The world considered my heart was flint,
And futile were womanly wiles—
Sigh and ogle, whisper and hint,
Glances and glittering smiles.
I meant, uncontrolled by the marital link,
My journey of life to go through,
But in those days I hadn’t met beauty in pink,
To say nothing of beauty in blue.
I’ve had thirty odd years of a bachelor’s life,
Bachelor’s buttons and fare;
And escaped all the bankruptcy, troubles, and strife
That Benedicts weepingly share.
But to-night I believe that I scarcely would shrink
To join the Hymeneal crew,
If the ship were controlled by a captain in pink
Or a lovely commander in blue.
I didn’t go, like the mob, to the place
For frivolous chatter and talk;
I was interested in every race,
Jump and hurdle and walk;
Yet when all was over I’m hanged but I think—
Of course it can hardly be true—
That the quarter was won by a sprinter in pink,
And the mile by a stayer in blue.
It’s over now, and I feel quite wise,
For I mean in futurity’s days
When I go to races to cover my eyes
With glasses to temper my gaze,
Lest my heart intoxicant draughts should drink
Of Cupid’s ambrosial dew,
Supplied by a nymph in bewildering pink
Or equally dangerous blue.
A MUSICAL REVENGE.
I’M sick of music. I’m surfeited with music. I’m engulphed in an ocean of music. I’m buried beneath a mountain of music. The air I breathe is oxygenized with music. The food I eat is flavored with music. I go to sleep to the tootle of the flute next door; my slumbers are oppressed with the nightmare of a solo on the trombone by a demon across the way, and I wake to the crash of a grand piano that some fallen angel with forty-horse-power wrists tortures in the semi-detached gentlemanly residence at the back. In short, I live in a locality that is so utterly utter in the matter of harmonic proclivities that I feel wild enough to undermine and blow it to splinters. The sound of the explosion would be a welcome change.
But I have had revenge. Ha! ha! It was temporary, but bliss is brief. For six weeks the pianist behind my bedroom has been ringing the withers of my soul matutinally with selections from Wagner. For two months the trombonist over the way has been tearing my vitals asunder by his frantic efforts to extort unhallowed tones from his instrument. For a fortnight the flutist next door has congealed my blood with variations on the “Carnival of Venice.” They have had one night from me. They won’t want another this side the Day of Judgment.
I gave a musical party. I summoned to my aid my brother who plays the melodeon. I called to my assistance my friend who lets the tempest of his heart loose into the cornet. I obtained the powerful alliance of my cousin who exercises his muscles on the double-bass. I invoked the tremendous services of an Aberdeen acquaintance, who has been practising for ten years on the Scotch bagpipes, and still survives. I appealed successfully to patriotic passions and pecuniary prejudices, and secured the presence of a fife and drum—principally drum—band from a Grand Army post.
The first part of the concert lasted two hours. By the end of that time all the boarders in the street had given their landladies notice to quit, and I had received three deputations from the outraged inhabitants of the disturbed district.
But my scheme of vengeance was only budding. I had generously plied the perspiring performers with copious draughts of Pilsener and Canada malt, till they felt fit for anything in the way of a musical monstrosity or instrumental indignity I could ask them to perpetrate on the suffering locality. Then I marshalled them out in the backyard, and implored them, as a last personal favor, to make themselves at home, and let each artist give vent to his feelings in his favorite tune. They vented. The bagpipes squealed out the “Reel of Tullochgorum,” till it seemed as if all the pigs in the States had joined in shrill lament over Armour’s interference with their happiness. The cornet pealed forth “Killarney” with energy enough to drown the roar of Niagara. The double-bass growled like a thunder-storm in its last agonies an operatic overture that I had never heard before, and I hope never, never to listen to again. The melodeon struggled manfully with “Nancy Lee,” and the fife and drum band wrestled desperately with “Patrick’s Day,” except half a dozen or so of its members, who got up a fight in one corner, and added a choice assortment of yells, shouts, and profane expressions to the glories of the occasion.