My dame should dress in cheap attire; (Good, heavy silks are never dear;)-- I own perhaps I might desire Some shawls of true Cashmere,-- Some marrowy crapes of China silk, Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk. I would not have the horse I drive So fast that folks must stop and stare; An easy gait--two, forty-five-- Suits me; I do not care;-- Perhaps, for just a _single spurt_, Some seconds less would do no hurt. Of pictures, I should like to own Titians and Raphaels three or four,-- I love so much their style and tone, One Turner, and no more, (A landscape,--foreground golden dirt,-- The sunshine painted with a squirt.) Of books but few,--some fifty score For daily use, and bound for wear; The rest upon an upper floor;-- Some _little_ luxury _there_ Of red morocco's gilded gleam And vellum rich as country cream. Busts, cameos, gems,--such things as these, Which others often show for pride, I value for their power to please, And selfish churls deride;-- _One_ Stradivarius, I confess, _Two_ Meerschaums, I would fain possess. Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn, Nor ape the glittering upstart fool;-- Shall not carved tables serve my turn, But _all_ must be of buhl? Give grasping pomp its double share,-- I ask but _one_ recumbent chair. Thus humble let me live and die, Nor long for Midas' golden touch; If Heaven more generous gifts deny, I shall not miss them much,-- Too grateful for the blessing lent Of simple tastes and mind content! AESTIVATION AN UNPUBLISHED POEM, BY MY LATE LATIN TUTOR IN candent ire the solar splendor flames; The foles, langueseent, pend from arid rames; His humid front the Give, anheling, wipes, And dreams of erring on ventiferous riper. How dulce to vive occult to mortal eyes, Dorm on the herb with none to supervise, Carp the suave berries from the crescent vine, And bibe the flow from longicaudate kine! To me, alas! no verdurous visions come, Save yon exiguous pool's conferva-scum,-- No concave vast repeats the tender hue That laves my milk-jug with celestial blue! Me wretched! Let me curr to quercine shades! Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids! Oh, might I vole to some umbrageous clump,-- Depart,--be off,--excede,--evade,--erump! THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE OR, THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY" A LOGICAL STORY HAVE you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, That was built in such a logical way It ran a hundred years to a day, And then, of a sudden, it--ah, but stay, I 'll tell you what happened without delay, Scaring the parson into fits, Frightening people out of their wits,-- Have you ever heard of that, I say? Seventeen hundred and fifty-five. _Georgius Secundus_ was then alive,-- Snuffy old drone from the German hive. That was the year when Lisbon-town Saw the earth open and gulp her down, And Braddock's army was done so brown, Left without a scalp to its crown. It was on the terrible Earthquake-day That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.