Hoosier Lyrics :: :: University of Virginia Library

HOOSIER LYRICS PARAPHRASED.

We've come from Indiany, five hundred miles or more,
Supposin' we wuz goin' to get the nominashin, shore;
For Col. New assured us (in that noospaper o' his)
That we cud hev the airth, if we'd only tend to biz.
But here we've been a-slavin' more like hosses than like men
To diskiver that the people do not hanker arter Ben;
It is fur Jeems G. Blaine an' not for Harrison they shout—
And the gobble-uns 'el git us
Ef we
Don't
Watch
Out!

When I think of the fate that is waiting for Ben,
I pine for the peace of my childhood again;
I wish in my sorrow I could strip to the soul
And hop off once more in the old swimmin' hole!

The world is full of roses, and the roses full of dew
(Which is another word for soup) that drips for me and you.

“Little Benjy! Little Benjy!” chirps the robin in the tree;
“Little Benjy!” sighs the clover, “Little Benjy!” moans the bee;
“Little Benjy! Little Benjy!” murmurs John C. New,
A-stroking down the whiskers which the winds have whistled through.

Looks jest like his grampa, who's dead these many years—
He wears the hat his grampa wore, pulled down below his ears;
We'd like to have him four years more, but if he cannot stay—
Nothin' to say, good people; nothin' at all to say!

There, little Ben, don't cry!
They have busted your boom, I know;
And the second term
For which you squirm
Has gone where good niggers go!
But Blaine is safe, and the goose hangs high—
There, little Ben, don't cry!

Mabbe we'll git even for this unexpected shock,
When the frost is on the pumpkin and the fodder's in the shock!

Oh, the newspaper man! He works for paw;
He's the liveliest critter 'at ever you saw;
With whiskers 'at reach f'om his eyes to his throat.
He knows how to wheedle and rivet a vote;
He wunst wuz a consul 'way over the sea—
But never again a consul he'll be!
He come back f'om Lon'on one mornin' in May—
He come back for bizness, an' here he will stay—
Ain't he a awful slick newspaper man?
A newspaper, newspaper, newspaper man!

You kin talk about yer cities where the politicians meet—
You kin talk about yer cities where a decent man gits beat;
With the general run o' human kind I beg to disagree—
The little town of Tailholt is good enough f'r me!

Chicago was a pleasant town in eighteen-eighty-eight,
And I have lived in Washington long time in splendid state;

But all the present prospects are that after ninety-three
The little town o' Tailholt 'll be good enough f'r me!

“I wunst lived in Indiany,” said a consul, gaunt and grim,
As most of us Blaine delegates wuz kind o' guyin' him;
“I wunst lived in Indiany, and my views wuz widely read,
Fur I run a daily paper w'ich 'Lije Halford edited;
But since I've been away f'm home, my paper (seems to me)
Ain't nearly such a inflooence ez wot it used to be;
So, havin' done with consulin', I'm goin' to make a break
Towards making of a paper like the one I used to make.”

Think, if you kin, of his term mos' through,
An' that ol' man wantin' a secon' term, too;
Picture him bendin' over the form
Of his consul-gineril, stanch an' grim,
Who has stood the brunt of that jimblain storm—
An' that ol' man jest wrapt up in him!
An' the consul-gineril, with eyes all bleared
An' a haunted look in his ashen in his ashen beard,

Kind o' gaspin' a feeble way—
But soothed to hear the ol' man say
In a meaning tone (as one well may
When words are handy and ---'s to pay):
“Good-by, John; take care of yo'self!”

MINNIE LEE.

Writing from an Indiana town a young woman asks: “Is the enclosed poem worth anything?”

We find that the poem is as follows:

She has left us, our own darling—
And we never more shall see
Here on earth our dearly loved one—
God has taken Minnie Lee.

Her heart was full of goodness
And her face was fair to see
And her life was full of beauty—
How we miss our Minnie Lee!

But her work on earth is over
And her spirit now is free
She has gone to live in heaven—
Shall we weep for Minnie Lee?

Would we call our angel darling
Back again across the sea?
No! but sometime up in heaven
We will meet loved Minnie Lee.

[Sweet poetess, your poetry]

To the question as to whether this poem is worth anything we chose to answer in verse as follows:

Sweet poetess, your poetry
Is bad as bad can be,
And yet we heartily deplore
The death of Minnie Lee.

It would have pleased us better
If, in His wisdom, He
Had taken you, sweet poetess,
Instead of Minnie Lee.

Your turn will come, however,
And swift and sure 'twill be
If you continue sending
Your rhymes on Minnie Lee.

From this we hope you will gather
A dim surmise that we
Don't take much stock in poems
Concerning Minnie Lee.

PENN-YAN BILL.

I.

In gallus old Kentucky, where the grass is very blue,
Where the liquor is the smoothest and the girls are fair and true,
Where the crop of he-gawd gentlemen is full of heart and sand,
And the stock of four-time winners is the finest in the land,
Where the democratic party in bourbon hardihood
For more than half a century unterrified has stood,
Where nod the black-eyed Susans to the prattle of the rill—
There—there befell the wooing of Penn-Yan Bill.

II.

Down yonder in the cottage that is nestling in the shade
Of the walnut trees that seem to love that quiet little glade
Abides a pretty maiden of the bonny name of Sue—
As pretty as the black-eyed flow'rs and quite as modest, too;

And lovers came there by the score, of every age and kind,
But not a one (the story goes) was quite to Susie's mind.
Their sighs, their protestations, and their pleadings made her ill—
Till at once upon the scene hove Penn-Yan Bill.

III.

He came from old Montana and he rode a broncho mare,
He had a rather howd'y'do and rough-and-tumble air;
His trousers were of buckskin and his coat of furry stuff—
His hat was drab of color and its brim was wide enough;
Upon each leg a stalwart boot reached just above the knee,
And in the belt about his waist his weepons carried he;
A rather strapping lover for our little Susie—still,
She was his choice and he was hers, was Penn-Yan Bill.

IV.

We wonder that the ivy seeks out the oaken tree,
And twines her tendrils round him, though scarred and gnarled he be;

We wonder that a gentle girl, unused to worldly cares,
Should choose a man whose life has been a constant scrap with bears;
Ah, 'tis the nature of the vine, and of the maiden, too—
So when the bold Montana boy came from his lair to woo,
The fair Kentucky blossom felt all her heartstrings thrill
Responsive to the purring of Penn-Yan Bill.

V.

He told her of his cabin in the mountains far away,
Of the catamount that howls by night, the wolf that yawps by day;
He told her of the grizzly with the automatic jaw,
He told her of the Injun who devours his victims raw;
Of the jayhawk with his tawdry crest and whiskers in his throat,
Of the great gosh-awful sarpent and the Rocky mountain goat.
A book as big as Shakespeare's or as Webster's you could fill
With the yarns that emanated from Penn-Yan Bill!

VI.

Lo, as these mighty prodigies the westerner relates,
Her pretty mouth falls wide agape—her eyes get big as plates;
And when he speaks of varmints that in the Rockies grow
She shudders and she clings to him and timidly cries “Oh!”
And then says he: “Dear Susie, I'll tell you what to do—
You be my wife, and none of these 'ere things dare pester you!”
And she? She answers, clinging close and trembling yet: “I will.”
And then he gives her one big kiss, does Penn-Yan Bill.

VII.

Avaunt, ye poet lovers, with your wishywashy lays!
Avaunt, ye solemn pedants, with your musty, bookish ways!
Avaunt, ye smurking dandies who air your etiquette
Upon the gold your fathers worked so long and hard to get!
How empty is your nothingness beside the sturdy tales
Which mountaineers delight to tell of border hills and vales—

Of snaix that crawl, of beasts that yowl, of birds that flap and trill
In the wild egregious altitude of Penn-Yan Bill.

VIII.

Why, over all these mountain peaks his honest feet have trod—
So high above the rest of us he seemed to walk with God;
He's breathed the breath of heaven, as it floated, pure and free,
From the everlasting snow-caps to the mighty western sea;
And he's heard that awful silence which thunders in the ear:
“There is a great Jehovah, and His biding place is here!”
These—these solemn voices and these the sights that thrill
In the far-away Montana of Penn-Yan Bill.

IX.

Of course she had to love him, for it was her nature to;
And she'll wed him in the summer, if all we hear be true.
The blue grass will be waving in that cool Kentucky glade
Where the black-eyed Susans cluster in the pleasant walnut shade—

Where the doves make mournful music and the locust trills a song
To the brook that through the pasture scampers merrily along;
And speechless pride and rapture ineffable shall fill
The beatific bosom of Penn-Yan Bill!

HIS QUEEN.

Our gifted and genial friend. Mr. William J. Florence, the comedian, takes to verses as naturally as a canvas-back duck takes to celery sauce. As a balladist he has few equals and no superiors, and when it comes to weaving compliments to the gentler sex he is without a peer. We find in the New York Mirror the latest verses from Mr. Florence's pen; they are entitled “Pasadene,” and the first stanza flows in this wise:

I've journeyed East, I've journeyed West,
And fair Italia's fields I've seen;
But I declare
None can compare
With thee, my rose-crowned Pasadene.

Following this introduction come five stanzas heaping even more glowing compliments upon this Miss Pasadene—whoever she may be—we know her not. They are handsome compliments, beautifully phrased, yet they give us the heartache, for we know Mrs. Florence, and it grieves us to see her husband dribbling away his superb intellect in

penning verses to other women. Yet me think we understand it all; these poets have a pretty way of hymning the virtues of their wives under divers aliases. So, catching the afflatus of the genial actor-poet's muse, we would answer:

Come, now, who is this Pasadene
That such a whirl of praises warrant?
And is a rose
Her only clo'es?
Oh, fie upon you, Billy Florence!

Ah, no; that's your poetic way
Of turning loose your rhythmic torrents—
This Pasadene
Is not your queen—
We know you know we know it, Florence!

So sing your songs of women folks—
We'll read without the least abhorrence,
Because we know
Through weal and woe
Your queen is Mrs. Billy Florence!

ALASKAN BALLADRY.—III.

(Skans in Love.)

I am like the wretched seal
Wounded by a barbed device—
Helpless fellow! how I bellow,
Floundering on the jagged ice!

Sitka's beauty is the steel
That hath wrought this piteous woe:
Yet would I rather die
Than recover from the blow!

Still I'd rather live than die,
Grievous though my torment be;
Smite away, but, I pray,
Smite no victim else than me!

BONNIE JIM CAMPBELL: A LEGISLATIVE MEMORY.

Bonnie Jim Campbell rode up the glen,
But it wasn't to meet the butterine men;
It wasn't Phil Armour he wanted to see,
Nor Haines nor Crafts—though their friend was he.
Jim Campbell was guileless as man could be—
No fraud in his heart had he;
'Twas all on account of his character's sake
That he sought that distant Wisconsin lake.
[OMITTED]
Bonnie Jim Campbell came riding home,
And now he sits in the rural gloam;
A tear steals furtively down his nose
As salt as the river that yonder flows;
To the setting sun and the rising moon
He plaintively warbles the good old tune:

“Of all the drinks that ever were made—
From sherbet to circus lemonade—
Not one's so healthy and sweet, I vow,
As the rich, thick cream of the Elgin cow!
Oh, that she were here to enliven the scene,
Right merry would be our hearts, I ween;

Then, then again, Bob Wilbanks and I
Would take it by turns and milk her dry!
We would stuff her paunch with the best of hay
And milk her a hundred times a day!”

'Tis thus that Bonnie Jim Campbell sings—
A young he-angel with sprouting wings;
He sings and he prays that Fate'll allow
Him one more whack at the Elgin cow!

A WAIL.

My name is Col. Johncey New,
And by a hoosier's grace
I have congenial work to do
At 12 St. Helen's place.
I was as happy as a clam
A-floating with the tide,
Till one day came a cablegram
To me from t'other side.

It was a Macedonian cry
From Benjy o'er the sea;
“Come hither, Johncey, instantly,
And whoop things up for me!”
I could not turn a callous ear
Unto that piteous cry;
I packed my grip, and for the pier
Directly started I.

Alas! things are not half so fair
As four short years ago—
The clouds are gathering everywhere
And boisterous breezes blow;

My wilted whiskers indicate
The depth of my disgrace—
Would I were back, enthroned in state,
At 12 St. Helen's place!

The saddest words, as I'll allow,
That drop from tongue or pen,
Are these sad words I utter now:
“They can't, shan't, won't have Ben!”
So, with my whiskers in my hands,
My journey I'll retrace,
To wreak revenge on foreign lands
At 12 St. Helen's place.

CLENDENIN'S LAMENT.

While bridal knots are being tied
And bridal meats are being basted,
I shiver in the cold outside
And pine for joys I've never tasted.

Oh, what's a nomination worth,
When you have labored months to get it
If, all at once, with heartless mirth,
The cruel senator's upset it?

Fate weaves me such a toilsome way,
My modest wisdom may not ken it—
But, all the same, a plague I say
Upon that stingy, hostile senate!

TO G. C.

(July 12, 1886.)

They say our president has stuck
Above his good wife's door
The sign provocative of luck—
A horseshoe—nothing more.

Be hushed, O party hates, the while
That emblem lingers there,
And thou, dear fates, propitious smile
Upon the wedded pair.

I've tried the horseshoe's weird intent
And felt its potent joy—
God bless you, Mr. President,
And may it be a boy.

TO DR. F. W. R.

If I were rich enough to buy
A case of wine (though I abhor it),
I'd send a quart of extra dry
And willingly get trusted for it.
But, lackaday! You know that I'm
As poor as Job's historic turkey—
In lieu of Mumm, accept this rhyme,
An honest gift though somewhat jerky.

This is your silver wedding day—
You didn't mean to let me know it!
And yet your smiles and raiments gay
Beyond all peradventure show it!
By all you say and do it's clear
A birdling in your heart is singing,
And everywhere you go you hear
The old-time bridal bells a-ringing.

Ah, well, God grant that these dear chimes
May mind you of the sweetness only
Of those far distant, callow times
When you were Benedick and lonely—

And when an angel blessed your lot—
For angel is your helpmeet, truly—
And when, to share the joy she brought,
Came other little angels, duly.

So here's a health to you and wife—
Long may you mock the Reaper's warning,
And may the evening of your life
In rising sons renew the morning;
May happiness and peace and love
Come with each morrow to caress ye,
And when you're done with earth, above—
God bless ye, dear old friend—God bless ye!

HORACE'S ODE TO “LYDIA” ROCHE.

No longer the boys,
With their music and noise,
Demand your election as mayor;
Such a milk-wagon hack
Has no place on the track
When his rival's a thoroughbred stayer.

With your coarse, shallow wit
Every rational cit
At last is completely disgusted;
The tool of the rings,
Trusts, barons, and things,
What wonder, I wonder, you're busted!

As soon as that Yerkes
Finds out you can't work his
Intrigues for the popular nickel,
With a tear to deceive you
He'll drop you and leave you
In your normal condition—a pickle.

Go, dodderer, go
Where the whisker winds blow
And spasms of penitence trouble;
Or flounder and whoop
In an ocean of soup
Where the pills of adversity bubble.

REID, THE CANDIDATE.

I saw a brave compositor
Go hustling o'er the mead,
Who bore a banner with these words:
“Hurrah for Whitelaw Reid!”

“Where go you, brother slug,” I asked,
“With such unusual speed?”
He quoth: “I go to dump my vote
For gallant Whitelaw Reid!”

“But what has Whitelaw done,” I asked,
“That now he should succeed?”
Said he: “The stanchest, truest friend
We have is Whitelaw Reid!

“There are no terms we can suggest
That he will not concede;
He is converted to our faith,
Is gallant Whitelaw Reid!

“The union it must be preserved—
That is this convert's creed,
And that is why we're whooping up
The cause of Whitelaw Reid!”

“If what you say of him be sooth,
You have a friend indeed,
So go on your winding way,” quoth I,
“And whoop for Whitelaw Reid!”

So on unto the polls I saw
That printer straight proceed
While other printers swarmed in swarms
To vote for Whitelaw Reid.

A VALENTINE.

Four little sisters standing in a row—
Which of them I love best I really do not know.
Sometimes it is the sister dressed out so fine in blue,
And sometimes she who flaunts the beauteous robe of emerald hue;
Sometimes for her who wears the brown my tender heart has bled,
And then again I am consumed of love for her in red.
So now I think I'll send this valentine unto the four—
I love them all so very much—how could a man do more?

103

THE ROMANCE OF A WATCH.

One day his father said to John:
“Come here and see what I hev bought—
A Waterbury watch, my son—
It is the boon you long hev sought!”

The boy could scarcely believe his eyes—
The watch was shiny, smooth an' slick—
He snatched the nickel-plated prize
An' wound away to hear it tick.

He wound an' wound, an' wound an' wound,
An' kept a windin' fit to kill—
The weeks an' months an' years rolled round,
But John he kep' a windin', still!

As autumns came an' winters went
An' summers follered arter spring,
John didn't mind—he was intent
On windin' up that darned ol' thing.

He got to be a poor ol' man—
He's bald an' deaf an' blind an' lame,
But, like he did when he began,
He keeps on windin', jest the same!

104

OUR BABY.

'Tis very strange, but quite as true,
That when our Baby smiles
Our club gets walloped black and blue
In all the latest styles;
But when our Baby's hopping mad
It's quite the other way—
Chicago beats the Yankees bad
When Baby doesn't play.

When baby stands upon his base,
Just after having kicked,
Upon his Scandinavian face
Appears the legend, “Licked”;
But when he orders out a sub,
We well may hip-hooray—
Chicago has the winning club
When Baby doesn't play.

But, if our Baby's getting old,
And stiff, and cross, and vain,
And if his days are nearly told,
Oh, let us not complain.

105

Let's rather think of what he was
And how he's made it pay
To hire the kids that win because
Our Baby doesn't play.

108

HOW TO “FILL.”

It is understood that our esteemed Col. Franc B. Wilkie is going to formulate a reply to Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox's latest poem, which begins as follows:

“I hold it as a changeless law
From which no soul can sway or swerve,
We have that in us which will draw
Whate'er we need or most deserve.”

We fancy the genial colonel will start off with some such quatrain as this:

“I fain would have your recipe,
If you'll but give the snap away;
Now when four clubs are dealt to me,
How may I draw another, pray!”

109

POLITICS IN 1888.

The Cleveland Leader must be getting ready for the campaign of 1888. We find upon its editorial page quite a pretentious poem, entitled “Alpha and Omega,” and here is a sample stanza:

“Whose name will stand for coming time
As hypocrites in prose and rhyme,
And be despised in every clime?
The Mugwumps.”

Well, may be so, but may we be permitted to add a stanza which seems to us to be very pertinent just now?

And who next year, we'd like to know,
Will feed the Cleveland Leader crow,
Just as they did three years ago?
The Mugwumps.

110

THE BASEBALL SCORE.

A boy came racing down the street
In a most tumultuous way,
And he hollered at all he chanced to meet:
“Hooray, hooray, hooray!”
His eyes and his breath were hot with joy
And his cheeks were all aflame—
'Twas a rare event with the little boy
When the champions won a game!

“Twenty to 6” and “10 to 2”
Were rather dismal scores,
And they wreathed in a somewhat somber hue
These classic western shores;
We shuddered and winced at the cruel sport
And our heads were bowed in shame
'Till Somewhere sent us the glad report
That the champions won the game!

Our Baby says it'll be all right
For the champions by and by,
And the twin emotions of Hope and Fright
Gleam in his cod fish eye;

111

And Spalding says (in his modest way)
That we'll get there all the same;
So let us holler, “Hooray, hooray,”
When the champions win the game.

112

CHICAGO NEWSPAPER LIFE.

It pleases us to observe that the shocking habit of hurling opprobrious epithets at each other has been abandoned by the venerable editor of the Journal and the venerable editor of the Tribune. At this moment we are reminded of the inspired lines of the eminent but now, alas! neglected Watts:

“Birds in their nests agree,
And 'tis a shocking sight
When folks, who should harmonious be,
Fall out and chide and fight.

“The tones of Andy and of Joe
Should join in friendly games—
Not be debased to vice so low
As that of calling names.

“Bad names and naughty names require
To be chastized at school,
But he's in danger of hell-fire
Who talks of ‘crank’ and ‘fool.’

113

“Oh 'tis a dreadful thing to see
The old folks smite and jaw,
But pleasant it is to agree
On the election law.

“Let Joe and Andy leave their wrongs
For sinners to contest;
So shall they some time swell the songs
Of Israel's ransomed blest.”

114

THE MIGHTY WEST.

Oh, where abides the fond kazoo,
The barrel-organ fair,
And where is heard the tra-la-loo
Of fish horns on the air?
And where are found the fife and drum
Discoursed with goodliest zest?
And where do fiddles liveliest hum?
The west—the mighty west!

Sonatas, fugues, and all o' that
Are rightly judged effete,
While largos written in B-flat
Are clearly out of date;
Some like the cold pianny-forty,
But whistling suits us best—
And op'ry, if it isn't naughty,
Will not catch on out west.

From skinning hogs or canning beef
Or diving into stocks,
Could we expect to find relief
In Haydns or in Bachs?

115

Ah, no; from pork and wheat and lard
We turn aside with zest
To sing some opus of some bard
Whose home is in the west.

So get ye gone, ye weakling crew!
Your tunes are stale and flat,
And cannot hold a candle to
The works of Silas Pratt!
His opuses are in demand
And are the final test
By which all others fall or stand
In this the mighty west!

116

APRIL.

Now April with sweet showers of freshening rain
Has roused last summer's vigorous breath once more;
'Tis in the air, the house, the street, the lane—
Puffs through the walls and oozes through the floor.

The rau-cous-throated frog ayont the sty
Sends forth, as erst, his amerous vermal croak;
Each hungry mooly casts her swivel eye
For pots and pails in which her nose to poke.

With gurgling glee the gutter gushes by,
Fraught all with filth, unknown and nameless dirt—
A dead green goose, an o'er-ripe rat I spy;
Head of a cat, tail of a flannel shirt.

The querulous cry of every gabbling goose
From thousand-scented mudholes echoes o'er;
The dogs and yawling cats have gotten loose
And mock the hideous howls of hell once more.

117

By yon scrub oak, where roots the sallow sow,
In where John Murphy's wife outpours her slop;
Right there you'll find there's almost stench now
To cause the world its nostrils to estop.

And yonder dauntless goat that bank adown,
That wreathes his old fantastic horns so high,
Gnaws sadly on the bustle of Miss Brown,
Which she discarded in the months gone by.

So in Goose Island cometh April round;
Full eagerly we watch the month's approach—
The season of sweet sight and pleasant sound,
The season of the bedbug and the roach.

118

REPORT OF THE BASEBALL GAME.

It was a very pleasant game,
And there was naught of grumbling
Until the baleful tidings came
That Williamson was “fumbling.”
Then all at once a hideous gloom
Fell o'er all manly features,
And Clayton's cozy, quiet room
Was full of frantic creatures.

“Click, click,” the tiny ticker went,
The tape began to rattle,
And pallid, eager faces bent
To read the news from battle;
Down, down, ten million feet or more,
Chicago's hope went tumbling,
When came the word that Burns and Gore
And Pfeffer, too, were “fumbling.”

No diagram was needed then
To point the Browns to glory—
The simple fact that these four men
Were “fumbling” told the story.

119

There is not a club in all the land—
No odds how weak or humble—
That beats us when our short-stop and
Our second baseman “fumble.”

There was some talk of hippodrome
'Mid frequent calls for liquor,
Then each Chicago man went home
Much wiser, poorer, sicker;
And many a giant intellect
Seemed slowly, surely crumbling
Beneath the dolorous effect
Of that St. Louis “fumbling.”

Ah, well, the struggle's but just begun,
So what is the use of fretting
If by a little harmless fun
Our boys can bull the betting?
When comes the tug of war there'll be
No accidental stumbling,
And then, you bet your boots, you'll see
No mention made of “fumbling.”

120

THE ROSE.

Since the days of old Adam the welkin has rung
With the praises of sweet scented posies,
And poets in rapturous phrases have sung
The paramount beauties of roses.

Wheresoever she bides, whether nestling in lanes
Or gracing the proud urban bowers,
The red, royal rose her distinction maintains
As the one regnant queen among flowers.

How joyous are we of the west when we find
That Fate, with her gifts ever chary,
Has decreed that the Rose, who is queen of her kind
Shall bloom on our wild western prairie.

Let us laugh at the east as an impotent thing
With envy and jealously crazy,
While grateful Chicago is happy to sing
In the praise of the rose—she's a daisy.

121

KANSAS CITY VS. DETROIT.

A rooster flapped his wings and crowed
A merrysome cockadoodledoo,
As out of the west a cowboy rode
To the land where the peach and the clapboard grew,
Humming a gentle tralalaloo.

“O insect with the gilded wing,”
The cowboy cried, “Pray tell me true
Why do you crane your neck and sing
That wearisome cockadoodledoo?
Would you like to learn the tralalaloo?”

Now the rooster squawked an impudent word
Whereat the angered cowboy threw
His lariat at the haughty bird
And choked him until his gills were blue
And his eyes hung out an inch or two.

“Now hear me sing,” the cowboy cried;
“It ain't no cockadoodledoo—
It's a song we sing on the prairies wide—
The simple song of tralalaloo,
Which is cowboy slang for 12 to 2.”

122

ME AND BILKAMMLE.

I will, if you choose,
Impart you some news
That will greatly astound you, I know;
You would never suspect
My ambition was wreck'd
'Till you heard my confession of woe.
'Tis not that my boom
Has ascended the flume—
In other words, gone up the spout—
I could smile a sweet smile
This tempestuous while,
But me and Bilkammle are out!

Being timid and shrinkin',
He did all the thinkin',
When I did the talkin' worth mention;
'Twas my constant ambition
To soar to position
So I gave it exclusive attention;
And supposin' that he
Would of course be for me,
I rambled and prattled about
'Till I found to my horror,
Vexation, and sorror,
That me and Bilkammle were out.

123

As I tore my red hair
In a fit of despair
I heard my Achates complain
That the gent with the coffer
Had nothing to offer
In the way of relieving his pain!
[OMITTED]
If there's mortal to blame
For this villainous game
Which has snuffed a great man beyond doubt.
It's that treacherous mammal
Entitled Bilkammle—
Which accounts for us two bein' out!

124

TO THE DETROIT BASEBALL CLUB.

You've scooped the vealy city crowd
Of glory and of purse—
Why shouldn't Pegasus be proud
To trot you out in a verse?
Chicago hoped to wallop you
By a tremendous score,
But bit off more than it could chew,
As witness: “5 to 4.”

Well done, you 'Ganders! here's a hand
To every one of you;
These record-breakers of the land
Now break themselves in two.
We'll get their pennant—it shall float
Upon our distant shore,
So let each patriotic throat
Hurrah for “5 to 4.”

128

AN OLD SONG REVISED.

John Hamilton, my Jo John,
When first we were acquaint
You were as lavish as could be
With your vermillion paint;
But now the head that once was red
Seems veiled in sable woe,
And clouds of gloom obscure your boom,
John Hamilton, my Jo.

Oh, was it Campbell's hatchet wrought
The ruin we deplore?
Or was it Abnor Taylor's thirst
For your abundant gore?
Or was it Hank's ambitious pranks
That laid our idol low?
Come, let us know how came you so,
John Hamilton, my Joe!

We pine to know the awful truth,
So, pray, be pleased to tell
The story—full of tragic fire—
How one great statesman fell;

129

How dives' hand stalked in the land
And dealt a crushing blow
At one proud name—which you're the same,
John Hamilton, my Jo!

130

THE GRATEFUL PATIENT.

The doctor leaned tenderly over the bed
And looked at the patient's complexion,
And felt of the pulse and the feverish head,
Then stood for a time in reflection.
“A strange complication!
My recommendation
Is morphia by hypodermic injection.”

The patient looked up with a leer in his eye
And winked in the doctor's direction—
“Well, Doc,” he remarked, “since you say I must die,
I'm grateful to you for protection—
I'm now in position
To ask the commission
T' excuse me from serving as judge of election.’

131

THE BEGINNING AND THE END.

Death
In my breath,
Cried I then:
“Men
Burn and blight!
Nourish crime!
Scale the height!
Climb, men, climb!
Climb and fight!
Win by might!
Wrong or right!
Blood!”

Well
In a cell
Here I am—
D---n!
From my flight
So sublime
I alight
Ere my time,
And in fright
Here I grope
Through the night

132

Without hope.
What a plight!
Ah, the rope!
Thud!

150

MORNING HYMN.

I'd dearly love to tear my hair
And romp around a bit,
For I am mad enough to swear
Since Brother Chauncy quit.

I am so vilely prone to sin—
Vain ribald that I am—
I'd take a hideous pleasure in
Just one prodigious “damn.”

But shall I yield to Satan's wiles
And let my passions swell?
Nay, I will wreath my face in smiles.
And mock the powers of hell.

And howsoever pride may roll
Its billows through my frame,
I'll not condemn my precious soul
Unto the quenchless flame!

But rather will I humbly pray
Divinity to wash
From out my mouth such words away
As “Jiminy” and “Gosh.”