The nobly born may proudly scorn
A lowly lass and a' that;
A pretty face has far more grace
Than haughty looks and a' that;
A bonnie maid needs no such aid,
A girl's a girl for a' that.
Then let us trust that come it must,
And sure it will for a' that,
When faith and love, all arts above,
Shall reign supreme and a' that;
And every youth confess the truth,
A girl's a girl for a' that.
I HEAR thee speak of a Western land,
Thou callest its children a wide-awake band
Father, oh, where is that favored spot?
Shall we not seek it and build us a cot?
Is it where the hills of Berkshire stand,
Whence the honey comes already canned?
Not there, not there, my child !
Is it far away in the Empire State,
Where Horace Greeley feels first-rate,
Where the people are ruled by Tammany ring,
And Mr. Fisk is a railway king,
With two thousand men at his command,
Besides a boat with a big brass band?
Not there, not there, my child!
Is it where the little pigs grow great
In the fertile vales of the Buckeye State,
And get so fat on acorns and meal
That they sell every bit of them, all but the squeal, Where the butchers have such a plenty of hogs That they don't make sausages out of dogs?
Not there, not there, my child!
Or is it where they fortunes make,
Where they've got a tunnel under the lake, Where the stores are full of wheat and corn, And divorces are plenty, as sure as you 're born, Where Long John Wentworth is right on hand, Is it there, dear father, that Western land?
Not there, not there, my child!
Is it in the dominions of Brigham Young,
The most married man that is left unhung,
Where every man that likes can go,
And get forty wives or more, you know,
Where saints are plenty with "cheeks" sublime,
Can that be the gay and festive clime?
Not there, not there, my child!
Is it where Nevada's mountains rise
From the alkali plains which we all despise,
Where a man may beg, or borrow, or steal,
Yet he often will fail to get a square meal,
Where the rocks are full of silver ore,
Is it there we 'll find that Western shore?
Not there, not there, my child!
Eye hath not seen it, my verdant youth,
Tongue cannot name it and speak the truth;
For though you go to the farthest State,
And stand on the rocks by the Golden Gate,
They'll point you across the western sea,
To the land whence cometh the "heathen Chinee,”
Saying ""T is there, my child.”
MINE eyes to mine eyelids cling thickly,
My tongue feels a mouthful and more,
My senses are sluggish and sickly,
To live and to breathe is a bore.
My head weighs a ton and a quarter
By pains and by pangs ever split,
Which manifold washings with water
Relieve not a bit.
My longings of thirst are unlawful,
And vain to console or control,
The aroma of coffee is awful,
Repulsive the sight of the roll.
I take my matutinal journal,
And strive my dull wits to engage,
But cannot endure the infernal
Sharp crack of its page.
What bad luck my soul had bedevilled,
What demon of spleen and of spite,
That I rashly went forth and I revelled
In riotous living last night?
Had the fumes of the goblet no odor
That well might repulse or restrain?
O insidious brandy and soda,
Our Lady of Pain !
Thou art golden of gleam as the summer
That smiled o'er a tropical sod,
O daughter of Bacchus, the bummer,
A foamer, a volatile tod!
But thy froth is a serpent that hisses,
And thy gold as a balefire doth shine,
And the lovers who rise from thy kisses
Can't walk a straight line.
1 recall with a flush and a flutter
That orgy whose end is unknown; Did they bear me to bed on a shutter,
Or did I reel home all alone?
Was I frequent in screams and in screeches?
Did I swear with a forced affright?
Did I perpetrate numerous speeches?
Did I get in a fight?
Of the secrets I treasure and prize most
Did I empty my bacchanal breast?
Did I buttonhole men I despise most,
And frown upon those I like best?
Did I play the low farmer and flunky
With people I always ignore?
Did I caracole round like a monkey?
Did I sit on the floor?
O longing no research may satiate
No aim to exhume what is hid!
For falsehood were vain to expatiate
On deeds more depraved than I did;
And though friendly faith I would flout not,
On this it were rash to rely,
Since the friends who beheld me, I doubt not,
Were drunker than I.
Thou hast lured me to passionate pastime,
Dread goddess, whose smile is a snare!
Yet I swear thou hast tempted me the last time-
I swear it; I mean what I swear!
And thy beaker shall always forebode a
Disgust 't were not wise to disdain,
O luxurious brandy and soda,
Our Lady of Pain!
HEAR the fluter with his flute-
Silver flute,
Oh, what a world of wailing is awakened by its toot!
How it demi-semi quavers
On the maddened air of night!
And defieth all endeavors
To escape the sound or sight
Of the flute, flute, flute,
With its tootle, tootle, toot
With reiterated tooings of exasperating toots,
The long protracted tootelings of agonizing toots
Of the flute, flute, flute, flute,
Flute, flute, flute,
And the wheezings and the spittings of its toot.
Should he get that other flute-
Golden flute
What a deep anguish will its presence institoot!
How his eyes to heaven he'll raise
As he plays, all the days!
How he'll stop us on our ways
With its praise!
And the people, oh, the people
That don't live up in the steeple,
But inhabit Christian parlors
Where he visiteth and plays -
Where he plays, plays, plays,
In the cruelest of ways,
And thinks we ought to listen,
And expects us to be mute
Who would rather have an ear-ache
Than the music of his flute
Of his flute, flute, flute,
And the tooings of its toot
Of the toos wherewith he tooteleth the agonizing toot,
Of the flute, flewt, fluit, floot,
Phlute, phlewt, phlewght,
And the tootle-tootle-tootle-tooing of its toot.
To draw, or not to draw, that is the question.
Whether it is safer in the player to take
The awful risk of skinning for a straight,
Or, standing pat, to raise 'em all the limit.
And thus, by bluffing, get it. To draw
No more - and by that skin to get a full,
Or two pairs, or the fattest bouncing kings
That luck is heir to 't is a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To draw to skin;
To skin! perchance to burst ay, there's the rub!
For in the draw of three what cards may come,
When we have shuffled off the uncertain pack,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of a bobtail flush;
For who would bear the overwhelming blind,
The reckless straddle, the wait on the edge,
The insolence of pat hands, and the lifts
That patient merit of the bluffer takes,
When he himself might be much better off
By simply passing? Who would trays uphold,
And go out on a small progressive raise,
But that the dread of something after call,
The undiscovered ace-full, to whose strength
Such hands must bow, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather keep the chips we have
Than be curious about the hands we know not of.
Thus bluffing does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of a four-heart flush
Is sicklied with some dark and cussed club,
And speculators in a jack-pot's wealth
With this regard their interest turn awry
And lose the right to open.
(EPITAPH IN THE Homersfield, Eng., Churchyard.)
As I walked by myself I talked to myself,
And thus myself said unto me:
"Look to thyself and take care of thyself,
For nobody cares for thee.'
So I turned to myself and I answered myself
In the self-same reverie:
"Look to thyself or not to thyself,
The self-same thing it will be."
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