Cobwebs from a Library Corner

I know a wondrous man—my neighbor he;

He’s ripe in years, and great in understanding.

He’s versed in art, and in philosophy

He shows a mind that’s verily commanding.

He’ll stand before a painting, and without

A single instant’s thought, or hesitation,

He’ll tell the painter’s name, nor any doubt

Is there he gives the proper information.

The rocks, the hills and valleys, hold from him

No secret that is past a man’s revealing.

He knows why some are stout and others slim;

He comprehends all kinds of human feeling.

The records of the stars he knows, and each

Romance that round about the heavens lingers.

At dinner-time he oft delights to preach

On which was made the first, or forks or fingers.

Indeed, all things he knows, or high or low—

The things that fly on wing, or go a-walking—

Except one thing he never seems to know,

And that’s when he should stop his endless talking.

When I was twenty-one, I swore,

If I should ever wed,

The maiden that I should adore

Should have a classic head;

Should have a form quite Junoesque;

A manner full of grace;

A wealth of hirsute picturesque

Above a piquant face.

But I, alas! am perjured, for

I’ve wed a dumpy lass

I much despised in days of yore,

Of quite the plainest class,

Because each maiden of my dream,

Whose favor I did seek,

Was so opposed unto my scheme

I married Jane in pique.

Maid of culture, ere we part,

Since we’ve talked of letters, art,

Science, faith, and hypnotism,

And ’most every other ism,

When you wrote, a while ago,

Ζώη μοῦ, σὰς ἀγαπώ,

Let me tell you this, my dear:

Though your lettering was clear,

Though the ancient sages Greek

Would be glad to hear you speak,

They would be replete with woe

At your μοῦ, σὰς ἀγαπώ.

For, dear maiden most astute,

You have placed the mark acute

O’er omega. Take your specs.

See? It should be circumflex.

Still I love you, even though

You have written ἀγαπώ.

Her eyes are blue—a lovely hue

For eyes; her cheeks are pink,

And for the cheek, ’twixt me and you,

That color’s right, I think.

Her fingers taper prettily,

Her teeth are white as pearls—

Her hands seem softer far to me

Than any other girl’s.

Her figure’s trim—it is petite—

I like them just that way,

And truly, maiden half so sweet

You’d not find every day.

And yet, alas! she’s not my choice,

This creature of my rhyme—

Because her soft and rich-toned voice

Is going all the time.

I love the leaf of the old oak-tree,

I love the gum of the spruce,

I love the bark of the hickory,

And I love the maple’s juice.

On the walnut’s grain I fondly dote,

On the cherry’s fruit I’d dine,

And I love to lie in a narrow boat,

And scent the odor of pine.

Ah, me! how I wish some power grand

Would invent some single tree

With all these points well developed, and

Would send that tree to me!

I’d plant it deep in the jardinière

That stands in this flat of mine;

I’d give it the sweetest, tenderest care,

And water its roots with wine.

What has become of the cast-off coats

That covered Will Shakespeare’s back?

What has become of the old row-boats

Of Kidd and his pirate pack?

Where are the scarfs that Lord Byron wore?

Where are poor Shelley’s cuffs?

What has become of that wondrous store

Of Queen Elizabeth’s ruffs?

Where are the slippers of Ferdinand?

Where are Marc Antony’s clothes?

Where are the gloves from Antoinette’s hand?

Where Oliver Goldsmith’s hose?

I do not search for the ships of Tyre—

The grave of Whittington’s cat

Would sooner set my spirit on fire—

Or even Beau Brummel’s hat.

And when I reflect that there are spots

In the world that I can’t find,

Where lie these same identical lots,

And many of this same kind,

I’m tempted to give a store of gold

To him that will bring to me

A glass, Earth’s mysteries to unfold,

And show me where these things be.

As I read over old John Dryden’s verse,

The rhymes of men like William Blake, and Gay,

The stuff that helped fill Edmund Waller’s purse,

And that which placed on Marvell’s brow the bay,

It doth appear to me that in those times

The Muses quaffed not sparkling wine, but grog,

And that to grow immortal through one’s rhymes

Was ’bout as hard as falling off a log.

Shakespeare was not accounted great

When good Queen Bess ruled England’s state,

So why should I to-day repine

Because the laurel is not mine?

Perhaps in twenty-ninety-three

Folks will begin to talk of me,

And somewhere statues may be built

Of me, in bronze, perhaps in gilt,

And sages full of quips and quirks

Will wonder if I wrote my works.

So why should I repine to-day

Because my brow wears not the bay?

Thy span of life was all too short—

A week or two at best—

From budding-time, through blossoming,

To withering and rest.

Yet compensation hast thou—aye!—

For all thy little woes;

For was it not thy happy lot

To live and die a rose?

I do not fear an enemy

Who all his days hath hated me.

I do not bother o’er a foe

Whose name and face I do not know.

I mind me not the small attack

Of him who bites behind my back:

But Heaven help me to the end

’Gainst that one who was once my friend.

Blessed jokes of my dreams! Your praises I’d sing.

No mirth can compare to the mirth that you bring.

I’ve read London Punch from beginning to end,

On all comic papers much money I spend,

But naught that is in them can ever seem bright

Beside the rich jokes that I dream of at night.

How I laugh at those jests of my brain when at rest,

The gladdest and merriest, sweetest and best!

And how, when I wake in the morning and try

To call them to mind, oh how bashful, how shy

They seem, how they scatter and hide out of sight—

Those jokes of my dreamings, those jests of the night!

Take the one that came to me to-day just at dawn:

The Cable-Car turns and remarks to the Prawn,

“The Crowbar is seasick; but then what of that,

As long as the Camel won’t wear a silk hat?”

I laughed—why, I laughed till my wife had a fright

For fear I’d go wild from that joke of the night.

And they’re all much like that one—elusive enough,

Yet full of facetious, hilarious stuff—

Stuff past comprehension, stuff no man dares tell;

For nocturnal jests, e’en told ever so well—

’Tis odd it should be so—are not often bright,

Except to the dreamer who dreams them at night.

It seemed to be but chance, yet who shall say

That ’twas not part of Nature’s own sweet way,

That on the field where once the cannon’s breath

Lay many a hero cold and stark in death,

Some little children, in the after-years,

Had come to play among the grassy spears,

And, all unheeding, when their romp was done,

Had left a wreath of wild flowers over one

Who fought to save his country, and whose lot

It was to die unknown and rest forgot?

“What shall I put my dollars in?” he asked, in wild dismay.

“I’ve fifty thousand of ’em, and I’d like to keep ’em too.

I’d like to put them by to serve some future rainy day,

But in these times of queer finance what can a fellow do?

“A railway bond is picturesque, and the supply is great,

But strangely like a novel that upon occasion drags,

Of which the critics of the time in hackneyed phrases state,

‘The work has certain value, but the int’rest often flags!’

“The same is true of railway shares, ’tis safer to invest

In ploughshares, so it seems to me, in this unhappy time.

Some think great wealth a blessing, but it cannot stand the test;

He’s happier by far than I who’s but a single dime.

“He does not lie awake at night and fret and fume, to think

Of bank officials on a spree with what he’s toiled to get.

He is not driven by his woe quite to the verge of drink

By wondering if his balance in the bank remains there yet.

“He does not pick the paper up in terror every night

To see if V.B.G. is up, or P.D.Q. is down;

It does not fill his anxious soul with nerve-destroying fright

To hear the Wall Street rumors that are flying ’bout the town.

“Ah, better had I ta’en that cash that I have skimped to save,

And spent it on my living and my pleasures day by day!

I would not now be goaded nigh unto my waiting grave,

By wondering how the deuce to keep those dollars mine for aye.

“I’d not be bankrupt in my nerves and prematurely old,

These golden shackles must be burst; I must again be free.

What Ho without! My ducats—to the winds with all my gold,

That I may once again enjoy the rest of poverty.”

I knew a man who died in days of yore,

To whom no monument is like to rise;

And yet there never lived a mortal more

Deserving of a shaft to pierce the skies.

His chiefest wish strong friendships was to make;

He cared but little for this poor world’s pelf;

He shared his joys with every one who’d take,

And kept his sorrows strictly to himself.

Fair Nature, like the mother of a wayward child

Who needs must chide the offspring of her heart,

Disguiseth for a season all the sweet and mild

Maternal softness for an austere part.

And ’neath her frown the errant earth in winter seems

Prostrate to lie, and petulant of mood;

Restrained in icy fetters all the babbling streams,

Like naughty babes who’re learning to be good.

Then, in this second month, most motherlike again,

The frown assumed gives now and then a place

To soft indulgent glances, lessening the pain,

And hints of spring and pardon light her face.

Horatius at the bridge, and he

Who fought at old Thermopylæ;

Great Samson and his potent bone

By which the Philistines were slone;

Small David with his wondrous aim

That did for him of giant frame;

J. Cæsar in his Gallic scraps

That made him lord of other chaps;

Sweet William, called the Conqueror,

Who made the Briton sick of war;

King Hal the Fifth, who nobly fought

And thrashed the foe at Agincourt;

Old Bonaparte, and Washington,

And Frederick, and Wellington,

Decatur, Nelson, Fighting Joe,

And Farragut, and Grant, and, oh,

A thousand other heroes I

Have wished I were in days gone by—

Can take their laurels from my door,

For I don’t want ’em any more.

The truth will out; it can’t be hid;

The doughty deed that Dewey did,

In that far distant Spanish sea,

Is really good enough for me.

The grammar’s bad, but, O my son,

I wish I’d did what Dewey done!

Sound the timbrel, beat the drum!

Word from the Mahatma’s come.

Straight from Hoomi Koot & Co.

Comes the note to us below,

Full of joy and gossiping.

Hoomi Koot is summering

In the desert waste of Gobi,

In a cottage of adobe.

All the little Koots are well.

Tommy Koot has learned to spell.

Mrs. Koot is busy on

Papers on “The Great Anon,”

Which by special cable soon,

From her workshop in the moon,

Will be sent to us below

By grand Hoomi Koot & Co.

We are told that Maggie Koot

Looks well in her golfing suit;

And her brand-new Astral Bike

Is the best they’ve seen this cike—

Cike is slang for cycle, so

I have learned from Koot & Co.

Soon she’s going to take a run

Out from Gobi to the sun,

After which she thinks to race

For the Championship of Space,

And a trophy given by

The Grand High Pasupati.

Baby Koot has learned to walk,

And likewise, ’tis said, to talk;

But, to Mrs. Koot’s dismay,

Seems to have a funny way:

Full of questions, “Why and How,”

All about the sacred cow.

Questions of a flippant ilk,

Like “Is Buddha made of milk?”

Questions void of answers spite

Of his parents’ second sight.

What to do with Baby Koot

Worries all the whole cahoot.

Finally the message ends

With best love to all our friends.

Give our enemies a twist.

Let each true theoso-fist

Strike a thunder-hitting blow

For the firm of Koot & Co.;

Strike till black is every eye

Doubting our theosophy.

And impress on every tribe

Now’s the season to subscribe.

Guard against the coming storm;

Keep our astral bodies warm.

Give us bonnets for the head;

Keep our spirit stomachs fed.

Let your glad remittance go

Out to Hoomi Koot & Co.,

Through their Agents on the earth,

Men and women full of worth;

And when next a message comes

From the Koots down to their chums,

Those who’ve paid their money down

Will receive a harp and crown.

Step up lively! now’s the time

For your nickel and your dime,

To provide for winter suits

For the grand Mahatma Koots.

Furthermore, be not too brash,

Send it up in solid cash.

Astral money, it may be,

Circulates in theory;

But ’tis best to give us cold,

Bilious, drossy, filthy gold.

All our blessings to you go.

Yours, for health,

H. Koots & Co.