Poetical Ingenuities and Eccentricities Part 19

--_Bret Harte._

THE HUSBAND'S COMPLAINT.

"Will she thy linen wash and hosen darn?"--GAY.

"I'm utterly sick of this hateful alliance Which the ladies have formed with impractical Science!

They put out their washing to learn hydrostatics, And give themselves airs for the sake of pneumatics.

They are knowing in muriate, and nitrate, and chlorine, While the stains gather fast on the walls and the flooring-- And the jellies and pickles fall woefully short, With their chemical use of the still and retort.

Our expenses increase (without drinking French wines), For they keep no accounts, with their tangents and sines?-- And to make both ends meet they give little a.s.sistance, With their accurate sense of the squares of the distance.

They can name every spot from Peru to El Arish, Except just the bounds of their own native parish; And they study the orbits of Venus and Saturn, While their home is resigned to the thief and the slattern.

Chronology keeps back the dinner two hours, The smoke-jack stands still while they learn motive powers; Flies and sh.e.l.ls swallow up all our everyday gains, And our acres are mortgaged for fossil remains.

They cease to reflect with their talk of refraction-- They drive us from home by electric attraction-- And I'm sure, since they've bothered their heads with affinity I'm repulsed every hour from my learned divinity.

When the poor stupid husband is weary and starving, Anatomy leads them to give up the carving; And we drudges the shoulder of mutton must buy, While they study the line of the _os humeri_.

If we 'scape from our troubles to take a short nap, We awake with a din about limestone and trap; And the fire is extinguished past regeneration, For the women were wrapt in the deep-coal formation.

'Tis an impious thing that the wives of the laymen Should use Pagan words 'bout a pistil and stamen; Let the heir break his head while they foster a Dahlia, And the babe die of pap as they talk of mammalia.

The first son becomes half a fool in reality, While the mother is watching his large ideality; And the girl roars unchecked, quite a moral abortion, For we trust her benevolence, order, and caution.

I sigh for the good times of sewing and spinning, Ere this new tree of knowledge had set them a sinning; The women are mad, and they'll build female colleges,-- So here's to plain English!--a plague on their 'ologies!"

h.o.m.oEOPATHIC SOUP.

"Take a robin's leg (Mind! the drumstick merely), Put it in a tub Filled with water nearly; Set it out of doors, In a place that's shady, Let it stand a week (Three days if for a lady).

Drop a spoonful of it In a five-pail kettle, Which may be made of tin Or any baser metal; Fill the kettle up, Set it on a boiling, Strain the liquor well, To prevent its oiling;

One atom add of salt, For the thickening one rice kernel, And use to light the fire The h.o.m.oeopathic Journal.

Let the liquor boil Half an hour or longer (If 'tis for a man, Of course you'll make it stronger).

Should you now desire That the soup be flavoury, Stir it once around With a stalk of Savory.

When the broth is made, Nothing can excel it: Then three times a day Let the patient _smell_ it.

If he chance to die, Say 'twas Nature did it; If he chance to live, Give the soup the credit."

A BILLET-DOUX.

BY A COUNTRY SCHOOLMASTER, CHIDDINGLY, SUSs.e.x.

"Accept, dear Miss, this _article_ of mine, (For what's _indefinite_, who can _define_?) My _case_ is singular, my house is rural, Wilt thou, indeed, consent to make it _plural_?

Something, I feel, pervades my system through, I can't describe, yet _substantively_ true.

Thy form so _feminine_, thy mind reflective, Where all's _possessive_ good, and nought _objective_, I'm _positive_ none can _compare_ with thee In wit and worth's _superlative_ degree.

_First person_, then, _indicative_ but prove, Let thy soft _pa.s.sive_ voice exclaim, 'I LOVE!'

_Active_, in cheerful _mood_, no longer _neuter_, I'll leave my cares, both _present_, _past_, and _future_.

But ah! what torture must I undergo Till I obtain that little 'Yes' or 'No!'

Spare me the _negative_--to save compunction, Oh, let my _preposition_ meet _conjunction_.

What could excite such pleasing recollection, At hearing thee p.r.o.nounce this _interjection_, 'I will be thine! thy joys and griefs to share, Till Heaven shall please to _point_ a _period_ there'!"

--_Family Friend_ (1849).

c.u.mulative verse--in which one newspaper gives a few lines, and other papers follow it up--like that which follows, is very common in American newspapers, which, however profound or dense, invariably have a corner for this kind of thing. It has been said that the reason why no purely comic paper, like _Punch_ or _Fun_, succeeds in the United States, is because all their papers have a "funny" department.

THE ARAB AND HIS DONKEY.

An Arab came to the river side, With a donkey bearing an obelisk; But he would not try to ford the tide, For he had too good an *.

--_Boston Globe._

So he camped all night by the river side, And remained till the tide had ceased to swell, For he knew should the donkey from life subside, He never would find its ||.

--_Salem Sunbeam._

When the morning dawned, and the tide was out, The pair crossed over 'neath Allah's protection; And the Arab was happy, we have no doubt, For he had the best donkey in all that --.

--_Somerville Journal._

You are wrong, they were drowned in crossing over, Though the donkey was bravest of all his race; He luxuriates now in horse-heaven clover, And his master has gone to the Prophet's _em_[Symbol]

--_Elevated Railway Journal._

These a.s.sinine poets deserved to be "blowed,"

Their rhymes being faulty and frothy and beery; What really befell the a.s.s and its load Will ever remain a desolate ?.

--_Paper and Print._

Our Yankee friends, with all their ---- For once, we guess, their mark have missed; And with poetry _Paper and Print_ is rash In damming its flow with its editor's [Symbol]

In parable and moral leave a [Symbol] between, [_s.p.a.ce_]

For reflection, or your wits fall out of joint; The "Arab," ye see, is a printing machine, And the donkey is he who can't see the .

--_British and Colonial Printer._

An Ohio poet thus sings of the beginning of man:

EVOLUTION.

"O sing a song of phosphates, Fibrine in a line, Four and twenty follicles In the van of time.

When the phosph.o.r.escence Evoluted brain, Superst.i.tion ended, Man began to reign."

_SINGLE-RHYMED VERSE._

The following lines are from a book written by M. Halpine, under the sobriquet of "Private Miles O'Reilly," during the Civil War in the United States. They have some merit apart from their peculiar versification, and the idea of comparing the "march past" of veteran troops in war time with the parade of the old gladiators is a happy one.

MORITURI TE SALUTANT.