“With tragic air the love-lorn heir
Once chased the chaste Louise;
She quickly guessed her guest was there
To please her with his pleas.
Now at her side he kneeling sighed,
His sighs of woeful size;
‘Oh, hear me here, for lo, most low
I rise before your eyes.
‘This soul is sole thine own, Louise—
’Twill never wean, I ween,
The love that I for aye shall feel,
Though mean may be its mien!’

‘You know I cannot tell you no,’
The maid made answer true;
‘I love you aught, as sure I ought—
To you ’tis due I do!’
‘Since you are won, Oh fairest one,
The marriage rite is right—
The chapel aisle I’ll lead you up
This night,’ exclaimed the knight.”
—Yonkers’ Gazette, U.S.

Owed To My Creditors.

“In vain I lament what is past,
And pity their woe-begone looks,
Though they grin at the credit they gave,
I know I am in their best books.
To my tailor my breaches of faith,
On my conscience now but lightly sit,
For such lengths in his measures he’s gone,
He has given me many a fit.
My bootmaker, finding at last
That my soul was too stubborn to suit,
Waxed wroth when he found he had got
Anything but the length of my foot.
My hatmaker cunningly felt
He’d seen many like me before,
So brimful of insolence, vowed
On credit he’d crown me no more.
My baker was crusty and burnt,
When he found himself quite overdone
By a fancy-bred chap like myself,—
Ay, as cross as a Good Friday’s bun.
Next, my laundress, who washed pretty clean,
In behaviour was dirty and bad;
For into hot water she popped
All the shirts and the dickies I had.
Then my butcher, who’d little at stake,
Most surlily opened his chops,
And swore my affairs out of joint,
So on to my carcase he pops.
In my lodgings exceedingly high,
Though low in the rent to be sure,
Without warning my landlady seized,
Took my things and the key of the door.
Thus cruelly used by the world,
In the Bench I can smile at its hate;
For a time I must alter my style,
For I cannot get out of the gate.”

An Original Love Story.

“He struggled to kiss her. She struggled the same
To prevent him, so bold and undaunted;
But, as smitten by lightning, he heard her exclaim,
‘Avaunt, sir!’ and off he avaunted.
But when he returned, with the fiendishest laugh,
Showing clearly that he was affronted,
And threatened by main force to carry her off,
She cried ‘Don’t!’ and the poor fellow donted.

When he meekly approached, and sat down at her feet,
Praying aloud, as before he had ranted,
That she would forgive him and try to be sweet,
And said, ‘Can’t you!’ the dear girl recanted.
Then softly he whispered, ‘How could you do so?
I certainly thought I was jilted;
But come thou with me, to the parson we’ll go;
Say, wilt thou, my dear?’ and she wilted.”

Prevalent Poetry.

“A wandering tribe, called the Siouxs,
Wear moccasins, having no shiouxs.
They are made of buckskin,
With the fleshy side in,
Embroidered with beads of bright hyiouxs.
When out on the war-path, the Siouxs
March single file—never by tiouxs—
And by ‘blazing’ the trees
Can return at their ease,
And their way through the forests ne’er liouxs.
All new-fashioned boats he eschiouxs,
And uses the birch-bark caniouxs;
These are handy and light,
And, inverted at night,
Give shelter from storms and from dyiouxs.
The principal food of the Siouxs
Is Indian maize, which they briouxs
And hominy make,
Or mix in a cake,
And eat it with fork, as they chiouxs.”
—Scribner’s Magazine.

A Temperance Sermon.

“If for a stomach ache you tache
Each time some whisky, it will break
You down and meak you sheak and quache,
And you will see a horrid snache.
Much whisky doth your wits beguile,
Your breath defuile, yourself make vuile;
You lose your style, likewise your pyle,
If you erewhyle too often smuile.
But should there be, like now, a drought,
When water and your strength give ought,
None will your good name then malign
If you confign your drink to wign.”
—H. C. Dodge.
“There was a young man in Bordeaux,
He said to himself—‘Oh, heaux!
The girls have gone back on me seaux,
What to do I really don’t kneaux.’”