Our wives and children are at home, ’tis true; But we can do without them, I and you; All things have undergone a change back there; Our babes climb other knees; our shirts new husbands wear! They would not know us now, so dirty grown: So strong we smell they’d slam the angry door, Thinking our souls upon the wings of smoke had flown, Been puffed away upon this dingy shore, Leaving behind the wasted stumps alone, Fit on the ash-pile only to be thrown. Let what is, be as ’tis, of course; A wife is hard to reconcile; We might be driven out by force; ’Tis hard to fix things, when they’ve run awhile; ’Twould be at best our labor for our pains; He gains but little who a woman gains: Sad work, for hearts worn out with household noise, And arms grown lame long since with nursing baby-boys! VI. Tobacco-posies blossom high and low; Tobacco-posies bloom where’er you go; All day the breezes from the ocean dipping, O’er hill and vale, on tireless tiptoe tripping, Up and down the sandy beach the dust of the Tobacco blow. We have done enough of rolling and of pitching, O! Up the foremast, up the hindmast, in the musty hold below, While the bellowing boatswain shouted his eternal “Yo heave ho!” Let us take an oath and keep it, with an open eye, In the land of the Tobacco still to live and lie, On the bank, like pigs together, you and also I; For they lie beside each other, and the slops are hurled All around them in the gutter, while their tails are tightly curled All around them――glad and happy, in a glad and happy world; There they smile in comfort, dreaming over future joys, Dreading neither thirst nor hunger, sun nor storm, nor roaring noise, Swearing men, nor scolding women, barking dogs, nor tyrant boys. But they smile, they smell a prospect of a dinner by-and-bye, Steaming up, a preparation making in the kitchens nigh, And their tail is full of meaning when it’s curled so high! But the luckless race of human labor for their life, Plant and dig and raise potatoes, mostly keep a wife; Wife who scolds them late and early, more than one would think, ’Till they lose their senses nearly――some, ’tis whispered, take to drink―― Swigging endless potions――others in Tobacco islands dwell, Resting weary legs, at last, on beds of assfoodel. Surely, surely, smoking is more nice than not-the chew, Than life upon the great big ocean, with so much work to do; Oh! bless you, brothers, yes of course, we’ll stay here, I and you! This is taken from a small volume of American parodies, entitled “_The Song of Milkan Watha_, and other poems,” by Marc Antony Henderson, D.C.L. Cincinnati: _Tickell_ and _Grinne_. 1856. ―――― NICOTINA. _After Tennyson’s “Oriana.”_