English

Mr. Werner Laurie
Is not at all sorry
He undertook the publication
Of this instructive compilation.

Fame, who with golden pennes abroad dost range
Where Phaebus leaues the night, and brings the day;
Fame, in one place who, restlesse, dost not stay
Till thou hast flowne from Atlas vnto Gange;
Fame, enemie to time that still doth change,
And in his changing course would make decay
What here below he findeth in his way,
Euen making vertue to her selfe looke strange;
Daughter of heauen, now all thy trumpets sound,
Raise vp thy head vnto the highest skie,
With wonder blaze the gifts in her are found;

When the diplomats cease from their capers,
Their red-tape requests and replies,
Their shuttlecock battle of papers,
Their saccharine parley of lies;
When the plenipotentiary wrangle
Is tied in a chaos of knots,
And becomes an unwindable tangle
Of verbals unmarried to thoughts;
When they've anguished and argued profoundly,
Asserted, assumed, and averred,
Then I end up the dialogue roundly
With my monosyllabical word.

Not mine is a speech academic,
No lexicon lingo is mine,

So grieuous is my paine, so painefull life,
That oft I finde mee in the armes of death,
But, breath halfe-gone, that tyrant called Death
Who others killes, restoreth mee to life:
For while I thinke how woe shall ende with life,
And that I quiet peace shall ioye by death,
That thought euen doth o'repowre the paines of death,
And call mee home againe to lothed life.
Thus doth mine euill transcend both life and death,
While no death is so bad as is my life,
Nor no life such which doth not ende by death,

I

Lives there not, still replaced as time goes by,
 Some man who wears the wide earth's crown of woe,
 Pain's Victim-Priest, a shadow cast below
By Him that Victim-Priest enthroned on high?
Mounts not that man elect his Calvary
 Like Christ by choice not doom? If this be so
 The world's blind prophets ill the graces know
 Men reap from that perennial agony!
Damien! no name like thine exalts old story!
 Dread Leper-Saint, pray well for me and mine,

If the autumn winds are all
In a tender sort of swoon,
You can hear the cricket call,
Any autumn afternoon;
And should you heed him, soon
You will hear, it may befall,
Dreamy language wing its way
Through his low and dreamy lay:

“By the mist-empurpled skies,
By the red leaves lying sere,
I know that Summer dies
In the lands that held her dear.
And with his sparkling spear,
With his icy-brilliant eyes,
Snowy-bearded Winter speeds
On his whitest of white steeds!

With griefe in heart, and teares in sowning eyes,
When I to her had giu'n a sad fare-well,
Close sealed with a kisse, and dew which fell
On my else-moystned face from beauties skies,
So strange amazement did my minde surprise,
That at each pace I fainting turn'd againe,
Like one whome a torpedo stupifies,
Not feeling honour's bit, nor reason's raine.
But when fierce starres to parte mee did constraine,
With back-caste lookes I enui'd both and bless'd
The happie walles and place did her containe,

Sleep on, my baby, sleep in peace, while day to dusk is turning,
And o'er the sunset's rosy calm one great white star is burning.
Their glooms against pale deeps of sky bold castle-walls are showing,
And through the shadowy valleyland the lovely Rhine is flowing.

Oh, all the sweet babes in the bourg for soft repose are weary;
The sunshine only brings them joy, but night is grim and eerie;
And, oh, I know that all night long, where reeds and sedges quiver,
The deadly Lorelei combs her hair beside the starlit river.

It was a weakness of Voltaire's
To forget to say his prayers,
And one which to his shame
He never overcame.

Chris'mus is comin'! Let 'er come!
I've jined the Mission Band
What sends out clo'es an' grub an' things
To ev'ry heathen land.
I loves them little heathen kids
So sunk in sin an' wrong,
An' I have jined the Mission Band
To help them kids along.
Ya-as, I have jined the Mission Band,
It's jest the thing for me, —
For all who jine, nex' Chris'mus time,
Will git a present. See?

Them heathen kids is low-down mugs,
They lies an' swears an' fights,
An' crawls into a hole, like bears,