BY IRONQUILL
A man came here from Idaho,
With lots of mining stock.
He brought along as specimens
A lot of mining rock.
The stock was worth a cent a pound
If stacked up in a pile.
The rock was worth a dollar and
A half per cubic mile.
We planted him at eventide,
'Mid shadows dim and dark;
We fixed him up an epitaph,—
"Death loves a mining shark."
A BOOKWORM'S PLAINT[3]
BY CLINTON SCOLLARD
To-day, when I had dined my fill
Upon a Caxton,—you know Will,—
I crawled forth o'er the colophon
To bask awhile within the sun;
And having coiled my sated length,
I felt anon my whilom strength
Slip from me gradually, till deep
I dropped away in dreamful sleep,
Wherein I walked an endless maze,
And dined on Caxtons all my days.
Then I woke suddenly. Alas!
What in my sleep had come to pass?
That priceless first edition row,—
Squat quarto and tall folio,—
Had, in my slumber, vanished quite;
Instead, on my astonished sight
The newest novels burst,—a gay
And most unpalatable array!
I, that have battened on the best,
Why should I thus be dispossessed
And with starvation, or the worst
Of diets, cruelly be curst?
A POE-'EM OF PASSION
BY CHARLES F. LUMMIS
It was many and many a year ago,
On an island near the sea,
That a maiden lived whom you mightn't know
By the name of Cannibalee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than a passionate fondness for me.
I was a child, and she was a child—
Tho' her tastes were adult Feejee—
But she loved with a love that was more than love,
My yearning Cannibalee;
With a love that could take me roast or fried
Or raw, as the case might be.
And that is the reason that long ago,
In that island near the sea,
I had to turn the tables and eat
My ardent Cannibalee—
Not really because I was fond of her,
But to check her fondness for me.
But the stars never rise but I think of the size
Of my hot-potted Cannibalee,
And the moon never stares but it brings me nightmares
Of my spare-rib Cannibalee;
And all the night-tide she is restless inside,
Is my still indigestible dinner-belle bride,
In her pallid tomb, which is Me,
In her solemn sepulcher, Me.