We have but a breath of life, A whiff off the world’s wide pleasure; A year of its strain and strife, For a day of its dancing measure. So, hey for the fatted calf, While the carnival music crashes! At the Feast of Flesh we’ll laugh, Ere we weep at the Fast of Ashes. O, sage with the grim gray face, With our quips is there cause to quarrel? We know ere we run our race We shall master the Mardi’s moral. We shall be as the monks who scourge Their skins with a hundred lashes: Youth’s Feast of the Flesh we must purge With our manhood’s Fast of Ashes. Two Sundays. The bigot, with his narrow mind, Can ill in every pleasure find; He makes his God a god of gloom, The pulsing world a living tomb, A curse in every blessing sees, And, thinking Heaven to appease, He cuts--Religion is his knife-- The blossom from the Tree of Life. From fogs, that gave that bigot birth, Far off, in many a land of mirth Hearts full of faith in God above Look on Him as a God of Love-- A God who bids His children play, And smiles to see His loved ones gay: As earthly fathers smile to see Their children sing and dance with glee. Oh, British Sabbath, bigot bred, Our youth’s despair, our childhood’s dread! God does not scowl in solemn state Behind a gloomy prison gate; He smiles enthroned in sunny skies, Where only joyous songs arise. To make God’s day, then, ’twere as well, Seem more like heaven and less like hell. The Mails Aboard. The captain of the _Cuckoo_ took His glasses from the starboard hook; He gazed across the raging main, Then put his glasses back again. The _Cuckoo’s_ mate remarked, “I guess You saw a signal of distress?” “I did, but it must be ignored; You see, we’ve got the mails aboard.” This was the captain’s curt reply; The first mate heard it with a sigh. But all the _Cuckoo’s_ captain said Was “Steady!” then “Full steam ahead!” He crossed the sinking vessel’s bows, As close as seamanship allows. “Can’t stop!” he through his trumpet roared, “Because I have the mails aboard.” The passengers and all the crew Replied, “Oh, please to save us--do!” And, plunging in the raging sea, Declined the captain’s R.I.P. They followed in the _Cuckoo’s_ wake, Till swimming made their stomachs ache; Their lot the captain much deplored, But waved them off with “Mails aboard!” The storm to fiercest tempest grew, But straight ahead the _Cuckoo_ flew; Till once again the captain took His glasses from the starboard hook; “Hullo!” he cried; “if I am not Mistaken, there’s the royal yacht; A hidden rock her side has bored, She signals! Answer, ‘Mails aboard!’”