AS there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?
If there has, take him out, without making a noise.
Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite!
Old Time is a liar!
We're twenty! We're twenty ! Who says we are more?
He's tipsy,
young jackanapes! - show him the door!
Gray temples at twenty? Yes! white if we please;
Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze!
Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake!
Look close, you will see not a sign of a flake!
We want some new garlands for those we have shed,
And these are white roses in place of the red.
We 've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told,
Of talking (in public) as if we were old:
That boy we call "Doctor," and this we call "Judge ";
It's a neat little fiction,
of course it's all fudge.
That fellow's the "Speaker,"
"Mr. Mayor," my young one, how are you to-night?
That's our "Member of Congress," we say when we chaff;
There's the "Reverend "What's his name?
That boy with the grave mathematical look
Made believe he had written a wonderful book,
And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was true!
So they chose him right in, - a good joke it was too!
There's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain,
That could harness a team with a logical chain;
When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire,
We called him "The Justice," but now he 's "The Squire."
And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith,
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith;
But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,
Just read on his medal, "My country," " of thee!"
You hear that boy laughing?
You think he 's all fun;
But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done;
The children laugh loud as they troop to his call,
And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all!
Yes, we 're boys, always playing with tongue or with pen,
And I sometimes have asked, Shall we ever be men?
Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, and gay,
Till the last dear companion drops smiling away ?
Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May!
And when we have done with our life-lasting toys,
Dear Father, take care of thy children, THE BOYS!
RIEND, you seem thoughtful. I not wonder much
That he who sails the ocean should be sad.
I am myself reflective. — When I think
Of all this wallowing beast, the Sea, has sucked
Between his sharp, thin lips, the wedgy waves,
What heaps of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls;
What piles of shekels, talents, ducats, crowns,
What bales of Tyrian mantles, Indian shawls,
Of laces that have blanked the weavers' eyes,
Of silken tissues, wrought by worm and man,
The half-starved workman, and the well-fed worm;
What marbles, bronzes, pictures, parchments, books;
What many-lobuled, thought-engendering brains;
Lie with the gaping sea-shells in his maw,
I, too, am silent; for all language seems
A mockery, and the speech of man is vain.
O mariner, we look upon the waves
And they rebuke our babbling.
Mortal, be still!" My noisy tongue is hushed, And with my trembling finger on my lips.
My soul exclaims in ecstasy
Delay," — it calls, "nor haste to break The charm of stillness with an idle word!"
O mariner, I love thee, for thy thought
Strides even with my own, nay, flies before.
Thou art a brother to the wind and wave;
Have they not music for thine ear as mine,
When the wild tempest makes thy ship his lyre,
Smiting a cavernous basso from the shrouds
And climbing up his gamut through the stays,
Through buntlines, bowlines, ratlines, till it shrills
An alto keener than the locust sings,
And all the great Æolian orchestra
Storms out its mad sonata in the gale
Is not the scene a wondrous and
Ah yes, a vast, a vast and wondrous scene!
I see thy soul is open as the day
That holds the sunshine in its azure bowl
To all the solemn glories of the deep.
Tell me, O mariner, dost thou never feel
The grandeur of thine office, to control
The keel that cuts the ocean like a knife
And leaves a wake behind it like a seam
In the great shining garment of the world?
Belay y'r jaw, y' swab! y' hoss-marine!
(To the Captain.)
Ay, ay, Sir! Stiddy, Sir! Sou'wes' b' sou'!
'VE heerd some talk of a Jubilee
To celebrate "our victory";
Now I'm a chap as follers the sea,
'n' f'r 'z I know, nob'dy 'll listen to me,
B't I'll tell y' jest what 's my idee.
When you 'n' a fellah 'z got your grip,
Before y' 've settled it which can whip,
I won't say nothin'. You let her rip!
Knock him to pieces, chip by chip!
But don't fire into a sinkin' ship!
I tell y', shipmates 'n' lan'sm'n too,
There's chaps aboard th't's 'z good 'z you,
'T was God A'mighty that made her crew!
FOLKS is FOLKS! 'n' that 's 'z true
'z that land is black 'n' water blue!
Come tell us, shipmates, ef y' can,
Was there ever a crew sence th' worl' began
That sech a wallopin' had to stan'
'z them poor fellahs th't tried t' man
The great Chicago catamaran !
Wahl, this is what y' 've hed t' do,
T' lick 'em, but not t' drown 'em too
There's some good fellahs, 'n' not a few
That's a swimmin' about, all chilled 'n' blue,
'n wants t' be h'isted aboard o' you!
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