Their songs and chant their sweetest lays
To him reviled.
Then strike, O bards, your tuneful lyres,
'Awake, O rhyming souls, your fires,
And use no stint!
Bring forth the festive syrup cup—
Fill every loyal beaker up
With peppermint!
March, 1878.
In the spring of 1879 the St. Louis Times-Journal printed the following April verses by Field, which were copied without the author's name by London Truth, and went the rounds of the papers in this country, credited to that misnamed paper, and attributed, much to Field's glee, to William S. Gilbert, then at the height of his Pinafore and Bab Ballad fame: