Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Friend, heard you not my northern whistle
Shrill blowing in my last epistle?
With patience e'en that Job might learn
I 've listened long for a return.
As none I hear, I send this spy
To learn the wherefore and the why.
Oh! may it find you hale and well,
With face to heaven and back to hell;
Dewee in hand, with thoughtful face
Deep cogitating on a case.

Were I to think for theme to write,
I scarce should pen a line to-night.
First thoughts, 't is said, are aye the best—
So here 's a few—de'il take the rest:

Mankind are prone, in every earthly clime,
To wink at selfishness as not a crime;
But I, for one, can never view it so—
Your selfish man is oft a villain, too.
E'en the most selfish, covetous of pelf,
Despise the man who cares but for himself,
And yet, for reasons to themselves best known,
Call not the odious villainy their own!

I have my eye upon a certain man
Whose life is but one self-exalting plan.
Mammon 's the God he reverences most;
His soul's solicitude 's a dollar lost;
Night he consumes in cogitating schemes,
And day-light finds him practising his dreams;
Whatever game be his in life to play,
He 's sure to win some one or other way;
And if the potent ace he never steals,
He turns a Jack for trumps whene'er he deals.

148

He casts about him with a selfish eye,
Wrapped in the cloak of self-sufficiency,
Much with the air, (and you will pardon me
For making use of homely simile,)
Of my old dog, who, 'midst his other tricks,
Turns round and round upon his bed of sticks,
Until, contracted to a narrow heap,
He curls him down, and straightway is asleep.

But, sir, so thinks your humble poet:
If selfish persons would but know it,
Death will o'erreach them in the end—
That gaunt monopolizing fiend!
That my name, too, may swell the list
Of those who at the most exist,
May pass for possibility—
I say it with humility;
But I'm deceived, if nothing worse,
If one's not tacking off that course.
My chief delight is in a farm,
With all appliances to charm;
I covet not a nabob's wealth,
But give me competence and health;
“Peace like a river” o'er me roll;
And hopes of heaven fill my soul;
A faithful friend; an open foe;
And moccasins in time of snow.

Is there a critic who would smile?
Let him forbear a little while:
“Man wants but little here below,”
And many make that little do;
But more than all, his lot is blest
Who gets contentment with the rest.

And now, farewell, my valued friend!
Till life's great caravan shall end,

149

Or rather till I leave the ranks,
Slumbrous with toil and madmen's pranks;
Till tomb-stone rises at my head,
To mark the muse-beloved dead;
Yea, while I blow the rural reed,
I hail your friend, and that indeed.

A medical writer on Midwifery.