AT THE “NATIONAL ENCAMPMENT.”

  You ’re grayer than one would have thought you: 
    The climate you have over there
  In the East has apparently brought you
    Disorders affecting the hair,
    Which—­pardon me—­seems a thought spare.

  You’ll not take offence at my giving
    Expression to notions like these. 
  You might have been stronger if living
    Out here in our sanative breeze. 
    It’s unhealthy here for disease.

  No, I’m not as plump as a pullet. 
    But that’s the old wound, you see. 
  Remember my paunching a bullet?—­
    And how that it didn’t agree
    With—­well, honest hardtack for me.

  Just pass me the wine—­I’ve a helly
    And horrible kind of drouth! 
  When a fellow has that in his belly
    Which didn’t go in at his mouth
    He’s hotter than all Down South!

  Great Scott! what a nasty day that was—­
    When every galoot in our crack
  Division who didn’t lie flat was
    Dissuaded from further attack
    By the bullet’s felicitous whack.

  ’Twas there that our major slept under
    Some cannon of ours on the crest,
  Till they woke him by stilling their thunder,
    And he cursed them for breaking his rest,
  And died in the midst of his jest.

  That night—­it was late in November—­
    The dead seemed uncommonly chill
  To the touch; and one chap I remember
    Who took it exceedingly ill
    When I dragged myself over his bill.

  Well, comrades, I’m off now—­good morning. 
    Your talk is as pleasant as pie,
  But, pardon me, one word of warning: 
    Speak little of self, say I.
    That’s my way.  God bless you.  Good-bye.

  THE KING OF BORES.

  Abundant bores afflict this world, and some
    Are bores of magnitude that-come and—­no,
    They’re always coming, but they never go—­
  Like funeral pageants, as they drone and hum
  Their lurid nonsense like a muffled drum,
    Or bagpipe’s dread unnecessary flow. 
    But one superb tormentor I can show—­
  Prince Fiddlefaddle, Duc de Feefawfum. 
  He the johndonkey is who, when I pen
    Amorous verses in an idle mood
      To nobody, or of her, reads them through
  And, smirking, says he knows the lady; then
    Calls me sly dog.  I wish he understood
      This tender sonnet’s application too.

  HISTORY.

  What wrecked the Roman power?  One says vice,
  Another indolence, another dice. 
  Emascle says polygamy.  “Not so,”
  Says Impycu—­“’twas luxury and show.” 
  The parson, lifting up a brow of brass,
  Swears superstition gave the coup de grace,
  Great Allison, the statesman-chap affirms
  ’Twas lack of coins (croaks Medico:  “’T was worms”)
  And John P. Jones the swift suggestion collars,