QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS

What is earth, sexton?—A place to dig graves;
What is earth, rich men?—A place to work slaves,
What is earth, grey-beard?—A place to grow old;
What is earth, miser?—A place to dig gold;
What is earth, school-boy?—A place for my play;
What is earth, maiden?—A place to be gay;
What is earth, seamstress?—A place where I weep;
What is earth, sluggard?—A good place to sleep;
What is earth, soldier?—A place for a battle;
What is earth, herdsman?—A place to raise cattle;
What is earth, widow?—A place of true sorrow;
What is earth, tradesman?—I'll tell you to-morrow;
What is earth, sick man?—'Tis nothing to me;
What is earth, sailor?—My home is the sea;
What is earth, statesman?—A place to win fame;
What is earth, author?—I'll write there my name;
What is earth, monarch?—For my realm 'tis given;
What is earth, Christian?—The gateway of heaven.
Unknown.

CONJUGAL CONJUGATIONS

Dear maid, let me speak
What I never yet spoke:
You have made my heart squeak
As it never yet squoke,
And for sight of you, both my eyes ache as they ne'er before oak.

With your voice my ears ring,
And a sweeter ne'er rung,
Like a bird's on the wing
When at morn it has wung.
And gladness to me it doth bring, such as never voice brung.
My feelings I'd write,
But they cannot be wrote,
And who can indite
What was never indote!
And my love I hasten to plight—the first that I plote.
Yes, you would I choose,
Whom I long ago chose,
And my fond spirit sues
As it never yet sose,
And ever on you do I muse, as never man mose.
The house where you bide
Is a blessed abode;
Sure, my hopes I can't hide,
For they will not be hode,
And no person living has sighed, as, darling, I've sode.
Your glances they shine
As no others have shone,
And all else I'd resign
That a man could resone,
And surely no other could pine as I lately have pone.
And don't you forget
You will ne'er be forgot,
You never should fret
As at times you have frot,
I would chase all the cares that beset, if they ever besot.
For you I would weave
Songs that never were wove,
And deeds I'd achieve
Which no man yet achove,
And for me you never should grieve, as for you I have grove.

I'm as worthy a catch
As ever, was caught.
O, your answer I watch
As a man never waught,
And we'd make the most elegant match as ever was maught.
Let my longings not sink;
I would die if they sunk.
O, I ask you to think
As you never have thunk,
And our fortunes and lives let us link, as no lives could be lunk.
A. W. Bellow.

LOVE'S MOODS AND SENSES

Sally Salter, she was a young lady who taught, And her friend Charley Church was a preacher who praught! Though his enemies called him a screecher who scraught. His heart when he saw her kept sinking and sunk, And his eye, meeting hers, began winking and wunk; While she in her turn fell to thinking, and thunk. He hastened to woo her, and sweetly he wooed, For his love grew until to a mountain it grewed, And what he was longing to do then he doed. In secret he wanted to speak, and he spoke, To seek with his lips what his heart long had soke; So he managed to let the truth leak, and it loke. He asked her to ride to the church, and they rode, They so sweetly did glide, that they both thought they glode, And they came to the place to be tied, and were tode. Then, "homeward" he said, "let us drive" and they drove, And soon as they wished to arrive, they arrove; For whatever he couldn't contrive she controve. The kiss he was dying to steal, then he stole: At the feet where he wanted to kneel, then he knole, And said, "I feel better than ever I fole." So they to each other kept clinging, and clung; While time his swift circuit was winging, and wung; And this was the thing he was bringing, and brung: The man Sally wanted to catch, and had caught— That she wanted from others to snatch, and had snaught— Was the one that she now liked to scratch and she scraught. And Charley's warm love began freezing and froze, While he took to teasing, and cruelly toze The girl he had wished to be squeezing and squoze. "Wretch!" he cried, when she threatened to leave him, and left, "How could you deceive me, as you have deceft?" And she answered, "I promised to cleave, and I've cleft!" Unknown.