Part 2

Like a mysterious cholera breaking out

Sudden, as Egypt's blains 'neath Aaron's rod,

Contagious by a whisper or a nod,--

When daily papers teem with many a hint

That daubs them darker even than their

print;

When it would seem, in short, the very D----,

Had let his little imps out on a spree;

Conclude, beyond a reasonable doubt,

Although, perhaps, you fail to trace it out,

Such plagues spring not unbidden from the

ground,

And, if the thing were sifted, 't would be

found

_Somebody 's_ sown a pocket full of rye,

Or been regaling on a blackbird pie!

BANBURY CROSS.

"Ride a fine horse

To Banbury Cross,

To see a young woman

Jump on a white horse.

Rings on her fingers,

And bells on her toes,

And she shall have music

Wherever she goes."

Prophetic Dame! What hadst thou in

view?

A modern wedding in Fifth Avenue?

Where,--like the goddess of a heathen

shrine,

With offerings heaped in such a glittering

show

As must have emptied a Peruvian mine,

And would suggest, but that we better

know,

Marriage must be a bitter thing indeed,

And, like the Prophet of the Eastern tale,

Must wear a very ugly face, to need

Such careful shrouding in the silver

veil,--

Her bridal pomp, as a white palfrey, mount-

ing,

Caparisoned at cost beyond all counting,

With diamond-jewelled fingers, and the

toes

Ditto, for all that anybody knows,

The smiling damsel goeth to the Banns?

(Why add the "bury," or suggest the

"cross,"

As if such brilliant ringing of the hands

Preluded aught of trial or of loss?)

Shall not Life's golden bells still tinkle

sweet,

And merry music make about her feet?

Shall not the silver sheen around her spread,

A lasting light along her pathway shed?

No mocking satire, surely, hides a sting,

Nor bitter irony a truth foreshows,

In the gay chant the cheery dame doth

sing,--

"She shall have music wheresoe'er she

goes"?

_She_ shall have music! Shall she sit apart,

And let the folly-chimes outvoice the

tone

That comes up wailing to the listening

heart,

From the great world, where misery

maketh moan?

Ah, Mother Goose! if such the tale it tells,

Sing us no more your rhyme of rings and

bells!

But may not--'twere a rare device in-

deed!--

The wondrous oracle in both ways read?

And call up, as a fair beatitude,

The gracious vision of true womanhood,

That with pure purpose, and a gentle might,

Upheld and borne, as by the steed of white,

Pledged with her golden ring, goes nobly

forth

To trace her path of joy along the earth,--

And, as she moves, makes music, silver-shod

"With preparation of the peace" of God,

That holds the key-note of celestial cheer,

And hangs heaven's echoes round her foot-

steps here?

ATTIC SALT.

"Two little blackbirds sat upon a hill,

One named Jack, the other named Jill

Fly away, Jack! fly away, Jill!

Come again, Jack! come again, Jill!"

|I half suspect that, after all,

There's just the smallest bit

Of inequality between

The witling and the wit.

'Tis only mental nimbleness:

No language ever brought

A living word to soul of man

But had the latent thought.

You may meet, among the million,

Good people every day,--

Unconscious martyrs to their fate,--

Who seem, in half they say,

On the brink of something brilliant

They were almost sure to clinch,

Yet, by some queer freak of fortune,

Just escape it by an inch!

I often think the selfsame shade,--

This difference of a hair,--

Divides between the men of nought

And those who do and dare.

An instant cometh on the wing,

Bearing a kingly crown:

This man is dazzled and lets it by--

_That_ seizes and brings it down.

Winged things may stoop to any door

Alighting close and low;

And up and down, 'twixt earth and sky,

Do always come and go.

Swift, fluttering glimpses touch us all,

Yet, prithee, what avails?

'Tis only Genius that can put

The salt upon their tails!

THE BIG SHOE.

"There was an old woman

Who lived in a shoe;

She had so many children

She did n't know what to do:

To some she gave broth,

And to some she gave bread,

And some she whipped soundly,

And sent them to bed."

|Do you find out the likeness?

A portly old Dame,--

The mother of millions,--

Britannia by name:

And--howe'er it may strike you

In reading the song--

Not stinted in space

For bestowing the throng;

Since the Sun can himself

Hardly manage to go,

In a day and a night,

From the heel to the toe.

On the arch of the instep

She builds up her throne,

And, with seas rolling under,

She sits there alone;

With her heel at the foot

Of the Himmalehs planted,

And her toe in the icebergs,

Unchilled and undaunted.

Yet though justly of all

Her fine family proud,

'Tis no light undertaking

To rule such a crowd;

Not to mention the trouble

Of seeing them fed,

And dispensing with justice

The broth and the bread.

Some will seize upon one,--

Some are left with the other,

And so the whole household

Gets into a pother.

But the rigid old Dame

Has a summary way

Of her own, when she finds

There is mischief to pay.

She just takes up the rod,

As she lays down the spoon,

And makes their rebellious backs

Tingle right soon:

Then she bids them, while yet

The sore smarting they feel,

To lie down, and go to sleep,

Under her heel!

Only once was she posed,--

When the little boy Sam,

Who had always before

Been as meek as a lamb,

Refused to take tea,

As his mother had bid,

And returned saucy answers

Because he was chid.

Not content even then,

He cut loose from the throne,

And set about making

A shoe of his own;

Which succeeded so well,

And was filled up so fast,

That the world, in amazement,

Confessed, at the last,--

Looking on at the work

With a gasp and a stare,--

That't was hard to tell which

Would be best of the pair.

Side by side they are standing

Together to-day;

Side by side may they keep

Their strong foothold for aye:

And beneath the broad sea,

Whose blue depths intervene,

May the finishing string

Lie unbroken between!

VICTUALS AND DRINK.

"There once was a woman,

And what do you think?

She lived upon nothing

But victuals and drink.

Victuals and drink

"Were the chief of her diet,

And yet this poor woman

Scarce ever was quiet."

And were you so foolish

As really to think

That all she could want

Was her victuals and drink?

And that while she was furnished

With that sort of diet,

Her feeling and fancy

Would starve, and be quiet?

Mother Goose knew far better;

But thought it sufficient

To give a mere hint

That the fare was deficient;

For I do not believe

She could ever have meant

To imply there was reason

For being content.

Yet the mass of mankind

Is uncommonly slow

To acknowledge the fact

It behooves them to know;

Or to learn that a woman

Is not like a mouse,

Needing nothing but cheese,

And the walls of a house.

But just take a man,--

Shut him up for a day;

Get his hat and his cane,--

Put them snugly away;

Give him stockings to mend,

And three sumptuous meals;--

And then ask him, at night,

If you dare, how he feels!

Do you think he will quietly

Stick to the stocking,

While you read the news,

And "don't care about talking?"

O, many a woman

Goes starving, I ween,

Who lives in a palace,

And fares like a queen;

Till the famishing heart,

And the feverish brain,

Have spelled to life's end

The long lesson of pain.

Yet, stay! To my mind

An uneasy suggestion

Comes up, that there may be

Two sides to the question.

That, while here and there proving

Inflicted privation,

The verdict must often be

"Wilful starvation."

Since there _are_ men and women

Would force one to think

They _choose_ to live only

On victuals and drink.

O restless, and craving,

Unsatisfied hearts,

Whence never the vulture

Of hunger departs!

How long on the husks

Of your life will ye feed,

Ignoring the soul,

And her famishing need?

Bethink you, when lulled

In your shallow content,

'Twas to Lazarus only

The angels were sent;

And 't is he to whose lips

But earth's ashes are given,

For whom the full banquet

Is gathered in heaven!

"There was an old woman

Tossed up in a blanket,

Seventeen times as high as the moon;

What she did there

I cannot tell you,

But in her hand she carried a broom.

Old woman, old woman,

Old woman, said I,

O whither, O whither, O whither so high?

To sweep the cobwebs

Off the sky,

And I 'll be back again, by and by."

|Mind you, she wore no _wings_,

That she might truly _soar_; no time was lost

In growing such unnecessary things;

But blindly, in a blanket, she was _tost!_

Spasmodically, too!

'T was not enough that she should reach

the moon;

But seventeen times the distance she must

do,

Lest, peradventure, she get back too

soon.

That emblematic broom!

Besom of mad Reform, uplifted high,

That, to reach cobwebs, would precipitate

doom,

And sweep down thunderbolts from out

the sky!

Doubtless, no rubbish lay

About her door,--no work was there to

do,--

That through the astonished aisles of Night

and Day,

She took her valorous flight in quest of

new!

Lo! at her little broom

The great stars laugh, as on their wheels

of fire

They go, dispersing the eternal gloom,

And shake Time's dust from off each

blazing tire!

"Little Miss Muffet

Sat on a tuffet,

Eating curds and whey:

There came a black spider,

And sat down beside her,

And frightened Miss Muffet away,"

|To all mortal blisses,

From comfits to kisses,

There's sure to be something by way of

alloy;

Each new expectation

Brings fresh aggravation,

And a doubtful amalgam's the best of our

You may sit on your tuffet;

Yes,--cushion and stuff it;

And provide what you please, if you don't

fancy whey;

But before you can eat it,

There 'll be--I repeat it--

Some sort of black spider to come in the

way.

DAFFY-DOWN-DILLY.

"Daffy-down-dilly

Is new come to town,

With a petticoat green,

And a bright yellow gown,

And her little white blossoms

Are peeping around."

|Now don't you call this

A most exquisite thing?

Don't it give you a thrill

With the thought of the spring,

Such as once, in your childhood,

You felt, when you found

The first yellow buttercups

Spangling the ground?

When the lilac was fresh

With its glory of leaves,

And the swallows came fluttering

Under the eaves?

When the bluebird flashed by

Like a magical thing,

And you looked for a fairy

Astride of his wing?

When the clear, running water,

Like tinkling of bells,

Bore along the bare roadside

A song of the dells,--

And the mornings were fresh

With unfailing delight,

While the sweet summer hush

Always came with the night?

O' daffy-down-dilly,

With robings of gold Î

As our hearts every year

To your coming unfold,

And sweet memories stir

Through the hardening mould,

We feel how earth's blossomings

Surely are given

To keep the soul fresh

For the spring-time of heaven!

BAA, BAA, BLACK SHEEP!

"Baa, baa, black sheep!

Have you any wool?

Yes, sir,--no, sir,--

Three bags full.

One for my master,

One for my dame,

And one for the little boy

That lives in the lane."

|T is the same question as of old;

And still the doubter saith,

"Can any good be made to come

From out of Nazareth?"

No sheep so black in all the flock,--

No human heart so bare,--

But hath some warm and generous stock

Of kindliness to share.

It may be treasured secretly

For dear ones at the hearth;

Or be bestowed by stealth along

The by-ways of the earth;--

And though no searching eye may see,

Nor busy tongue may tell,

Perchance, where largest love is laid,

The Master knoweth well!

THE TWISTER.

A twister, in twisting, would twist him a twist,

And, twisting his twists, seven twists he doth twist:

If one twist, in twisting, untwist from the twist,

The twist, untwisting, untwists the twist."

|A ravelled rainbow overhead

Lets down to life its varying thread:

Love's blue,--Joy's gold,--and, fair be-

tween,

Hope's shifting light of emerald green;

With, either side, in deep relief,

A crimson Pain,--a violet Grief.

Wouldst thou, amid their gleaming hues,

Clutch after those, and these refuse?

Believe,--as thy beseeching eyes

Follow their lines, and sound the skies,--

There, where the fadeless glories shine,

An unseen angel twists the twine.

And be thou sure, what tint so e'er

The broken rays beneath may wear,

It needs them all, that, broad and white,

God's love may weave the perfect light!

FANTASY.

"I have a little sister,

They call her peep, peep;

She wades through the water,

Deep, deep, deep;

She climbs up the mountains,

High, high, high; '

My poor little sister,

She has but one eye!"

|Rough Common Sense doth here confess

Her kinship to Imagination;

Betraying also, I should guess,

Some little pride in the relation.

For even while vexed, and puzzled too,

By the vagaries of the latter,--

Fearful what next the child may do,--

She looks with loving wonder at her.

Plain Sense keeps ever to the road

That's beaten down and daily trod;

While Fancy fords the rivers wide,

And scrambles up the mountain-side:

By which exploits she's always getting

Either a tumble or a wetting.

While simple Sense looks straight before,

Fancy "peeps" further, and sees more;

And yet, if left to walk alone,

May chance, like most long-sighted people,

To trip her foot against a stone

While gazing at a distant steeple.

Nay, worse! with all her grace erratic,

And feats aerial and aquatic,

Her flights sublime, and moods ecstatic,

She of the vision wild and high

Hath but a solitary eye!

And,--not to quote the Scripture, which

Forebodes the falling in the ditch,--

Doubtless by following such a guide

Blindly, in all her wanderings wide,

The world, at best, would get o' one side.

What then? To rid us of our doubt

Is there no other thing to do

But we must turn poor Fancy out,

And only downright Fact pursue?

Ah, see you not, bewildered man!

The heavenly beauty of the plan?

'T was so ordained, in counsels high,

To give to sweet Imagination

A single deep and glorious eye;

But then't was meant, in compensation,

That Common Sense, with optics keen,--

As maid of honor to a queen,--

On her blind side should always stay,

And keep her in the middle way.

JINGLING AND JANGLING.

"Little Jack Jingle

Used to live single.

But when he got tired

Of that kind of life,

He left off being single,

And lived with his wife."

|Your period's pointed, most excellent Moth-

er!

Pray what did he do when he tired of the

other?

For a man so deplorably prone to ennui

But a queer sort of husband is likely to be.

The fatigue might recur,--and, in case it

should be so,

Why not take a wife on a limited lease, O?

Grant the privilege, pray, to his idiosyn-

crazy,--

Some natures won't bear to be too closely

pinned, you see,--

And, at worst, the poor Benedict might

advertise,

When weary, at length, of the light of his

eyes,--

Or failing to find her, it may be, in salt,--

"Disposed of, indeed, for no manner of

fault,"

(To borrow a figure of speech from the

mart,)

"But because the late owner has taken a

start!"

I believe once before you have cautiously

said

Something quite as concise on this delicate

head,

When distantly hinting at "needles and

pins,"

And that "when a man marries, his trouble

begins";

But I don't recollect that you ever pretend

To prophesy anything as to the _end_.

Unless we may learn it of Peter,--the

bumpkin,

Renowned for naught else but his eating

of pumpkin;

Whose wife--I don't see how he happened

to get her--

Had a taste, very likely, for things that

were better:

Since, fearing to lose her, at last it be-

fell

He bethought him of shutting her up in a

shell;

By which brilliant contrivance she _kept_ very

well!

What he did with her next, the old rhyme

does n't say,

But she seems to be somehow got out of

the way,

For the ill-fated Peter was wedded once

more,

To find his bewilderment worse than be-

fore;

"If the first for her spouse had but small

predilection,

Now 't was his turn, alas! to fall short in

affection.

And how do you think that he conquered

the evil?

Why, simply by _lifting himself to her level_;

By leaving his pumpkins, and learning to

spell,

He came, saith the story, to love her right

well;

And the mythical memoir its moral con-

trives

For the lasting instruction of husband*

and wives.

THE OLD WOMAN OF SURREY.

"There was an old woman in Surrey,

Who was morn, noon, and night in a hurry;

Called her husband a fool,

Drove the children to school,

The worrying old woman of Surrey."

|T was an ancient earldom over the sea,

And it must be now as it used to be;

Yet the sketch is of one I have known

before,--

The very old woman that lives next door.

One thing is unquestionable,--she 's

"smart,"--

As they say of an apple that's rather tart;

For her nearest friends, I think, would

allow her

To be, at her best, but a "pleasant sour."

There's a certain electrical atmosphere

That you feel beforehand, when she's near:

And--unless you 'ye a wonderful deal of

pluck--

A shrinking fear that you might be

"struck."

She moves with such a bustle and rush,--

Such an elemental stir and crush,

As makes the branches bend and fall

In the breeze that blows up a thunder-squall.

And yet, it is only her endless "hurry";

She's not so bad if she would n't "worry."

And, for all the worlds that she has to make.

If the six days' time she 'd only take.

You may talk about Surrey, or Devon, or

Kent,

But I doubt if a special location was meant;

It may sound severe,--but it seems to me

That a "representative" woman was she;

And that here and there you may chance

to trace

Some specimens extant of the race:

For a slip of the stock, as I've a notion,

Somehow "in the Mayflower" crossed the

ocean.

PICKLE PEPPERS.

"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickle peppers;

And a peck of pickle peppers Peter Piper picked;

If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickle peppers

Where's the peck of pickle peppers Peter Piper

picked?"

|Poor Peter toiled his life away,

That afterward the world might say

"Where is the peck of peppers he

Did gather so industriously?"

The peppers are embalmed in metre,--

But who, alas! inquires for Peter?

In sun or storm, by night and day,

Scant time for sleep, and none for play,

Still the poor fool did nothing reck,

If only he might pick his peck:

And what result from all hath sprung,

But just to bite somebody's tongue?

Or,--Lady Fortune playing fickle,--

Get some one in a precious pickle?

HUMPTY DUMPTY.

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall;

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall:

Not all the king's horses nor all the king's men

Could set Humpty Dumpty up again."

|Full many a project that never was hatched

Falls down, and gets shattered beyond be-

ing patched;

And luckily, too! for if all came to chick-

ens,

Then things without feathers might go to

the dickens.

If each restless unit that moves among men

Might climb to a place with the privileged

"ten,"

Pray tell us where all the commotion would

stop!

Must the whole pan of milk, forsooth, rise

to the top?

If always the statesman attained to his hopes,

And grasped the great helm, who would

stand by the ropes?

Or if all dainty fingers their duties might

choose,

Who would wash up the dishes, and polish

the shoes?

Suppose every aspirant writing a book

Contrived to get published, by hook or by

crook;

Geologists then of a later creation

Would be startled, I fancy, to find a forma-

tion

Proving how the poor world did most wo-

fully sink

Beneath mountains of paper, and oceans of

ink!

Or even suppose all the women were mar-

ried;

By whom would superfluous babies be car-

ried?

Where would be the good aunts that should

knit all the stockings?

Or nurses, to do up the singings and rock-

ings?

Wise spinsters, to lay down their wonderful

rules,

And with theories rare to enlighten the

fools,--

Or to look after orphans, and primary

schools?

No! Failure's a part of the infinite plan;

Who finds that he can't, must give way to

who can;

And as one and another drops out of the

race,

Each stumbles at last to his suitable place.

So the great scheme works on,--though,

like eggs from the wall,

Little single designs to such ruin may fall,

That not all the world's might, of its horses

or men,

Could set their crushed hopes at the sum-

mit again.

SUNDAY AND MONDAY.

"As Tommy Snooks and Bessy Brooks

Were walking out one Sunday,

Says Tommy Snooks to Bessy Brooks,

To-morrow will be Monday."

|No doubt you are smiling at such a remark.

And thinking poor Snooks but a pitiful

spark;

But the words have a meaning, worth look-

ing for, too,

As I'll presently try and demonstrate for you.

'Twas a pity, indeed, in that moment of

leisure,

To dampen poor Bessy's hebdomadal pleas-

ure,

Suggesting that close on the beautiful Sun-

day

Must come all the common-place horrors

of Monday;

That he to his toiling, and she to her

tub,

Must turn, and take up with another week's

rub;

Yet a truth for us all, since the shade of

the real

Follows fast on the track of each sunny

ideal.

Now and then we may pause on Life's

pleasant oases;

But between lie the desert's grim, desolate

spaces;

And our feet, with all patience, must trav-

erse them still,

Reaching forward to blessing, through

bearing of ill.

Yet for Snooks and his Bessy,--for me

and for you,--

Comes a Saturday night when the wage

will be due;

And we'll say to each other, in ecstasy,

one day,

"To-morrow--the endless to-morrow--is

Sunday!"

THE MAD HORSE.

"There was a mad man,

And he had a mad wife,

And the children were mad beside;

So on a mad horse

They all of them got,

And madly away did ride."

|Sagacious Goose! Fresh wonders yet!

"What spell had power to help you get

Those seven-leagued spectacles, that see

Down to the nineteenth century?

"The mad world, and his madder wife!"

That, in your earlier time of life,--

Though quite demented now,?t is plain,--

Were sober, grave, and almost sane!

And all the tribes, a motley brood

Sprung into being since the flood,

With their hereditary bent

To cerebral bewilderment!

If some old ghost, precise and slow,

Who died a hundred years ago,--

Always supposing he himself

Has lain, meanwhile, upon the shelf,--

Things as they are might only see,

Surely his inference would be

A simultaneous bursting out

Of lunacy the earth about.

The world is mad; his wife is mad;

The rising generation's madder;"

And when a charter can be had,

Up to the moon they 'll build a ladder!

They caught a horse awhile ago,--

They called him Steam,--but he was

slow;

After the lightning then they ran,

Caught him,--and now they drive the

span!--1860.

P. S.--1870.

The great Pacific railroad's done;

They've poured two oceans into one:

Two shores with whispering cable tied,

And cut a path for ships to ride,

Where camel-tracks had used to be,

Through desert sands, from sea to sea.

_Moon_, quoth I? Faith, they 've _made_ a

moon!

Leastwise, they 've _thought_ one; * and so

soon

* E. E. Hale's _Brick Moon_: likewise Jules Verne's _Projectile_.

Upon man's whim his stroke succeeds,

And turns his dreams into his deeds,

Look sharply! for with word and blow,

They 'll swing one up before you know!

1882.

Why put a double P. S. in?

'T would need a daily bulletin

To tell how fast the craze goes on,

With Keeley and with Edison;

With things to eat, and things to travel,--

Bicycles spinning o'er the gravel,--

Great guns to simplify the fights,--

Suns outshone with electric lights,--

The whisper in the closet stirred

In sooth across the housetops heard,

And when the airy tangle tires

Earth to be veined with throbbing wires.

Women to physic and to preach,

And help the national bird to screech;

One man on Wall-Street curb to stand,

With twenty railroads in his hand;

Schools for the mass, effecting this,