Page 17 - Poetry-Whimsy

As they sail, ride, walk, and stand,—
Bless them head and heart and hand,
Till their glorious raid is o’er,
And they touch our ransomed shore!
Then the welcome of a nation,
With its shout of exultation,
Shall awake the dumb creation,
And the shapes of buried aeons
Join the living creatures’ paeans,
While the mighty megalosaurus
Leads the palaeozoic chorus,—
God bless the great Professor,
And the land his proud possessor,—
Bless them now and evermore!

—(Atlantic Monthly, November 1865)

An Old Bachelor

What a pitiful thing an old bachelor is,
With his cheerless house and his rueful phiz!
On a bitter cold night when the fierce winds blow,
And when all the earth is covered with snow,
When his fire is out, and in shivering dread,
He slips ‘neath the sheets of his lonely bed;
How he draws up his toes,
All encased in yarn hose,
And he buries his nose
‘Neath the chilly bedclothes;
That his nose and his toes
Still encased in yarn hose,
May not chance to get froze!
Then he puffs and he blows, and he says that he knows
No mortal on earth ever suffered such woes.
And with Ah’s and with Oh’s,
With his limbs to dispose,

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