I hired me a hack,
I cried out “Alack!”
I must dine upon bread;
I gave up my purse.
Never ride in a hack
Unless you are dead;
Then ride in a hearse,
Lying flat on your back.
I hired me a hack!
I would I were dead!
“PELLUCID HER EYE.”
(A Pantalet.)
But, oh! I was dry,
And the starved dancers crushed,
Till my shirt-front was mushed.
The champagne was dry—
I cannot say why;
But the night-bird was hushed,
Yet the throstle-wits thrushed—
I cannot say why;
(The champagne was dry).
Ah, pellucid her eye!
And her oval cheek flushed
Like a strawberry crushed.
How pellucid her eye!
I cannot say why—
(The champagne was dry).
I sighed, “Let us fly!”
She smiled not nor gushed,
But from me she rushed.
Maphap I seemed “fly”
The wine was quite dry.
But pellucid her eye,
I cannot say why.
This report having been voted correct, and ordered to be inscribed on the minutes, Mr. Howard M. Ticknor then recited, with excellent elocutionary point, the following “Greeting to Ellen Terry”:—
“Honor,” said Cassius, “is my story’s theme.”
Honor shall best my verse to-night beseem.
For some, how safe, how permanent, how sure!
Written in characters that will endure,
Until this world begins to melt away
And crumble to its ultimate decay.
The picture fades; but color still is there,
Even in ruin is the statue fair;
The province won, the city burnt or built,
The inwrought consequence of good or guilt,
Shape after epochs to time’s latest span,
And link enduringly a man to man.
But he who is himself artist and art,
Whose greatest works are of himself a part;
Who, sculptor, moulds his hand, his form, his face;
Who, painter, on the air his lines must trace;
Musician, make an instrument his voice,
And tell, not write, the melody of his choice;
Whose eloquence of gesture, pose and eye
Flashes aglow, in instant dark to die;—
Where are for him the honor and the fame?
A face on canvas, and perhaps a name
Extolled awhile, and then an empty word
At sound of which no real thrill is stirred.
What, then, shall recompense his loss? What make
Atonement for the ignorant future’s sake?
What but the tribute of his honor now,
The native wreath to deck his living brow?