|
ing
In the shade of a spreading tree,
And a walk in the fields at morning,
By the side of a footstep free!
But give me a sly flirtation
By the light of a chandelier----
With music to play in the pauses,
And nobody very near;
Or a seat on a silken sofa,
With a glass of pure old wine,
And mamma too blind to discover
The small white hand in mine.
Your love in a cottage is hungry,
Your vine is a nest for flies----
Your milkmaid shocks the Graces,
And simplicity talks of pies!
You lie down to your shady slumber
And wake with a bug in your ear,
And your damsel that walks in the morning
Is shod like a mountaineer.
True love is at home on a carpet,
And mightily likes his ease----
And true love has an eye for a dinner,
And starves beneath shady trees.
His wing is the fan of a lady,
His foot's an invisible thing,
And his arrow is tipp'd with a jewel
And shot from a silver string.
NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS
* * * * *
A CASE OF CONSCIENCE
_Uncle Jack:_ It is very good lemonade, I am sure; but tell me, Bonnie,
why do you sell yours for three cents a glass when Charley gets five for
his?
_Miss Bonnie:_ Well, you mustn't tell anybody, Uncle Jack, but the puppy
fell in mine and I thought it ought to be cheaper.
A Hingham, Massachusetts, woman is said to have hit upon a happy idea
when she was puzzled what to do in order to tell her mince and apple
pies apart. She was advised to mark them, and did so, and complacently
announced: "This I've marked 'T. M.'--'Tis mince; an' that I've marked
'T. M.'--'Taint mince."
Doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes used to be an amateur photographer. When he
presented a picture to a friend, he wrote on the back of it, "Taken by
O. W. Holmes & Sun."
HANS BREITMANN'S PARTY
Hans Breitmann gife a barty:
Dey had biano-blayin':
I felled in lofe mit a 'Merican frau,
Her name was Madilda Yane,
She hat haar as prown as a pretzel,
Her eyes vas himmel-plue,
Und ven dey looket indo mine,
Dey shplit mine heart in two.
Hans Breitmann gife a barty:
I vent dere, you'll be pound.
I valtzet mit Madilda Yane
Und vent shpinnen round and round.
De pootiest Fraeulein in de house,
She veyed 'pout dwo hoondred pound,
Und efery dime she gife a shoomp
She make de vindows sound.
Hans Breitmann gife a barty:
I dells you it
|