It is a time for happy chat
En cercle tête-à-tête;
Discuss the doings of the day,
The club, the sermon, or the play,
Affairs of church and state;
Fond reminiscence to explore
The pleasant episodes of yore,
And so till raindrops all abate
As erst on Ararat.
Ah, yes, a rainy day may be
A blessed interval!
A little halt for introspect,
A little moment to reflect
On life's discrepancy—
Our puny stint so poorly done,
The larger duties scarce begun—
And so may conscience culpable
Suggest a remedy.
The Subway.
Oh, who in creation would fail to descend
That wonderful hole in the ground?—
That, feeling its way like a hypocrite-friend
In sinuous fashion, seems never to end;
While thunder and lightning abound.
Oh, who in creation would dare to go down
That great subterranean hole—
The tunnel, the terror, the talk of the town,
That gives to the city a mighty renown
And a shaking as never before?
A serpent, a spider, its mouth at the top
Where the flies are all buzzing about;
Down into its maw where the populace drop,
Who never know where they are going to stop,
Or whether they'll ever get out.
Why is it, with millions of acres untrod
Where never the ploughshare hath been,
That man must needs burrow miles under the sod,
As if to get farther and farther from God,
And deeper and deeper in sin?
O Dagos and diggers, who can't understand
That the planet you'll never get through—
Why, there is three times as much water as land,
And but for the least little seam in the sand
Your life is worth less than a sou.