Then the great Lord Cardinal called for his book, And off that terrible curse he took: The mute expression Served in lieu of confession, And, being thus coupled with full restitution, The Jackdaw got plenary absolution! —When those words were heard, That poor little bird Was so changed in a moment, 't was really absurd: He grew sleek and fat; In addition to that, A fresh crop of feathers came thick as a mat! His tail waggled more Even than before; But no longer it wagged with an impudent air, No longer he perched on the Cardinal's chair: He hopped now about With a gait devout; At Matins, at Vespers, he never was out; And, so far from any more pilfering deeds, He always seemed telling the Confessor's beads. If any one lied, or if any one swore, Or slumbered in prayer-time and happened to snore, That good Jackdaw Would give a great "Caw!" As much as to say, "Don't do so any more!" While many remarked, as his manners they saw, That they "never had known such a pious Jackdaw!" He long lived the pride Of that country side, And at last in the odor of sanctity died; When, as words were too faint His merits to paint, The Conclave determined to make him a Saint. And on newly made Saints and Popes, as you know, It is the custom of Rome new names to bestow, So they canonized him by the name of Jem Crow!
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM. (Thomas Ingoldsby, Esq.)
AMERICA. FROM "A FABLE FOR CRITICS".
There are truths you Americans need to be told, And it never'll refute them to swagger and scold; John Bull, looking o'er the Atlantic, in choler, At your aptness for trade, says you worship the dollar; But to scorn i-dollar-try's what very few do, And John goes to that church as often as you do. No matter what John says, don't try to outcrow him, 'Tis enough to go quietly on and outgrow him; Like most fathers, Bull hates to see Number One Displacing himself in the mind of his son, And detests the same faults in himself he'd neglected When he sees them again in his child's glass reflected; To love one another you're too like by half, If he is a bull, you're a pretty stout calf, And tear your own pasture for naught but to show What a nice pair of horns you're beginning to grow.
There are one or two things I should just like to hint, For you don't often get the truth told you in print; The most of you (this is what strikes all beholders) Have a mental and physical stoop in the shoulders; Though you ought to be free as the winds and the waves, You've the gait and the manner of runaway slaves; Though you brag of your New World, you don't half believe in it; And as much of the Old as is possible weave in it; Your goddess of freedom, a tight, buxom girl, With lips like a cherry and teeth like a pearl, With eyes bold as Herë's, and hair floating free, And full of the sun as the spray of the sea, Who can sing at a husking or romp at a shearing, Who can trip through the forests alone without fearing, Who can drive home the cows with a song through the grass, Keeps glancing aside into Europe's cracked glass, Hides her red hands in gloves, pinches up her lithe waist, And makes herself wretched with transmarine taste; She loses her fresh country charm when she takes Any mirror except her own rivers and lakes.
WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS. [6] FROM "THE BIGLOW PAPERS," NO. III.
Guvener B. is a sensible man; He stays to his home an' looks arter his folks; He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can, An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes;— But John P. Robinson he Sez he wunt vote for Guvener B.
My! ain't it terrible? Wut shall we du? We can't never choose him o' course,—thet's flat; Guess we shall hev to come round, (don't you?) An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all that; Fer John P. Robinson he Sez he wunt vote for Guvener B.
Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man: He's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf; But consistency still wuz a part of his plan,— He's ben true to one party,—an' thet is himself;— So John P. Robinson he Sez he shall vote for Gineral C.