John Smith, U.S.A.

Produced by Kevin O'Hare and PG Distributed Proofreaders
1905.
From whatever point of view the character of Eugene Field is seen, genius—rare and quaint presents itself is childlike simplicity. That he was a poet of keen perception, of rare discrimination, all will admit. He was a humorist as delicate and fanciful as Artemus Ward, Mark Twain, Bill Nye, James Whitcomb Riley, Opie Read, or Bret Harte in their happiest moods. Within him ran a poetic vein, capable of being worked in any direction, and from which he could, at will, extract that which his imagination saw and felt most. That he occasionally left the child-world, in which he longed to linger, to wander among the older children of men, where intuitively the hungry listener follows him into his Temple of Mirth, all should rejoice, for those who knew him not, can while away the moments imbibing the genius of his imagination in the poetry and prose here presented.
Though never possessing an intimate acquaintanceship with Field, owing largely to the disparity in our ages, still there existed a bond of friendliness that renders my good opinion of him in a measure trustworthy. Born in the same city, both students in the same college, engaged at various times in newspaper work both in St. Louis and Chicago, residents of the same ward, with many mutual friends, it is not surprising that I am able to say of him that the world is better off that he lived, not in gold and silver or precious jewels, but in the bestowal of priceless truths, of which the possessor of this book becomes a benefactor of no mean share of his estate.
Every lover of Field, whether of the songs of childhood or the poems that lend mirth to the out-pouring of his poetic nature, will welcome this unique collection of his choicest wit and humor.
CHARLES WALTER Brown.
Chicago, January, 1905.
John Smith The Fisherman's Feast To John J. Knickerbocker, Jr. The Bottle and the Bird The Man Who Worked with Dana on the Sun A Democratic Hymn The Blue and the Gray It is the Printer's Fault Summer Heat Plaint of the Missouri 'Coon in the Berlin Zoological Gardens The Bibliomaniac's Bride Ezra J. M'Manus to a Soubrette The Monstrous Pleasant Ballad of the Taylor Pup Long Meter To DeWitt Miller Francois Villon Lydia Dick The Tin Bank In New Orleans The Peter-Bird Dibdin's Ghost An Autumn Treasure-Trove When the Poet Came The Perpetual Wooing My Playmates Mediaeval Eventide Song Alaskan Balladry Armenian Folk-Song—The Stork The Vision of the Holy Grail The Divine Lullaby Mortality A Fickle Woman Egyptian Folk-Song Armenian Folk-Song—The Partridge Alaskan Balladry, No. 1 Old Dutch Love Song An Eclogue from Virgil Horace to Maecenas Horace's Sailor and Shade Uhland's Chapel The Happy Isles of Horace Horatian Lyrics Hugo's Pool in the Forest Horace I., 4 Love Song—Heine Horace II., 3 The Two Coffins Horace I., 31 Horace to His Lute Horace I., 22 The Ars Poetica of Horace XXIII Marthy's Younkit Abu Midjan The Dying Year Dead Roses