Page 17 - Poetry-Family

The “Old Oaken Bucket”
That Hangs on the Wall
How dear to my purse is these scene of the childhood
Of jolly Sam Woodworth—an elegant view
Of the place where the bard when an urchin quite wild would
Take “drinks” not so strong as he afterwards knew.
My wife admires Chromos, and teased me to buy it;
“The price,” she exclaimed, “is ‘most nothing at all,
And how charming ‘twill be every evening to eye it
In a nobby gilt frame hanging up on the wall.”
Thereupon “Old Oaken Bucket,”
My dear darling duck—it
Would really be splendid to hang on the wall!

Now my wife, you must know, is a sweet little treasure,
And it was not in vain she so fondly appealed:
The picture was bought, and a man came to measure
For the handsomest frame his resources could yield.

But when it was hung, with the gas on it glowing,
It made our old prints and engravings look small;
So off to the auction rooms soon they were going,
Kicked out by the “Bucket” that hung on the wall.
And the “Old Oaken Bucket,”
Where my wife proudly stuck it,
Was gem of the house, and still hangs on the wall.
Since then, though I scarcely suppose you’d conceive it,
The sofas and chairs have made similar trips;
The piano went too, though I begged them to leave it,
And the mirrors and vases, as if they were chips.

New fixtures embellish our neat habitation,
But the bills are as plenty as leaves in the fall;
And require enough stamps at the least calculation,
To fill that Old Bucket that hangs on the wall.

The “Old Oaken Bucket,”
The golden-bound “Bucket,”
The paint-covered “Bucket” that hangs on the wall.
— J. Albert Kimball (Demorest, 1874)

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