Oh, say, have you seen at the Willows so green--So charming and rurally true--A singular bird, with a manner absurd, Which they call the Australian Emeu?
Have you Ever seen this Australian Emeu?
It trots all around with its head on the ground, Or erects it quite out of your view;
And the ladies all cry, when its figure they spy, "Oh! what a sweet pretty Emeu!
Oh! do Just look at that lovely Emeu!"
One day to this spot, when the weather was hot, Came Matilda Hortense Fortescue;
And beside her there came a youth of high name,--Augustus Florell Montague:
The two Both loved that wild, foreign Emeu.
With two loaves of bread then they fed it, instead Of the flesh of the white Cockatoo, Which once was its food in that wild neighborhood Where ranges the sweet Kangaroo, That too Is game for the famous Emeu!
Old saws and gimlets but its appetite whets, Like the world-famous bark of Peru;
There's nothing so hard that the bird will discard, And nothing its taste will eschew That you Can give that long-legged Emeu!
The time slipped away in this innocent play, When up jumped the bold Montague:
"Where's that specimen pin that I gayly did win In raffle, and gave unto you, Fortescue?"
No word spoke the guilty Emeu!
"Quick! tell me his name whom thou gavest that same, Ere these hands in thy blood I imbrue!"
"Nay, dearest," she cried, as she clung to his side, "I'm innocent as that Emeu!"
"Adieu!"
He replied, "Miss M. H. Fortescue!"
Down she dropped at his feet, all as white as a sheet, As wildly he fled from her view;
He thought 'twas her sin,--for he knew not the pin Had been gobbled up by the Emeu;
All through The voracity of that Emeu!
MRS. JUDGE JENKINS
(BEING THE ONLY GENUINE SEQUEL TO "MAUD MULLER"
Maud Muller all that summer day Raked the meadow sweet with hay;
Yet, looking down the distant lane, She hoped the Judge would come again.
But when he came, with smile and bow, Maud only blushed, and stammered, "Ha-ow?"
And spoke of her "pa," and wondered whether He'd give consent they should wed together.
Old Muller burst in tears, and then Begged that the Judge would lend him "ten;"
For trade was dull, and wages low, And the "craps," this year, were somewhat slow.
And ere the languid summer died, Sweet Maud became the Judge's bride.
But on the day that they were mated, Maud's brother Bob was intoxicated;
And Maud's relations, twelve in all, Were very drunk at the Judge's hall.
And when the summer came again, The young bride bore him babies twain;
And the Judge was blest, but thought it strange That bearing children made such a change;
For Maud grew broad and red and stout, And the waist that his arm once clasped about Was more than he now could span; and he Sighed as he pondered, ruefully, How that which in Maud was native grace In Mrs. Jenkins was out of place;
And thought of the twins, and wished that they Looked less like the men who raked the hay On Muller's farm, and dreamed with pain Of the day he wandered down the lane.
And looking down that dreary track, He half regretted that he came back;
For, had he waited, he might have wed Some maiden fair and thoroughbred;
For there be women fair as she, Whose verbs and nouns do more agree.
Alas for maiden! alas for judge!
And the sentimental,--that's one-half "fudge;"
For Maud soon thought the Judge a bore, With all his learning and all his lore;
And the Judge would have bartered Maud's fair face For more refinement and social grace.
If, of all words of tongue and pen, The saddest are, "It might have been,"
More sad are these we daily see:
"It is, but hadn't ought to be."
A GEOLOGICAL MADRIGAL
I have found out a gift for my fair;
I know where the fossils abound, Where the footprints of Aves declare The birds that once walked on the ground.
Oh, come, and--in technical speech--We'll walk this Devonian shore, Or on some Silurian beach We'll wander, my love, evermore.
I will show thee the sinuous track By the slow-moving Annelid made, Or the Trilobite that, farther back, In the old Potsdam sandstone was laid;
Thou shalt see, in his Jurassic tomb, The Plesiosaurus embalmed;
In his Oolitic prime and his bloom, Iguanodon safe and unharmed.
You wished--I remember it well, And I loved you the more for that wish--For a perfect cystedian shell And a WHOLE holocephalic fish.
And oh, if Earth's strata contains In its lowest Silurian drift, Or palaeozoic remains The same, 'tis your lover's free gift!
Then come, love, and never say nay, But calm all your maidenly fears;
We'll note, love, in one summer's day The record of millions of years;
And though the Darwinian plan Your sensitive feelings may shock, We'll find the beginning of man, Our fossil ancestors, in rock!
AVITOR
(AN AERIAL RETROSPECT)
What was it filled my youthful dreams, In place of Greek or Latin themes, Or beauty's wild, bewildering beams?
Avitor!
What visions and celestial scenes I filled with aerial machines, Montgolfier's and Mr. Green's!
Avitor!
What fairy tales seemed things of course!
The roc that brought Sindbad across, The Calendar's own winged horse!
Avitor!
How many things I took for facts,--Icarus and his conduct lax, And how he sealed his fate with wax!
Avitor!
The first balloons I sought to sail, Soap-bubbles fair, but all too frail, Or kites,--but thereby hangs a tail.
Avitor!
What made me launch from attic tall A kitten and a parasol, And watch their bitter, frightful fall?
Avitor!
What youthful dreams of high renown Bade me inflate the parson's gown, That went not up, nor yet came down?
Avitor!
My first ascent I may not tell;
Enough to know that in that well My first high aspirations fell.
Avitor!
My other failures let me pass:
The dire explosions, and, alas!
The friends I choked with noxious gas.
Avitor!
For lo! I see perfected rise The vision of my boyish eyes, The messenger of upper skies.
Avitor!
THE WILLOWS
(AFTER EDGAR ALLAN POE)
The skies they were ashen and sober, The streets they were dirty and drear;
It was night in the month of October, Of my most immemorial year.
