Long, long through the hours, and the night and the chimes, Here we talk of old books, and old friends and old times As we sit in a fog made out of rich Letakie This chamber is pleasant to you, friend, and me. But of all the cheap treasures that garnish my nest, There's one that I love and I cherish the best: For the finest of coaches that's padded with hair I never would change thee, my cane-bottom'd chair. 'Tis a bandy-legg'd, high-shoulder'd worm-eaten seat, With a creaking old back and twisted old feet; But since the fair morning when Fanny sat there, I bless thee and love thee, old cane-bottom'd chair. If chairs have but feeling, in holding such charms, A thrill must have pass'd through your wither'd old arms! I look'd and I long'd and I wish'd in despair; I wish'd myself turn'd to a cane-bottom'd chair. It was but a moment she sat in this place, She'd a scarf on her neck, and a smile on her face! A smile on her face, and a rose in her hair, And she sat there and bloom'd in my cane-bottom'd chair. And so I have valued my chair ever since, Like the shrine of a saint, or the throne of a prince; Saint Fanny, my patroness sweet I declare, The queen of my heart and my cane-bottom'd chair. When the candles burn low, and the company's gone, In the silence of night as I sit here alone-- I sit here alone, but we yet are a pair-- My Fanny I see in my cane-bottom'd chair. She comes from the past and revisits my room; She looked as she did, all beauty and bloom; So smiling and tender, so fresh and so fair, And yonder she sits in my cane-bottom'd chair. A TRAGIC STORY There lived a sage in days of yore And he a handsome pigtail wore; But wondered much and sorrowed more Because it hung behind him. He mused upon this curious case, And swore he'd change the pigtail's place, And have it hanging at his face, Not dangling there behind him. Says he, "The mystery I've found,-- I'll turn me round,"--he turned him round, But still it hung behind him. Then round and round, and out and in, All day the puzzled sage did spin In vain--it mattered not a pin--, The pigtail hung behind him. And right, and left, and round about, And up, and down, and in and out, He turned; but still the pigtail stout Hung steadily behind him. And though his efforts never slack, And though he twist, and twirl, and tack, Alas! still faithful to his back The pigtail hangs behind him. TO MARY I seem, in the midst of the crowd, The lightest of all; My laughter rings cheery and loud, In banquet and ball. My lip hath its smiles and its sneers, For all men to see; But my soul, and my truth, and my tears, Are for thee, are for thee!