Ragamuffin, have you met a Felis fat? Ancestored in gay Valetta, Where brown dames in black faldetta, Walk and chat-- Hot his blood as flame of Ætna. Beautiful, romantic, splendid Autocrat! To the forest, unattended, Daring Donatello wended: Owl and bat, Weasel, mole, and mink, he rended. Savage wildwood his unbounded Habitat; By no man or mastiff hounded, By the midnight mirk surrounded-- Think of that! Oft his caterwaul he sounded. Freedom to the gallant fellow. Exeat! Victor in each fierce duello, Midnight, madcap Leporello! Roving cat! Graceless, graceful Donatello! GABRIEL OF SCHWARTZENWALD. Rhyme, and ring the changes well, Sing the song of Gabriel, Gabriel of Schwartzenwald. Lo, a voice delusive called From the Ohio’s crooked vale, Saying, “Sail and sail and sail Over the sea and hither away, Westering to the Land of Play; Happy region of Do-as-you-please, Where the guilders grow on trees, Where the peasants all are kings And there be no underlings.” Gabriel, the idle dreamer, Heard the Utopian voice alluring; Sought a sail-ship,--not a steamer; Soon the vessel leaves her mooring, Veers and tacks to Occident, Bears him o’er the crinkled sea; Never soul so indolent Lounged upon a deck as he. With the vagrant breeze he glides Over sun-lit, moon-lit tides, Skims to port and shore; Spins along the shining rail, Sleeps into Ohio’s vale,-- Wakes--the journey o’er. Not an idler Gabriel sees, Not a kreutzer on the trees; Every bretzel must be bought; Naught is proffered him for naught. ’Tis the Region of Unrest, Busy, toiling, moiling West! All the peasant kings he found Building houses, tilling ground. Gabriel of Schwartzenwald From his dream is disenthralled; Transatlantic, far away, Eastward looms the Land of Play. Like the lily, like the daisy, Lolling Gabriel was lazy; Clownish were his clumsy paces, Ludicrous his slow grimaces; Ill-defined the thoughts he spoke, Like the wreathed tobacco smoke From his meerschaum upward shed Curling round his shaggy head. Little could he understand:-- “Vish I vas in Faderland, Nicht is goot for notings here Only shust das lager-bier.” Easily he wept or smiled, Easily was he beguiled; Rill-like, shallow, o’er his mind, Ran affections swift and kind; Secretly he shared his meat With a lame cur on the street; “Vonce I had a hund,” said he, “Vat vas very freund to me; Ya, mein Herr, dat hund vas mine; Vish I heard him barkin’ here; Vish I had a glass goot bier, Oder flash von German wein.”