English

" A first-class professional fight! "
I'm really doing the town!
There were thousands on thousands to-night
To see a man knock a man down.
Two dollars I willingly (?) paid
To view all this muscie and brawn;
'Twas rather too much, I'm afraid,
Or seemed so, the minute 'twas gone.

And yet 'tis a study to see
The rage gladiatorial of Rome
And grim Spanish bull-baiting glee
Adopt an American home!
That blood-thirsty, murderous spite
Men loudly condemn — and possess!
Besieged New York City last night.

DEAR C OUSIN J OHN :

I'm very glad you sent that money through
By Cousin Seth, an' not by mail, as I requested you!
The fam'ly's just so much ahead: 'twere best it never came,
If Jeroboam Jones had twined his fingers 'round the same.
For that young man has principles fit only to abhor,
And isn't the kind of relative that I was lookin' for!

My sakes! Millennium's nowhere near, when men so false can be
As to equivocate themselves into my family tree;
An' on its honest branches graft the shoots of their design,

DEAR C OUSIN J OHN :

We got here safe — my worthy wife an' me,
An' then I looked the village through to see what I could see:
I rode upon the cur'us track with depots all up-stairs;
I walked through Wall Street all its length, an' saw no bulls or bears;
I patronized a red-nosed chap with manners very queer,
Who hadn't had a thing to eat for somethin' like a year;

I saw the road commissioners to work upon a bridge
A million times as large as that we built at Tompkins' Ridge —

I'd rather sit here, Mr. Sheriff — up near to the end of the car;
We won't do so much advertising if we stay in the seat where we are.
That sweet little dude saw the bracelets that you on my wrists have bestowed,
And tells the new passengers promptly you're " taking me over the road. "
I've had a well-patronized trial — the neighbors all know of my fall;
But when I get out among strangers I'm sensitive-like, after all.

For I was a lad of good prospects, some three or four summers ago —

Ah me! it makes a sinner wondrous blue,
To see so many other sinners too!
When I rake over all my faults, and then
Notice the same, or worse, in other men,
It makes me very much surprised and sad,
That Heaven should see Earth turning out so bad!

Vice, vice, vice, vice! The country's mean enough,
And has some villains that are pretty rough;
But in this town, where art and nature both
Are shoved into their very greatest growth,
And where the utmost of all things is found,

DEAR C OUSIN J OHN :

We got here safe — my worthy wife and me —
And hired a tent here in the woods contiguous to the sea;
We've harvested such means of grace as growed within our reach —
We've been to several meetings here, and heard the Bishop preach;
And everything went easy like until we took a whim —
My wife and I — one breezy day, to take an ocean swim.

We shouldn't have ventured on't, I think, if Sister Sunnyhopes
Hadn't urged us over and again, and said she knew " the ropes, "

The Lord gave Water quite a good-sized start —
Three-fourths of this world's homestead for its part;
But lawyers are not needed to convince
That Water has been losing ever since.
The reason is not hard to understand:
For God's most knowing creatures live on land,
And, naturally, every chance they get,
Find some new means to keep them from the wet,
The farms their dikes have from the ocean won;
The ground men make to build their cities on;
The bridge that from the river shelters me;

Here on this sea-beach I wander;
Why of the storms am I fonder
Than of the sunlight above them?
And the clouds: why do I love them —
Waves of the sky, onward sweeping,
Or to the ocean-waves leaping?
Why do I court this fierce day,
Dashing my face full of spray?
Why when the waves strike the shore
With their strong, leonine roar,
Does my soul fiercely entreat them —
Rush out with rapture to meet them?
Why do I love to descry
War in the fields of the sky?
Why does the chain-lightning's glare,

Rain — rain — rain — rain — for three good fluid weeks —
Till the air swims, and all creation leaks!
And street-cars furnish still less room to spare,
And hackmen several times have earned their fare.
The omnibuses lumber through the din,
And carry clay outside as well as in;
The elevated trains, with jerky care,
Haul half-way comfort through the dripping air;
The gutters gallop past the liquid scene,
As brisk as meadow brooks, though not so clean;
What trees the city keeps for comfort's sake,

I

'Twas a drowsy night on Tompkins Hill;
The very leaves of the trees lay still;
The world was slumbering, ocean-deep;
And even the stars seemed half asleep,
And winked and blinked at the roofs below,
As yearning for morn, that they might go.
The streets as stolid and still did lie
As they would have done if streets could die:
The sidewalks stretched as quietly prone
As if a foot they had never known;
And not a cottage within the town,
But looked as if it would fain lie down.