Successful Recitations Part 10

And count ye all, both great and small, As numbered with the dead!

For mariner for forty year, On Erie, boy and man, I never yet saw such a storm, Or one 't with it began!

So overboard a keg of nails And anvils three we threw, Likewise four bales of gunny-sacks, Two hundred pounds of glue, Two sacks of corn, four ditto wheat, A box of books, a cow, A violin, Lord Byron's works, A rip-saw and a sow.

A curve! a curve; the dangers grow!

"Labbord!--stabbord!--s-t-e-a-d-y!--so!-- _Hard-a.-port_, Dol!--h.e.l.lum-a-lee!

Haw the head mule!--the aft one gee!

Luff!--bring her to the wind!"

For straight a farmer brought a plank,-- (Mysteriously inspired)-- And laying it unto the s.h.i.+p, In silent awe retired.

Then every sufferer stood amazed That pilot man before; A moment stood. Then wondering turned, And speechless walked ash.o.r.e.

TIM KEYSER'S NOSE.

BY MAX ADELER.

Tim Keyser lived at Wilmington, He had a monstrous nose, Which was a great deal redder Than the very reddest rose, And was completely capable Of most terrific blows.

He wandered down one Christmas-day To skate upon the creek, And there upon the smoothest ice He slid along so slick, The people were amazed to see Him cut it up so quick;

The exercise excited thirst, And so, to get a drink, He cut an opening in the ice, And lay down on the brink.

Says he, "I'll dip my nose right in, And sip it up, I think."

But while his nose was thus immersed Six inches in the stream, A very hungry pickerel Was attracted by the gleam, And darting up, it gave a snap, And Keyser gave a scream.

Tim Keyser then was well a.s.sured He had a famous bite; To pull that pickerel up he tried, And tugged with all his might; But the disgusting pickerel had The better of the fight.

And just as Mr. Keyser thought His nose would split in two, The pickerel gave his tail a twist, And pulled Tim Keyser through, And he was scudding through the waves The first thing that he knew.

Then onward swam the savage fish With swiftness towards its nest, Still chewing Mr. Keyser's nose, While Mr. Keyser guessed What kind of policy would suit His circ.u.mstances best.

Just then his nose was tickled With a spear of gra.s.s close by; Tim Keyser gave a sneeze which burst The pickerel into "pi,"

And blew its bones, the ice, and waves A thousand feet on high.

Tim Keyser swam up to the top, A breath of air to take, And finding broken ice, he hooked His nose upon a cake, And gloried in a nose that could Such a concussion make.

His Christmas dinner on that day He tackled with a vim; And thanked his stars, as shuddering He thought upon his swim, That that wild pickerel had not Spent Christmas eating him.

THE LOST EXPRESSION.

BY MARSHALL STEELE.

Oh! I fell in love with Dora, and my heart was all a-glow, For I never met before a girl who took my fancy so; She had eyes--no! cheeks a-blus.h.i.+ng with the peach's ripening flush, Was ecstatically gus.h.i.+ng--and I like a girl to gush.

She'd the loveliest of faces, and the goldenest of hair, And all customary graces lovers fancy in the fair.

Now, she doated on romances, she was yearnful and refined, She had sentimental fancies of a most aesthetic kind, She was sensitive, fantastic, tender, too, as she was fair, But alas! she was not plastic, as I owned in my despair.

And, for all she was so gentle, yet she gave me this rebuff-- Though I might be sentimental, I'd not sentiment enough.

Then I _did_ grow sentimental, for that seemed to be my part, And I talked in transcendental fas.h.i.+on that might move her heart, Sighed to live in fairy grottoes with my Dora all alone, And I studied cracker mottoes, which I quoted as my own.

Thus I strove to be romantic, but I failed upon the whole, And she nearly drove me frantic when she said I had not "soul."

So, despair tinged all my pa.s.sion, sorrow mingled with my love, Though I wooed her in a fas.h.i.+on which the stones of Rome might move, Though I wrote her fervid sonnets with the fervour underlined, Though I bought her gloves and bonnets of the most artistic kind, Yet for me life held no pleasure, and my sorrow grew acute That she smiled upon my presents, but she frowned upon my suit.

All in vain seemed love and longing till upon one fateful day Hopes anew came on me thronging, as I heard my Dora say-- "Richard mine, I saw you sobbing o'er my photograph last night, With a look that set me throbbing with unspeakable delight.

Wide your eyelids you were oping and your look was far from hence With a pa.s.sionate wild hoping that was soulful and intense.

"I have seen that look on Irving and sometimes on Beerbohm Tree, And it seems to be observing joy and rapture yet to be.

In the nostril elevated and the lip that lightly curled Was a cold scorn indicated of this vulgar nether world.

I could marry that expression. Show it once again then, do!

And I meekly make profession--I--I--I will marry you!"

Joy was then my heart's possession, joy and rapturous content, For I'd practised that expression, and I knew just what she meant: So my eyebrows up I lifted and I stared with all my might And my right-hand nostril s.h.i.+fted somewhat further to the right, But I quite forgot--sad error was this dire mnemonic slip!-- I forgot in doubt and terror how to move my lower lip!

With one eyebrow elevated down I dropped my dexter lid, Never mortal dislocated all his features as I did, For I moved them in my folly right and left and up and down, Till she asked if I was qualifying for the part of clown.

And I left in deep depression when she showed me to the door, Saying, "Bring back that expression, sir, or never see me more!"

Then before my looking-gla.s.s I sought, and sought for months in vain, That expression which, alas! I had forgotten, to my pain, And I said then, feeling poorly, "I'll go seek the haunts of men, I could reproduce it surely, if I met with it again: For, whose-ever--peer's or peasant's--face that heavenly look might wear, He should never leave my presence till I copied it, I swear."

Could I meet a schoolboy, madly pleased the day that school begins, Or a father smiling gladly, when the nurse says "Sir, it's twins!"

Or a well-placed politician who no better place desires, But achieves his one ambition on the day that he retires, That expression--'tis my sure hope--on their faces I should get, So I searched for them through Europe, but I haven't found them yet.

Then I lunched one day with Irving, once I dined with Mr. Tree, Who in intervals of serving made such faces up at me.

But they failed me, though the former once a look upon me hurled, Which expressed how the barn-stormer shows disdain of all the world, And his look of rapture when I rose to go was quite immense, Though not either now or then I thought it soulful or intense.

But at last, some long months later--'twas a dinner I was at In the City--"Bring me, waiter," someone said, "some more green fat."

'Twas my _vis-a-vis_ was speaking, and an Alderman was he; On his radiant face, and reeking, was the hope of joy to be.

He had all that lost expression, every detail showing plain, Soulfulness, hope of possession, joy, intensity, disdain.

Then I sought to make him merry, and I plied him with old port, Claret, burgundy, Ba.s.s, sherry, and a little something short; And this guzzler, by me aided, kept on soaking all the while, Till that lost expression faded to an idiotic smile, And his speech grew thick and thicker, and his mind began to roam, Till he finished off his liquor and I drove him to my home.

There with coils of rope I strapped him to my sofa, firm and fast, Douched him, doused him, bled and tapped him, till I sobered him at last, To that lost expression led him--that was all that I was at-- As for days and weeks I fed him on suggestions of green fat.

Thus I caught that lost expression, and I cried, "Thrice happy day!

Once again 'tis my possession." Then I turned and fled away.

Without swerving or digression to my Dora straight I sped, And she gazed at that expression, then she clapped her hands and said-- "You have found it--who'd have thought it?--you have brought it me again!"

"Yes!" I cried, "and as I've brought it, make me happiest of men."

But--oh! who could tell her sorrow, as she cried in wistful tones?-- "d.i.c.k, I'd marry you to-morrow, but I'm Mrs. Bowler Jones!"

A NIGHT SCENE.