THE OLD WOMAN OF SURREY.
"There was an old woman in Surrey,
Who was morn, noon, and night in a hurry;
Called her husband a fool,
Drove the children to school,
The worrying old woman of Surrey."
T was an ancient earldom over the sea,
And it must be now as it used to be;
Yet the sketch is of one I have known
before,—
The very old woman that lives next door.
One thing is unquestionable,—she 's
"smart,"—
As they say of an apple that's rather tart;
For her nearest friends, I think, would
allow her
To be, at her best, but a "pleasant sour."
There's a certain electrical atmosphere
That you feel beforehand, when she's near:
And—unless you 'ye a wonderful deal of
pluck—
A shrinking fear that you might be
"struck."
She moves with such a bustle and rush,—
Such an elemental stir and crush,
As makes the branches bend and fall
In the breeze that blows up a thunder-squall.
And yet, it is only her endless "hurry";
She's not so bad if she would n't "worry."
And, for all the worlds that she has to make.
If the six days' time she 'd only take.
You may talk about Surrey, or Devon, or
Kent,
But I doubt if a special location was meant;
It may sound severe,—but it seems to me
That a "representative" woman was she;
And that here and there you may chance
to trace
Some specimens extant of the race:
For a slip of the stock, as I've a notion,
Somehow "in the Mayflower" crossed the
ocean.
PICKLE PEPPERS.
"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickle peppers;
And a peck of pickle peppers Peter Piper picked;
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickle peppers
Where's the peck of pickle peppers Peter Piper
picked?"
P oor Peter toiled his life away,
That afterward the world might say
"Where is the peck of peppers he
Did gather so industriously?"
The peppers are embalmed in metre,—
But who, alas! inquires for Peter?
In sun or storm, by night and day,
Scant time for sleep, and none for play,
Still the poor fool did nothing reck,
If only he might pick his peck:
And what result from all hath sprung,
But just to bite somebody's tongue?
Or,—Lady Fortune playing fickle,—
Get some one in a precious pickle?
HUMPTY DUMPTY.
"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall;
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall:
Not all the king's horses nor all the king's men
Could set Humpty Dumpty up again."
Full many a project that never was hatched
Falls down, and gets shattered beyond be-
ing patched;
And luckily, too! for if all came to chick-
ens,
Then things without feathers might go to
the dickens.
If each restless unit that moves among men
Might climb to a place with the privileged
"ten,"
Pray tell us where all the commotion would
stop!
Must the whole pan of milk, forsooth, rise
to the top?
If always the statesman attained to his hopes,
And grasped the great helm, who would
stand by the ropes?
Or if all dainty fingers their duties might
choose,
Who would wash up the dishes, and polish
the shoes?
Suppose every aspirant writing a book
Contrived to get published, by hook or by
crook;
Geologists then of a later creation
Would be startled, I fancy, to find a forma-
tion
Proving how the poor world did most wo-
fully sink
Beneath mountains of paper, and oceans of
ink!
Or even suppose all the women were mar-
ried;
By whom would superfluous babies be car-
ried?
Where would be the good aunts that should
knit all the stockings?
Or nurses, to do up the singings and rock-
ings?
Wise spinsters, to lay down their wonderful
rules,
And with theories rare to enlighten the
fools,—
Or to look after orphans, and primary
schools?
No! Failure's a part of the infinite plan;
Who finds that he can't, must give way to
who can;
And as one and another drops out of the
race,
Each stumbles at last to his suitable place.
So the great scheme works on,—though,
like eggs from the wall,
Little single designs to such ruin may fall,
That not all the world's might, of its horses
or men,
Could set their crushed hopes at the sum-
mit again.
SUNDAY AND MONDAY.
"As Tommy Snooks and Bessy Brooks
Were walking out one Sunday,
Says Tommy Snooks to Bessy Brooks,
To-morrow will be Monday."
No doubt you are smiling at such a remark.
And thinking poor Snooks but a pitiful
spark;
But the words have a meaning, worth look-
ing for, too,
As I'll presently try and demonstrate for you.
'Twas a pity, indeed, in that moment of
leisure,
To dampen poor Bessy's hebdomadal pleas-
ure,
Suggesting that close on the beautiful Sun-
day
Must come all the common-place horrors
of Monday;
That he to his toiling, and she to her
tub,
Must turn, and take up with another week's
rub;
Yet a truth for us all, since the shade of
the real
Follows fast on the track of each sunny
ideal.
Now and then we may pause on Life's
pleasant oases;
But between lie the desert's grim, desolate
spaces;
And our feet, with all patience, must trav-
erse them still,
Reaching forward to blessing, through
bearing of ill.
Yet for Snooks and his Bessy,—for me
and for you,—
Comes a Saturday night when the wage
will be due;
And we'll say to each other, in ecstasy,
one day,
"To-morrow—the endless to-morrow—is
Sunday!"
THE MAD HORSE.
"There was a mad man,
And he had a mad wife,
And the children were mad beside;
So on a mad horse
They all of them got,
And madly away did ride."
Sagacious Goose! Fresh wonders yet!
"What spell had power to help you get
Those seven-leagued spectacles, that see
Down to the nineteenth century?
"The mad world, and his madder wife!"
That, in your earlier time of life,—
Though quite demented now,?t is plain,—
Were sober, grave, and almost sane!
And all the tribes, a motley brood
Sprung into being since the flood,
With their hereditary bent
To cerebral bewilderment!
If some old ghost, precise and slow,
Who died a hundred years ago,—
Always supposing he himself
Has lain, meanwhile, upon the shelf,—
Things as they are might only see,
Surely his inference would be
A simultaneous bursting out
Of lunacy the earth about.
The world is mad; his wife is mad;
The rising generation's madder;"
And when a charter can be had,
Up to the moon they 'll build a ladder!
They caught a horse awhile ago,—
They called him Steam,—but he was
slow;
After the lightning then they ran,
Caught him,—and now they drive the
span!—1860.
P. S.—1870.
The great Pacific railroad's done;
They've poured two oceans into one:
Two shores with whispering cable tied,
And cut a path for ships to ride,
Where camel-tracks had used to be,
Through desert sands, from sea to sea.
Moon, quoth I? Faith, they 've made a
moon!
Leastwise, they 've thought one; * and so
soon
Verne's Projectile.=
Upon man's whim his stroke succeeds,
And turns his dreams into his deeds,
Look sharply! for with word and blow,
They 'll swing one up before you know!
1882.
Why put a double P. S. in?
'T would need a daily bulletin
To tell how fast the craze goes on,
With Keeley and with Edison;
With things to eat, and things to travel,—
Bicycles spinning o'er the gravel,—
Great guns to simplify the fights,—
Suns outshone with electric lights,—
The whisper in the closet stirred
In sooth across the housetops heard,
And when the airy tangle tires
Earth to be veined with throbbing wires.
Women to physic and to preach,
And help the national bird to screech;
One man on Wall-Street curb to stand,
With twenty railroads in his hand;
Schools for the mass, effecting this,
That all may know what most must miss
Ah, who so sage that can pretend
To pre-sage of such tale the end?
I press the limit of my page;
So, haply, may this frantic age!
ROSES AND DIAMONDS.
"Little girl, little girl, where have you been?
Gathering roses to give to the queen.
Little girl, little girl, what gave she you?
She gave me a diamond as big as my shoe."
If the old could share with the young
again,—
If worn could borrow of new,—
If faces could wear their roses again.
And hearts be sweetened with dew,—
If a child might bring the joy of a child,
And give it to us to-day,—
What glory of gem, or what weight of gold
Would we think too precious to pay?
JACK HORNER.
"Little Jack Horner
Sat in a corner
Eating a Christmas Pie:
He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plum,
And said, "What a great boy am I!"
Ah, the world hath many a Horner,
Who, seated in his corner,
Finds a Christmas Pie provided for his
thumb:
And cries out with exultation,
"When successful exploration
Doth discover the predestinated plum!
Little Jack outgrows his tier,
And becometh John, Esquire;
And he finds a monstrous pasty ready made,
Stuffed with stocks and bonds and bales,
Gold, currencies and sales,
And all the mixed ingredients of Trade.
And again it is his luck
To be just in time to pluck,
By a clever "operation," from the pie
An unexpected." plum";
So he glorifies his thumb,
And says, proudly, "What a mighty man
am I!"
Or perchance, to Science turning,
And with weary labor learning
All the formulas and phrases that oppress
her,—
For the fruit of others' baking
So a fresh diploma taking,
Comes he forth, a full accredited Profes-
sor!
Or he's not too nice to mix
In the dish of politics;
And the dignity of office he puts on;
And he feels as big again
As a dozen nobler men,
While he writes himself the Honorable
John!
Ah, me, for the poor nation!
In her hour of desperation
Her worst foe is that unsparing Horner-
Thumb!
To which War, and Death, and Hate,
Right, Policy, and State,
Are but pies wherefrom his greed may
grasp a plum!
Oh, the work was fair and true,
But't is riddled through and through.
And plundered of its glories everywhere;
And before men's cheated eyes
Doth the robber triumph rise
And magnify itself in all the air.
"Why, if even a good man dies,
And is welcomed to the skies
In the glorious resurrection of the just,
They must ruffle it below
"With some vain and wretched show,
To make each his little mud-pie of the dust!
Shall we hint at Lady-Horners,
Who in their exclusive corners
Think the world is only made of upper-
crust?
Who in the queer mince-pie
That we call Society,
Do their dainty fingers delicately thrust;
Till, if it come to pass,
In the spiced and sugared mass,
One should compass,—do n't they call it
so?—a catch,
By the gratulation given
It would seem the very heaven
Had outdone itself in making such a
match!
Or the "Woman-Horner, now,
Who is raising such a row
To prove that Jack's no bigger boy than
Jill;
And that she wo n't sit by
With her little saucer pie,
While he from the Great Pasty picks his
fill.
Jealous-wild to be a sharer
In the fruit she thinks the fairer,
Flings by all for the swift gaining of her
wish;
Not discerning in her blindness,
How a tender Loving-Kindness
Hid the best things in her own rejected
dish!
O, the world keeps Christmas Day
In a queer, perpetual way;
Shouting always, w What a great big boy
am I!"
Yet how many of the crowd
Thus vociferating loud,
And their honors or pretensions lifting
high,
Have really, more than Jack,
With their boldness or their knack,
Had a finger in the making of the Pie?
INTY, MINTY.
"Inty, minty,
Cutey, corn!
Apple-seed,
Apple-thorn!
Wire, brier,
Limber lock;
Seven geese
In a flock,
Sit and sing, by the spring;
O-u-t, out, and in again."
Inklings and meanings,
Sprinklings and gleanings,
Shimmers and glints.
That's how the light comes
Down from the sides;
That's how the beauty
Is born to our eyes.
The seed is within,
And the thorn is without:
Nature's sweet secret
Is guarded about.
Yet briers are slender,
Locks are but slight,
To touch of a genius
That searches with light.
White by the fountain
Sit the calm seven;
Unto their joyance
Its music is given.
The world looketh on,
And still wonders in vain,
As they go out and in,
And find pasture again.
DOUBLES AND BUBBLES.
"Hey, rub-a-dub!
Three maids in a tub!
And who do you think was there?
The butcher, the baker,
The candlestick-maker,
And all of them gone to the fair."
Strong hands are in the washing-tubs;
Gay heads, the labor scorning,
Make holiday between the rubs,
And sport of Monday morning.
Three maids? That's your arithmetic.
The child that met the poet
Would still to her own counting stick:
"We 're seven; I surely know it!"
The boatman ferried over three
Across the haunted river;
And only guessed it by his fee,
And wondered at the giver.
And Betsey, Jane, and Mary Ann,—
If more your sense discovers?
Well, rub your insight if you can,
And reckon up the lovers!
Count Jane with her stout cleaver knight,
And Betsey with the baker;
And Mary Ann in dreamy light
Beside the candle-maker.
Yet of the six no soul is there,
For all your wakened vision!
In the charmed circle of the Fair
They walk their Fields Elysian!
The work goes on by board and bench,—
Hard tax of human sinning,—
But hearts thro' labor-chinks still wrench
Some joy of their beginning.
In the close limit that confines
Our getting and our giving,
Unless we read between the lines,
What should we do with living?
FUNERAL HOLIDAY.
"Ding, dong, bell,
The cat's in the well!
Who put her in? Little John Green.
Who pulled her out? Great John Stout!"-
There was never a drama of sorrow
<>But good folks might be found, I'm afraid,
Who a queer satisfaction could borrow
From the parts of importance they played.
There is war for four years in the nation:
There are havoc and panic abroad:
Comes a tempest; a wild conflagration:
Great souls go up home to their God.
How the tall I's spring thick in the spell-
ing!—
I knew, or I saw, or I said!—
How the small ones turn out to the swelling
Each splendor of final parade!
How many are left, we may wonder,
Heart-mournful for that which befell?
How many would wish back the blunder
"When the Cat has got into the Well!
Nay, more; if with infinite bother
And peril, poor Puss is got out,
Somehow, one boy seems famous as t' other,
John Green is as big as John Stout!
See, now! let me tell you a story
Of something which happened in sooth;
That shows with how fearless a glory
The children and simple speak truth.
Biddy came to her mistress refulgent;
A whole sunrise of smiles on her face;
'With w M'am, could ye be so indulgent
Jist to shpare me the day, if ye plase?
"It 's me cousin that 's dead,—Kate
M'Gawtherin,—
Was married to Barnaby Roach;
An' I 'd want,—but I hates to be both-
erin',—
Three shillings to pay for the coach!"
And so we were minus our dinners;
And all that deplorable day
We fasted, like penitent sinners,
While Biddy the cook was away.
But she came when the sunset was gleam-
ing;
And her story she gleefully told;
Disdaining all dolorous seeming,
In a way that was good to behold.
Each loving and sad recollection
Of the late Mrs. Barnaby Roach
Quite absorbed in the single reflection
That she "wint wid himsel' in the coach!"
"For he thrated me, faith, like a lady,
An' he paid me me fare, an' ahl;
An' he tould me that I, Bridget Brady,
Was the charm of the funeral!"