Donn Piatt - of Mac-o-chee, - Not the one of History, Who, with flaming tongue and pen, Scathes the vanities of men; Not the one whose biting wit Cuts pretense and etches it...
I' be'n down to the Capital at Washington, D. C., Where Congerss meets and passes on the pensions ort to be Allowed to old one-legged chaps, like me, 'at sence the war...
All seemed delighted, though the elders more, Of course, than were the children. - Thus, before Much interchange of mirthful compliment, The story-teller said his stories "went"...
For the sake of guilty conscience, and the heart that ticks the time Of the clockworks of my nature, I desire to say that I'm A weak and sinful creature, as regards my daily walk...
He called her in from me and shut the door. And she so loved the sunshine and the sky! - She loved them even better yet than I That ne'er knew dearth of them - my mother dead,...
When two little boys - renowned but for noise - Hik-tee-dik! Billy and Buddy! - May hurt a whole school, and the head it employs, Hik-tee-dik! Billy and Buddy! Such loud and hilarious pupils indeed...
How slight a thing may set one's fancy drifting Upon the dead sea of the Past! - A view - Sometimes an odor - or a rooster lifting A far-off "Ooh! ooh-ooh!"
When Dicky was sick In the night, and the clock, As he listened, said "Tick- Atty - tick-atty - tock!" He said that it said, Every time it said "Tick," It said "Sick," instead,...
Jes' a little bit o' feller - I remember still, - Ust to almost cry far Christmas, like a youngster will. Fourth o' July's nothin' to it! - New-Year's ain't a smell:...
A corpulent man is my bachelor chum, With a neck apoplectic and thick - An abdomen on him as big as a drum, And a fist big enough for the stick; With a walk that for grace is clear out of the case,...
When Little Claude was naughty wunst At dinner-time, an' said He won't say "Thank you" to his Ma, She maked him go to bed An' stay two hours an' not git up, - So when the clock struck Two,...
"If I die first," my old chum paused to say, "Mind! not a whimper of regret: - instead, Laugh and be glad, as I shall. - Being dead, I shall not lodge so very far away...
Old Indiany, 'course we know Is first, and best, and most, also, Of all the States' whole forty-four: - She's first in ever'thing, that's shore! - And best in ever'way as yet...
On the banks o' Deer Crick! There's the place fer me! - Worter slidin' past ye jes as clair as it kin be: - See yer shadder in it, and the shadder o' the sky,...
I thought the deacon liked me, yit I warn't adzackly shore of it - Fer, mind ye, time and time agin, When jiners 'ud be comin' in, I'd seed him shakin' hands as free With all the sistern as with me!...
Little Julia, since that we May not as our elders be, Let us blithely fill the days Of our youth with pleasant plays. First we'll up at earliest dawn, While as yet the dew is on...
The Beautiful City! Forever Its rapturous praises resound; We fain would behold it - but never A glimpse of its dory is found: We slacken our lips at the tender White breasts of our mothers to hear...
Bound and bordered in leaf-green, Edged with trellised buds and flowers And glad Summer-gold, with clean White and purple morning-glories Such as suit the songs and stories Of this book of ours,...
You who to the rounded prime Of a life of toil and stress, Still have kept the morning-time Of glad youth in heart and spirit, So your laugh, as children hear it, Seems their own, no less, -...