If I Should Die To-night

489

10-(Walt Whitman, who didn't stay more than a minute)

One cup for myself-hood,

Many for you. Allons, camerados, we will drink together, O hand-in-hand! That tea-spoon, please, when you've done

with it.

What butter-colour'd hair you've got. I don't want to be personal.

All right, then, you needn't. You're a stale-cadaver.
Eighteen-pence if the bottles are returned.
Allons, from all bat-eyed formula.

Barry Pain.

HOW OFTEN

THEY stood on the bridge at midnight,
In a park not far from the town;
They stood on the bridge at midnight,
Because they didn't sit down.

IF I should die to-night

And you should come to my cold corpse and say,
Weeping and heartsick o'er my lifeless clay-
If I should die to-night,

And you should come in deepest grief and woe-
And say: "Here's that ten dollars that I owe,"
I might arise in my large white cravat
And say, "What's that?"

If I should die to-night

And you should come to my cold corpse and kneel, Clasping my bier to show the grief you feel,

I say, if I should die to-night

And you should come to me, and there and then Just even hint 'bout paying me that ten,

I might arise the while,

But I'd drop dead again.

Ben King.

"THE DAY IS DONE"

THE day is done, and darkness
From the wing of night is loosed,
As a feather is wafted downward,
From a chicken going to roost.

I see the lights of the baker,

Gleam through the rain and mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me,
That I cannot well resist.

A feeling of sadness and longing
That is not like being sick,

And resembles sorrow only

As a brickbat resembles a brick.

Come, get for me some supper,—
A good and regular meal-

That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the pain I feel.

Not from the pastry bakers,
Not from the shops for cake;

I wouldn't give a farthing

For all that they can make.

Jacob

For, like the soup at dinner,
Such things would but suggest
Some dishes more substantial,
And to-night I want the best.

Go to some honest butcher,
Whose beef is fresh and nice,
As any they have in the city
And get a liberal slice.

Such things through days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
For sad and desperate feelings,
Are wonderful remedies.

They have an astonishing power

To aid and reinforce,

And come like the "finally, brethren,"
That follows a long discourse.

Then get me a tender sirloin

From off the bench or hook.

And lend to its sterling goodness
The science of the cook.

And the night shall be filled with comfort,
And the cares with which it begun
Shall fold up their blankets like Indians,
And silently cut and run.

491

Phabe Cary.

JACOB

He dwelt among "Apartments let,"

About five stories high;

A man, I thought, that none would get,

And very few would try.

A boulder, by a larger stone
Half hidden in the mud,
Fair as a man when only one
Is in the neighborhood.

He lived unknown, and few could tell
When Jacob was not free;

But he has got a wife-and O!

The difference to me!

Phœbe Cary.

BALLAD OF THE CANAL

WE were crowded in the cabin,
Not a soul had room to sleep;
It was midnight on the waters,
And the banks were very steep.

'Tis a fearful thing when sleeping
To be startled by the shock,
And to hear the rattling trumpet
Thunder, "Coming to a lock!"

So we shuddered there in silence,
For the stoutest berth was shook,
While the wooden gates were opened
And the mate talked with the cook.

And as thus we lay in darkness,
Each one wishing we were there,
"We are through!" the captain shouted,
And he sat down on a chair.

And his little daughter whispered,
Thinking that he ought to know,
"Isn't travelling by canal-boats
Just as safe as it is slow?"

Then he kissed the little maiden,

And with better cheer we spoke,

And we trotted into Pittsburg,

When the morn looked through the smoke.

Phœbe Cary.

Reuben

THERE'S A BOWER OF BEAN-VINES

493

THERE'S a bower of bean-vines in Benjamin's yard, And the cabbages grow round it, planted for greens; In the time of my childhood 'twas terribly hard

To bend down the bean-poles, and pick off the beans.

That bower and its products I never forget,
But oft, when my landlady presses me hard,
I think, are the cabbages growing there yet,

Are the bean-vines still bearing in Benjamin's yard?

No, the bean-vines soon withered that once used to wave, But some beans had been gathered, the last that hung on; And a soup was distilled in a kettle, that gave

All the fragrance of summer when summer was gone.

Thus memory draws from delight, ere it dies,

An essence that breathes of it awfully hard; As thus good to my taste as 'twas then to my eyes, Is that bower of bean-vines in Benjamin's yard. Phabe Cary.

REUBEN

THAT very time I saw, (but thou couldst not),
Walking between the garden and the barn,
Reuben, all armed; a certain aim he took
At a young chicken, standing by a post,
And loosed his bullet smartly from his gun,
As he would kill a hundred thousand hens.
But I might see young Reuben's fiery shot
Lodged in the chaste board of the garden fence,
And the domesticated fowl passed on
In henly meditation, bullet free.

Phabe Cary.