Читать книгу Frontier Humor in Verse, Prose and Picture - Палмер Кокс - Страница 5

SCENES ON THE SIDEWALK.

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I sit at my window to view the odd sights,

And whatever to study or action invites

Upon the white paper before me I spread,

By aid of my constant companion, the Lead.

A lady of Fashion sails by like a queen,

With ruffles and lace, and her satin de chine;

Her shimmering train as it now sweeps the street,

Is sadly ensnaring a gentleman’s feet.

It is painfully plain an apology’s due;

But which should apologize first of the two?

THE EX-VETERAN OF WATERLOO.

And next, an old man full of years shuffles by,

His nose to the dust, and his back to the sky;

The few snowy hairs that still cling to his head

Far down o’er his collar untidily spread.

And who now would think that the feeble, dry hand

That hardly can free the rude cane from the sand,

Once swung a long saber, that cut its way through

The cuirassiers’ helmets at famed Waterloo?

Old Time warps the figure firm-knitted and square,

He sharpens the feature, he blanches the hair,

And bows the proud head, be it ever so high;

This much hath he done for the man passing by.

A MINER WHO WILL SOON BE MINUS.

Away, to the fields of the diamond and ruby,

The miner sets out, like a consummate booby;

What loads the poor fellow proposes to pack:

His rifle, his shovel, his grub, and his sack;

His rifle to guard against numerous ills,

His shovel to shovel his way to the hills,

The long leather sack he bears in his hand,

To hold the bright gems he may pick from the sand;

In fancy I see him ascend the steep hill,

Or traverse the plain with his sack empty still;

While down on his head ever scorching-hot rays

Descend from th’ unclouded sun like a blaze,—

Too far from his friends, and too nigh to his foes,

Who welcome the stranger with arrows and bows,

And rifles, and war-clubs, and hatchets of stone,

And weapons for scalping, and lances of bone.

Trudge on to your treasure (?), poor dupe of the knave

And prey of the savage—pass on to your grave.

Now stepping as one, see the new-married pair

Emerge from the church. What a contrast is there!

Come haste to the window and gaze out with me—

Ere they enter their carriage the pair you may see.

Oh, May and December! extremes of the year,

When linked thus together, how odd they appear;

The bride in her teens, with a mind as unstable

As ladders of fame, or a medium’s table;

With a riotous pulse, and her blood all aglow

With the fervor of passion, of pleasure, and show.

The bridegroom is pussy, rheumatic and old,

His teeth are in rubber, his blood thin and cold;

His nose tells a tale of inordinate drams,

The gout has laid hold of his corn-laden yams;

The hairs on his cranium scattering stand,

Like ill-nourished blades on a desert of sand.

I muse as I gaze on their arms softly twined;

How soon some young maidens can alter their mind!

’Tis scarcely three weeks since I heard her declare,

When speaking of him who now walks by her there,

In marriage she never would give him her hand

Though rolling in gems, like a horse in the sand.

But she clings to him now, as a green, sappy vine

MAY AND DECEMBER.

Embraces the trunk of a time-honored pine;

While her looks and her manner would seem to imply

That she never before on a man cast an eye;

But I, delving back through the layers of Time,

Exhume the pale ghost of a youth in his prime,

Whose feelings were tortured, whose reason was muddied,

Whose pistol was emptied, whose temple was ruddied;

Because of coquetry so heartless and strange,

Her passion for diamonds, her longing for change.

Pass on, happy bride, with your beaming young face;

May happiness still with your moments keep pace,

And never mistrust pierce the groom at your side

That wealth, and not virtues, have won him his bride.