A half a standard gallon (says history) per head
Of the best Kentucky prime was at that ceremony shed.
O, the glory of that country! O, the happy, happy folk.
By the might of prayer delivered from Nature’s broken yoke!
Lo! the plains to the horizon all are yellowing with rye,
And the corn upon the hill-top lifts its banners to the sky!
Gone the wagons, gone the drivers, and the road is grown to grass,
Over which the incalescent Bourbon did aforetime pass.
Pikeville (that’s the name they’ve given, in their wild, romantic way,
To that irrigation district) now distills, statistics say,
Something like a hundred gallons, out of each recurrent crop,
To the head of population—and consumes it, every drop!
A BUILDER.
I saw the devil—he was working
free:
A customs-house he builded by the sea.
“Why do you this?” The devil
raised his head;
“Churches and courts I’ve
built enough,” he said.
AN AUGURY.
Upon my desk a single spray,
With starry blossoms fraught.
I write in many an idle way,
Thinking one serious thought.
“O flowers, a fine Greek name ye
bear,
And with a fine Greek grace.”
Be still, O heart, that turns to share
The sunshine of a face.
“Have ye no messages—no
brief,
Still sign: ‘Despair’,
or ’Hope’?”
A sudden stir of stem and leaf—
A breath of heliotrope!
LUSUS POLITICUS.
Come in, old gentleman. How do you
do?
Delighted, I’m sure,
that you’ve called.
I’m a sociable sort of a chap and
you
Are a pleasant-appearing person, too,
With a head agreeably bald.
That’s right—sit down
in the scuttle of coal
And put up your feet in a
chair.
It is better to have them
there:
And I’ve always said that a hat
of lead,
Such as I see you wear,
Was a better hat than a hat of glass.
And your boots of brass
Are a natural kind of boots,
I swear.
“May you blow your nose
on a paper of pins?”
Why,
certainly, man, why not?
I rather expected you’d
do it before,
When I saw you poking it in
at the door.
It’s
dev’lish hot—
The weather, I mean. “You are
twins”?
Why, that was evident at the start,
From the way that you paint
your head
In stripes of purple and red,
With dots of yellow.
That proves you
a fellow
With a love of legitimate art.
“You’ve bitten a snake and
are feeling bad”?
That’s very
sad,
But Longfellow’s words I beg to
recall:
Your lot is the common lot of all.
“Horses are trees and the moon is
a sneeze”?
That, I fancy, is just as you please.