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This verdant field that smiles to Heaven
In Nature's bright array,
From common uses set apart,
We consecrate to-day.

"God's Acre" be it fitly called,
For when, beneath the sod,...

My Charlie has gone to the war,
My Charlie so brave and tall;
He left his plough in the furrow,
And flew at his country's call.
May God in safety keep him,--
My precious boy--my all!
...

Underneath protected branches, from the highway just aloof;
Stands the house of Grand'ther Baldwin, with its gently sloping roof.

Square of shape and solid-timbered, it was standing, I have heard,...

"What else do we live for in this world beside?"

Alas! 't is the question of ten times a day,
That comes on the wind, or that floats on the tide,
And creeps in the houses where men go to pray.
...

What else do they live for? They live but for this;
And nothing but this ever troubles their thinking;
Rich eating, rich dressing, and flirting's their bliss,
And life's better purposes constantly blinking.
...

Now heaven in mercy be kind to the wretch,
Who marries for money or fashion or folly;
He'd better accept of the noose of Jack Ketch
Than such a "help-meet;" or at once marry Dolly...

And now by your leave I will try to expound it,
In truth as it is and the way that I found it.

My dinner, sometimes, like things transcendental
And things more substantial, like women and wine...

Now Merdle this day having toss'd with his horns
The bears that were pulling so hard at the stocks,
And gored every bull that was treading his corns,
Had lined all his pockets with "plenty of rocks,"...

So while we are eating the fruits of the vine,
Don't let us forget such a health giving juice,
As Champagne, or Sherbet, or other good wine,
Nor sin by neglecting its 'temperate use.'
...

No matter how costly or flimsy her dresses,
The angel you honor with your kind attentions;
No matter how foolish her wardrobe inventions,
You love her, or say so, from slipper to tresses;...

Now Colonel, to husband you need not be winking,
While wiping the soup with a smile from your lips;
I know just as well as he does how you're thinking
The soup is as tasteless as though made of chips.
...

With prices outrageous they charge now for meat,
And servants so worthless are every day growing,
I wonder we get half enough now to eat,
And shouldn't if 't want for the fact of my going...

"Impatient--oh yes--just the way with you men!

I never have time to half finish my eating
Ere Merdle is done; such a fidget is then,
He'd starve me I think rather 'n miss of a meeting...

Come, John, Jane, and Susan, the soup take away,
And bring in the turbot, the sheep's head and bass;
And have you got lobster and salad to-day?
And see that the celery's all right in the glass.
...

"Now Merdle--now Colonel--I know you are waiting.
And thinking my talking to eating's a bar,
Still hoping, by tasting, my appetite sating,
Will give you the license to smoke a cigar.
...

By the Author of "Nothing to Wear"

"I'll nibble a little at what I have got."

--"My appetite's none of the best.
And so I must pamper the delicate thing."

--The least mite will suffice:...

Though famine prevails not at all in the city;
Though none of starvation have died in the street;
Yet many there are now exciting our pity,
Who're daily complaining of nothing to eat.
...

Thirty years have come and gone,
Melting away like Southern Snows,
Since, in the light of a summer's night,
I went to the garden to seek my Rose.

Mine! Do you hear it, silver moon,...

An old frog lived in a dismal swamp,
In a dismal kind of way;
And all that he did, whatever befell,
Was to croak the livelong day.
Croak, croak, croak,
When darkness filled the air,...

One autumn day, when hedges yet were green,
And thick-branched trees diffused a leafy gloom,
Hard by where Avon rolls its silvery tide,
I stood in silent thought by Shakspeare's tomb.
...