John Thompson's Daughter

"We've fled before her father's spite
With great precipitation;

And should he find us here to-night,
I'd lose my reputation.

66 They've missed the girl and purse beside,
His horsemen hard have pressed me;
And who will cheer my bonny bride,
If yet they shall arrest me?"

Out spoke the boatman then in time,
"You shall not fail, don't fear it;
I'll go, not for your silver dime,
But for your manly spirit.

"And by my word, the bonny bird
In danger shall not tarry;
For though a storm is coming on,
I'll row you o'er the ferry."

By this the wind more fiercely rose,
The boat was at the landing;

And with the drenching rain their clothes
Grew wet where they were standing.

But still, as wilder rose the wind,
And as the night grew drearer;
Just back a piece came the police,
Their tramping sounded nearer.

"Oh, haste thee, haste!" the lady cries, "It's anything but funny;

I'll leave the light of loving eyes,

But not my father's money!"

And still they hurried in the face
Of wind and rain unsparing;

John Thompson reached the landing place-
His wrath was turned to swearing.

495

For by the lightning's angry flash,
His child he did discover;

One lovely hand held all the cash,
And one was round her lover!

"Come back, come back!" he cried in woe,
Across the stormy water;

"But leave the purse, and you may go,
My daughter, oh, my daughter!"

'Twas vain; they reached the other shore
(Such doom the Fates assign us);
The gold he piled went with his child,
And he was left there minus.

Phœbe Cary.

A PORTRAIT

He is to weet a melancholy carle:

Thin in the waist, with bushy head of hair,
As hath the seeded thistle, when a parle
It holds with Zephyr, ere it sendeth fair
Its light balloons into the summer air;
Thereto his beard had not begun to bloom.
No brush had touched his cheek, or razor sheer;
No care had touched his cheek with mortal doom,
But new he was and bright, as scarf from Persian loom.

Ne cared he for wine, or half and half;

Ne cared he for fish, or flesh, or fowl;

And sauces held he worthless as the chaff;
He 'sdeigned the swine-head at the wassail-bowl:
Ne with lewd ribbalds sat he cheek by jowl;
Ne with sly lemans in the scorner's chair;
But after water-brooks this pilgrim's soul
Panted and all his food was woodland air;
Though he would oft-times feast on gilliflowers rare.

Annabel Lee

The slang of cities in no wise he knew,
Tipping the wink to him was heathen Greek;
He sipped no "olden Tom," or "ruin blue,"
Or Nantz, or cherry-brandy, drunk full meek
By many a damsel brave and rouge of cheek;
Nor did he know each aged watchman's beat,
Nor in obscured purlieus would be seek

For curled Jewesses, with ankles neat,

497

Who, as they walk abroad, make tinkling with their feet.

John Keats.

ANNABEL LEE

'Twas more than a million years ago,

Or so it seems to me,

That I used to prance around and beau
The beautiful Annabel Lee.

There were other girls in the neighborhood
But none was a patch to she.

And this was the reason that long ago,

My love fell out of a tree,

And busted herself on a cruel rock;

A solemn sight to see,

For it spoiled the hat and gown and looks
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

We loved with a love that was lovely love,
I and my Annabel Lee,

And we went one day to gather the nuts
That men call hickoree.

And I stayed below in the rosy glow
While she shinned up the tree,
But no sooner up than down kerslup
Came the beautiful Annabel Lee.

And the pallid moon and the hectic noon
Bring gleams of dreams for me,

Of the desolate and desperate fate
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

And I often think as I sink on the brink
Of slumber's sea, of the warm pink link
That bound my soul to Annabel Lee;
And it wasn't just best for her interest
To climb that hickory tree,

For had she stayed below with me,

We'd had no hickory nuts maybe,

But I should have had my Annabel Lee.

Stanley Huntley.

HOME SWEET HOME WITH VARIATIONS

Being suggestions of the various styles in which an old theme might have been treated by certain metrical composers.

FANTASIA

I

The original theme as John Howard Payne wrote it:

'MID pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home!
A charm from the skies seems to hallow it there,
Which, seek through the world, is not met with elsewhere.

Home, home! Sweet, Sweet Home!
There's no place like Home!

An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain!
Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again!
The birds singing gaily that came at my call!

Give me them! and the peace of mind, dearer than all.

Home, home! Sweet, Sweet Home!
There's no place like Home!

Home Sweet Home with Variations

II

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(As Algernon Charles Swinburne might have wrapped it up in variations.)

('Mid pleasures and palaces-)

As sea-foam blown of the winds, as blossom of brine that is drifted

Hither and yon on the barren breast of the breeze,

Though we wander on gusts of a god's breath, shaken and

shifted,

The salt of us stings and is sore for the sobbing seas. For home's sake hungry at heart, we sicken in pillared

porches

Of bliss made sick for a life that is barren of bliss,

For the place whereon is a light out of heaven that sears not nor scorches,

Nor elsewhere than this.

(An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain-)

For here we know shall no gold thing glisten,

No bright thing burn, and no sweet thing shine;
Nor love lower never an ear to listen

To words that work in the heart like wine.
What time we are set from our land apart,
For pain of passion and hunger of heart,
Though we walk with exiles fame faints to christen,
Or sing at the Cytherean's shrine.

(Variation: An exile from home-)

Whether with him whose head

Of gods is honored,

With song made splendent in the sight of men-
Whose heart most sweetly stout,

From ravishing France cast out,

Being firstly hers, was hers most wholly then-
Or where on shining seas like wine

The dove's wings draw the drooping Erycine.