with ballet feats.
The hats were then behind us,
For the only place you'd find us
Was down in the front row of seats.
Our women are so winsome—
Very few are not handsome—
And it's oft remarked that
In fair or foul weather
When at the theatres they gather
It's only the homely wear a hat.
So this is our verdict:
We believe womn perfect,
And she is in o-r hearts enthroned;
She needs no legislatim,
And it's our recommendation
That the hat bill forever be postponed.
The wife of a member of t1 i Nebraska State Leg-
islature, alarmed at his continued absence from home,
addressed him thus:
Husband, dear husband, come home to me now,
From the State House so cosy and warm;
'Tis time to stop this foolin' around,
You're needed at home on the farm.
The voice of your wifey is calling you dear;
It's nearing the time to make soap,
And some of the women are saying, my love,
I'm giving you too much rope,
They say there is desperate fighting up there
With widows and typewriters too;
I haven't been kissed since the morning you left,
But, Georgie, how is it with you ?
134 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
I'd like to observe what you're at:
What came of your bill on the Quantrell raid claim?
Is it true that you've bought a plug hat?
I'm afraid you're not doing much good off up there,
The papers don't mention your name,
Why don't you break loose, dear, and sing 'em a song—
" Old Party Good By "—that's the game!
Husband, dear husband, come home to me now,
I'm snuffing the odor of spring;
You've staid long enough in the capitol there
You're much safer under my wing.
The old horse is pawing the stable like mad,
The colt's in a terrible stew;
The small brindle heifer has got a white calf,
And the cattle are bawling for you.
A well known citizen of Baltimore, being slightly
indisposed, sent for his physician, who was also a per-
sonal friend. The physician called and prescribed, and
an immediate cure was the result. Some time elapsed,
and the patient not receiving a bill wrote as follows:
My dear Doctor Nill,
Instead of writing my will
With this ancient quill,
You have cured my ill
With potion and pill, ^
So please send your bill.
In response the physician promptly sent his bill
enclosed in the following response:
My dear Major B.,
There has just come to me
Your request for a bill
Representing the pill
That relieved you when ill.
Inclosed you will see
The amount of fee,
Denominated a V.,
That will recompense me*
VARIOUS VERSES *3S
A New York merchant wrote the following to a
debtor in 1829:
" Sir—To avoid all proceedings unpleasant,
I beg you will pay what is due;
If you do you'll oblige me at present;
If you do not, I must oblige you!"
Henry Romeike, a press cutting agent, sent out to his
small debtors a series, of seven dunning letters in verse.
The letters were mailed at intervals of a week and
read as follows:
I.
$4.99.
Dear Sir: In the fall
Obligations fall due,
Which is why I recall,
In this neat billet-doux,
My bill, which is now of long standing.
I'll be glad of a check, sir, from you.
Henry Romeike.
To John Smith,
Oshkosh.
II.
$4.99.
Dear Sir: As I said,
In my last friendly note,
There are mouths to be fed,
There are burdens to tote.
Kindly mail me a check for your bill which
Is long due, as I recently wrote.
Henry Romeike.
To John Smith,
Oshkosh.
136 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
III.
$4.99.
Dear Sir: All good things
Are declared to be three,
The dying swan sings;
And I'm singing to thee
With a song still quite swan-like in softness,
Of the money you*re long owing me.
Henry Romeike.
To John Smith,
Oshkosh.
IV.
$4.99.
Dear Sir : There's one way,
I may say, only one,
To check the mad play
That my muse has begun—
Just send me a check, from your checkbook,
To square up your bill, and I'm done.
Henry Romeike.
John Smith, Esq.,
Oshkosh.
V.
$4.99.
Dear Sir: Oh, so dear—
At just two cents a time,
Do I make myself clear?
Have I wasted a dime?
If you don't send a check very shortly
I fear I shall run out of rhyme.
Henry Romeike.
John Smith,
Oshkosh.
VARIOUS VERSES) til
VI.
$4.99.
Dear Sir : There are means
To make deaf people hear,—
A file of marines,
Or a sheriff; a mere
Bagatelle of four ninety-nine (just think!)
Will be your undoing, I fear!
Henry Romeike.
John Smith,
Oshkosh.
VII.
$4.09.
Dear Sir: Let us save
Just a bit from the wreck
Of our friendship; I gave
You some biffs in the neck—
But short accounts do make long friendships;
Come, close our account with a check.
Henry Romeike.
John Smith,
Oshkosh.
The following was printed in the New York Mirror
in 1829:
IMPROMPTU
On being presented with a small stone heart by a lady:
" Take back, dear girl, this cold return,
For passion warm and true as mine;
A heart of stone, from thee, I spurn,
For heart so cold can ne'er be heart of thine."
When Miss Julia Marlowe, the actress, appeared in
Boston, the students of Harvard College almost to a
138 'HASTY PUDDING POEMS
man worshipped at her shrine. Some of them wrote her
tender verses. One night an old envelope was thrown
into her dressing room by some one passing the door,
across the face of which were the following lines:
JULIA MARLOWE AS IMOGEN.
Oh thou, sweet Shakspere's sweeter Imogen,
Nay, rather sweetest Julia's Imogen—
For what are words but lifeless, broken things,
Lacking as much of that we love in life
As lacks the trace of my heart's love in sand
Of her whole self—'tis but a fleeting sign
That she has been there; such an Imogen
Is Shakspere's—but a trace, an echo—stay,
Stay yet a moment. One sweet hope is mine —
Where once my love hath been, there once again
Thro' the sweet shades and on the happy sands
She yet may reappear; and thinkest thou
That Imogen will not be sevenfold fair
And fairer than the first? Ah, such an one
Is Julia's Imogen. Can I say more?
Yet have I not said all, nor dare say all.
This bit of evident impromptu was written across the
addressed face of a very old envelope, as if its writer,
though he dared not give his name in the conventional
manner, craved pardon for putting it before her at all,
by its unpremeditated appearance in connection with a
poem.
A second poem came to her in much the same way.
This second one was written in pencil on the back of a
card containing the formal notice of the general meet-
ing of the Natural History Society. It bore a pencil
sketch of the actress, representing her as Viola, appar-
ently. The resemblance was a little vague. Above the
head were the lines:
VARIOUS VERSES *39
A RONDEL.
A woodthrush piped; I thought of you,
The brook sang low a happy note,
I almost felt myself afloat
On bending skies of tender blue;
A whispering wind the forest through
Played softly with its greening coat;
A woodthrush piped, I thought of you
Where brooks sang low a happy note.
A thousand fancies dimmed the view,
The sunbeams danced with wing and mote,
Hiding where moss and lichens grew,
A woodthrush piped, I thought of you.
Following is an impromptu toast to Kalakaua, the late
King of Hawaii:
A TOAST.
Aloha! Royal Health to Royal Host!
Long live the King beneath his royal palms,
O'er him ye soft winds breathe your sweetest psalms.
Hail him, ye seas that fawn upon his coast.
Aloha! and Aloha! and Aloha!—Pros'11
Charles Warren Stoddard.
goodnight, eugene!
(These lines were written impromptu upon hearing of
Field's death.)
Goodnight, Eugene, but not farewell;
Although Life's sun for thee hath set,
In hearts of millions long will dwell
Thy kindly light. We'll not forget
The tender, gentle touch,—the charm,
The grace and pathos of thy pen;
Goodnight, sweet soul of Sabine farm,
Belov'd of children and of men.
Will M. Clemens,
i4o HASTY PUDDING POEMS
The following impromptu is by Clement Scott:
THE GOLDEN GATE !
Fling it wide open! your Golden Gate!
For I have travelled the vast world round.
The God of Mercy, whom Fools call Fate,
Has led me safe, and has left me sound.
Temples of myriad gems I've seen,
And diamond shrines by the marble way,
But I would not exchange with an eastern Queen
My sight of the beautiful West to-day.
Who cares for the pearls that cover the great
When we welcome wealth at the Golden Gate?
Gild and regild it—your Golden Gate,
For the World's Fair triumph of Art draws near.
Each decade, dynasty, destiny, date
Shall be found engraved on this golden year.
Toil of the craftsman, sheen of the loom,
Pride of the chisel, and hammer, and pen
Shall march with music and cry, " Make room
For the marvelous works of the mightiest men!"
Mummied in pyramids kings may wait
Whilst we welcome Art at the Golden Gate.
Welcome a friend to your Golden Gate,
Who has seen of the world its best and worst;
Its mighty passions, inspired by fate;
Its puny lovers by greed accurst;
The Nubian form, the Indian grace,
The sawdust doll of veneered Japan—
I have seen them, every rank and race;
The lovers of women, the loves of men!
Their smiles I loathe and their lures I hate,
But I shall find love at the Golden Gate.
Crown it with roses, your Golden Gate,
And send up a" cheer when my ship sails in;
For faith has won its reward, though late,
And life and love shall to-day begin!
VARIOUS VERSES 141
ITU worship you ever, you beautiful West,
For here you have built me a bower of bliss
Where two shall be folded breast to breast
And sealed forever with kiss upon kiss.
Since God has guided the wheels of fate
I shall meet my Heart at the Golden Gate.
Clement Scott.
Golden Gate, San Francisco, April 15, 1893.
CHARLES LAMB.
[After looking into Carlyle's Reminiscences.]
Sweet heart, forgive me for thine own sweet sake,
Whose kind blithe soul such seas of sorrow swam,
And for my love's sake, powerless as I am
For love to praise thee, or like thee to make
Music of mirth where hearts less pure would break,
Less pure than thine, our life—unspotted Lamb.
Things hatefullest thou hadst not heart to damn,
Nor wouldst have set thine heel on this dead snake.
Let worms consume its memory with its tongue,
The fang that stabbed fair Truth, the lip that stung
Men's memories uncorroded with its breath.
Forgive me, that with bitter words like his
I mix the gentlest English name that is,
The tenderest held of all that know not death.
Charles Algernon Swinburne.
the world as critic.
[An Impromptu.]
"The World! " "The World! " why, plague it, man,
Why do you shake your world at me?
For all its years, and all your fear,
The thing I am I still must be.
I see! I see !—fine homes on hills,
With winding pathways smooth and fair;
But let me moil among the mills,
Rather than creep to riches there.
*4* HASTY PUDDING POEMS
A heather bell on Travail's cliffs,
Smells sweeter than a garden rose;
The lumber-barge outsails the skiffs,
And saves men's lives when Boreas blows.
'Tis, sure, enough to note the day,
With morning hail, and night adieu,
Nor squander precious hours away
With Affectation's empty crew.
My friend's my friend, my foe's my foe;
I have my hours of joy and gloom;
I do not love all mankind—No!
The heart I have has not the room.
But there is half-a-score I know,
And her, and you, and this wee thing,
Who make my World, my all, below—
Cause, Constitution, Country, King!
Thomas D'Arcy McGee.
A mining prospector in Washington came upon the
following verses nailed to a blazed tree in which was
stuck an old blunt and broken pick:
Rugged miner, pause a moment,
For a pick without a choice,
If you want to use it, take it; ^
May it make your heart rejoice.
" But/' you say, " it's blunt and busted
And its face is marred and scarred."
Never mind, it's like its owner,
Take it, if you want it, pard.
No? Don't want it? Well, then, leave it
Sticking in the tree.
It may serve to tell a story
To some other, such as we.
XX
FAMOUS POEMS
For loftiness of sentiment " The Battle Hymn of the
Republic" will easily take rank with the grandest of
American martial songs. Having been sung many times
during the Civil War, and under a variety of circum-
stances, a description of the manner in which it was
composed by Mrs. Julia Ward Howe will be of interest.
Being in Washington near the end of the year 1861,
she witnessed a review of the Union troops on the Vir-
ginia side of the Potomac and was deeply impressed by
her experience. In the return journey to the city a
number of war songs were sung, among others " John
Brown's Body," whereupon one of the party suggested
that so grand a melody deserved more worthy words,
and that she should write them.
That night, while Mrs. Howe was resting, she thought
out line after line and verse after verse of " The Bat-
tle Hymn of the Republic," and with the inspiration
yet warm sprang from her bed and committed the
patriotic stanzas to paper. They are as follows:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the
Lord.
He is tramping out the vintage where the grapes of
wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift
word;
His truth is marching on.
143
144 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
I have seen him in the watchfires of a hundred circling
camps ;
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and
damps;
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flar-
ing lamps;
His day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of
steel:
" As ye deal with my contemners, so with ye my grace
shall deal;
Let the hero born of women crush the serpent with his
heel,"
Since God is marching on.
He has sounded forth a trumpet that shall never call
retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment
seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer him; be jubilant, my
feet,
Our God is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the
sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me;
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men
free
While God is marching on.
General William H. Lytle, a hero of the Mexican
war, wrote the following famous poem impromptu,
while carousing with a party of boon companions in a
Cincinnati restaurant:
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.
" I am dying, Egypt, dying."—Shakspere.
I am dying, Egypt, dying,
Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast,
And the dark, Plutonian shadows
Gather on the evening blast.
FAMOUS POEMS
Let thine arm, oh! Queen, support me,
Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear,
Hearken to the great heart secrets,
Thou, and thou alone, must hear.
Though my scarred and veteran legions
Bear their eagles high no more,
And my wrecked and scattered galleys
Strew dark Actium's fatal shore;
Though no glittering guards surround me-
Prompt to do their master's will,
I must perish like a Roman,
Die the great triumvir still.
Let not Caesar's servile minions
Mock the lion thus laid low;
'Twas no foeman's hand that slew him,
'Twas his own that struck the blow.
Here, then, pillowed on thy bosom,
Ere his star fades quite away,
Him, who, drunk with thy caresses,
Madly flung a world away!
Should the base plebeian rabble
Dare assail my fame at Rome,
Where the noble spouse, Octavia,
Weeps within her widowed home;
Seek her; say the gods have told me,
Altars, augurs, circling wings,
That her blood, with mine commingled,
Yet shall mount the throne of Kings.
And for thee, star-eyed Egyptian!
Glorious sorceress of the Nile,
Light the path to stygian horrors
With the splendor of thy smile;
Give the Caesar crowns and arches,
Let his brow the laurel twine,
I can scorn the Senate's triumphs,
Triumphing in love like thine.
146 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
I am dying, Egypt dying;
Hark! the insulting foemanTs cry!
They are coming! Quick! my falchion,
Let me front them ere I die.
Ah! No more amid the battle
Shall my heart exulting swell,
Isis and Osiris guard thee,
Cleopatra! Rome! Farewell!
Richard Realf was the author of " Apocalypse/' one
of the most touching poems from that gifted writer's
pen. The verses were written impromptu.
APOCALYPSE.
(Lines written in memory of Luther C. Ladd, private
in the Sixth Massachusetts, who was killed by a mob,
which attacked his regiment, while passing through
Baltimore en route to Washington, April 19, 1861. Ladd
was the first man killed in the Rebellion.)
Straight to his heart the bullet crushed;
Down from his breast the red blood gushed,
And o'er his face a glory rushed.
A sudden spasm shook his frame,
And in his ears there went and came
A sound as of devouring flame.
Which in a moment ceased, and then
The great light clasped his brows again,
So that they shone like Stephen's when
Saul stood apart a little space
And shook with shuddering awe to trace
God's splendors settling o'er his face.
Thus, like a King, erect in pride,
Raising clean hands toward Heaven, he cried
" All hail the Stars and Stripes! " and died—
FAMOUS POEMSi *41
Died grandly. But before he fell,
(O blessedness ineffable!)
Vision apocalyptical
Was granted to him, and his eyes
All radiant with glad surprise
Looked forward through the centuries,
And saw the seeds which sages cast
In the worlds soil in cycles past
Spring up and blossom at the last.
Saw how the souls of men had grown,
And where the scythes of Truth had mowii
Clear space for Liberty's white thone.
Saw how, by sorrow tried and proved,
The blackening stains had been removed
Forever from the land he loved.
Saw Treason crushed and Freedom crowned,
And clamorous Faction, gagged and bound,
Gasping its life out on the ground.
Saw how, across his country's slopes,
Walked swarming troops of cheerful hopes,
Which evermore to broader scopes
Increased, with power that comprehends
The world's weal in its own, and bends
Self-needs to large, unselfish ends.
Saw how, throughout the vast extents
Of Earth's most populous continents,
She dropped such rare heart affluence—
That from beyond the utmost seas,
The wondering people thronged to seize
The proffered pure benignities.
148 HASTY PUDDING POEMS
Saw Eow, of all her trebled host
Of widening Empires, none might boast
Whose love were best or strength were most
Because they grew so equal there
Beneath the flag which debonair,
fWaved joyous in the cleansed air.
With far-off vision gazing clear
Beyond this gloomy atmosphere
Which shuts us in with doubt and fear,
He—marking how her high increase
(Ran greatening in perpetual lease
Through balmy years of odorous peace—*
Greeted, in one transcendent cry
Of intense passionate ecstasy,
The sight which thrilled him utterly.
Saluting with most proud disdain
Of murder and of mortal pain,
The vision which shall be again!
So lifted with prophetic pride,
Raised conquering hands toward Heaven and cried,
" All hail the Stars and Stripes! " and died.
Walter Kittredge, who was born in Merrimac, N. H.,
Oct. 8, 1832, was known as a public singer and writer of
songs and ballads. Having been drafted in 1862, he
was preparing to go to the front when the words and
music occurred to him, and in a few minutes he tran-
scribed them to paper. At first the song was refused by
music publishers, but it is said that when published its
sale reached hundreds of thousands of copies:
FAMOUS POEMS M9
TENTING ON THE OLD CAMP GROUND.
We're tenting to-night on the old camp ground.
Give us a song of cheer,
Our weary hearts—a song of home
And friends we love so dear.
CHORUS.
Many are the hearts that are weary to-nigfit,
Wishing for the war to cease.
Many are the hearts looking for the right,
To see the dawn of peace.
Tenting to-night, tenting to-night,
Tenting on the old camp ground.
We've been tenting to-night on the old camp ground,
Thinking of days gone by,
Of the loved ones at home that gave us the hand
And the tear that said " goodby."
We are tired of war on the old camp ground.
Many are dead and gone
Of the brave and true who left their homes;
Others have been wounded long.
We've been fighting to-day on the old camp ground.
Many are lying near;
Some are dead and some are dying;
Many are in tears.
" Myself und Gott" is a famous impromptu poem
written by A. M. R. Gordon in 1897.
The occasion upon which the poem was written was
the Emperor William's speech upon the divine right of
kings and his own special mission on earth. At that
time A. M. R. Gordon, a Scotchman by birth, and whose
real name was A. McGregor Rose, was a member of the
Montreal Herald staff. He had been in the habit of
writing verses upon different subjects, and was looked
15° HASTY PUDDING POEMS
upon as a very bright fellow indeed. The city editor,
turning to him, said:
" Give us a poem, Gordon, on the Emperor."
In less than an hour's time he turned out thirteen
verses, which were entitled by him " Kaiser & Co.," not
" Hoch der Kaiser." The matter was sent up to the
printer just as it was written. These are the verses:
hoch! der kaiser.
Der Kaiser of dis Fatherland
Und Gott on high all dings command.
Ve two—ach! Don't you understand?
Myself—und Gott.
Vile some men sing der power divine,
Mine soldiers sing " Der Wacht am Rhine"
Und drink der health in Rhenish wine
Of Me—-und Gott.
Der's France, she swaggers all aroundt
She's ausgespield, of no account,
To much we think she don't amount;
Myself—und Gott!
She vill not dare to fight again,
But if she shouldt, I'll show her blairi
Dot Elsass und (in French) Lorraine
Are mein—by Gott!
Dere's grandma dink's she's nicht small beer,
Mit Boers and such she interfere;
She'll learn none owns dis hemisphere
But Me—und Gott!
She dinks, good frau, fine ships she's got
Und soldiers mit der scarlet goat.
Ach! We could knock them! Pouf! Like that,
Myself—mit Gott!
FAMOUS POEMS
X5I
In dimes of peace, brebare for wars,
I bear the spear and helm of Mars,
Und care not for a thousand Czars,
Myself^-mit Gott!
In fact, I humor efery whim,
With aspect dark and visage grim;
Gott pulls mit Me, und I mit him.
Myself—und Gott J