I am the poet of fillibusters, the poet of Kinney ; *
But I do not refuse to be the poet of Walker also.
Yes, I am the poet of Kinney and of Walker, you may bet
your life on it.

I could go to Nicaraqua and loll in my hammock,

I could go to a fandango and dance with negro beauties until I perspired very much,

Yes, sir-ee, I could indeed, and double !

I could eat tortillas and mark the dark-eyed quadroons making frijoles the greater part of the afternoon, Well, I could.

I could fillibust the government, and make myself president,

And form a cabinet,

And do several things of that sort :

I could do nothing shorter ! †

I could also colonize and do some agriculture,

And fix the flints of the natives, ‡

And help my countrymen to go in for their chances,

And make the King of the Musquitoes clean my boots,
And make him dance a reel for my enjoyment;
And I could come all sorts of gum games, §
Now mind I tell you.

The following are extracts from a very long parody which occurs in a curious book entitled "The Fate of Mansfield Humphreys," by Richard Grant White. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1884. An edition of this work was also published by Sampson, Low & Co., London.

I HAPPILY myself.

I am considerable of a man. I am some. You also are some. We are all considerable, all are some.

Put all of you and all of me together, and agitate our particles by rubbing us up into eternal smash, and we should still be some.

No more than some, but no less.

Particularly some, some particularly, some in general, generally some, but always some, without mitigation. Distinctly, some!

O ensemble! O quelque-chose!
Some punkins, perhaps ;

But perhaps squash, || long necked squash, crooked-necked squash, cucumber, beets, parsnips, carrots, turnips, white turnips, yellow turnips, or any sort of sass,¶

* Kinney and Walker were two leaders of the "fillibusters" who went "piratifying to extend the area of freedom" in Central America in 1855-60. Walker was shot, as he richly deserved, by the Honduras folks in 1860. He lived in San Francisco, 1850-55, and the southerners there (they are quite numerous and are called the "chivs," from chivalry), are still noticeably inclined to think his views were not far wrong.

Nothing shorter. A circumlocutive intended to strengthen an assertion by means of affirming something through the exclusion of everything else. A similar form of speech is to say, when asked if you will do something, to say “I won't do anything else."

To fix one's flint: i.e., to do for him; to settle his hash; to cook his goose; to wind up his worsted.

§ A gum game: i.e., a swindle, fraudulent transaction, or imposition.

Squash, a vegetable resembling a small pumpkin, tasting like vegetable marrow,

¶ Sass. A New England term for vegetables for the table, known collectively as garden sass (or sarse). "Long

sass is applied to long vegetables, such as carrots and radishes, and "short sass to round ones.

Libertad, and the divine average !

I tell you the truth, Salut!

I am not to be bluffed off. No, sir!

I am large, hairy, earthy, smell of the soil, am big in the shoulders, narrow in the flank, strong in the knees, and of an inquiring and communicative disposition. Also instructive in my propensities, given to contemplation; And able to lift anything that is not too heavy. Listen to me, and I will do you good. Loafe with me, and I will do you better.

And if any man gets ahead of me, he will find me after him. VALE !

WHO am I?

I HAVE been reading Walt Whitman, and know not whether he be me, or me he ;

Or otherwise!

Oh, blue skies! oh, rugged mountains! oh, mighty, rolling Niagara !

Oh, chaos and everlasting bosh!

I am a poet; I swear it! If you do not believe it you are a dolt, a fool, an idiot!

Milton, Shakespere, Dante, Tommy Moore, Pope, never, but Byron, too, perhaps, and last, not least, Me, and the Poet Close.

We send our resonance echoing down the adamantine canons of the future!

We live for ever! The worms who criticise us (asses!) laugh, scoff, jeer and babble-die!

Serve them right.

What is the difference between Judy, the pride of Fleet Street, the glory of Shoe Lane, and Walt Whitman? Start not! 'Tis no end man of a minstrel show who perpends this query;

'Tis no brain-racking puzzle from an inner page of the Family Herald;

No charade, acrostic (double or single), conundrum, riddle, rebus, anagram or other guess-work.

I answer thus: We both write truths-great, stern, solemn, unquenchable truths-couched in more or less ridiculous language.

I, as a rule use rhyme, he does not; therefore, I am his Superior (which is also a lake in his great and glorious country.)

I scorn, with the unutterable scorn of the despiser of pettiness, to take a mean advantage of him.

He writes, he sells, he is read (more or less); why then should I rack my brains and my rhyming dictionary? I will see the public hanged first!

I sing of America, of the United States, of the stars and

stripes, of Oskhosh, of Kalamazoo, and of Salt Lake City.

I sing of the railroad cars, of the hotels, of the breakfasts, the lunches, the dinners, and the suppers;

Of the soup, the fish, the entrèes, the joints, the game, the puddings and the ice-cream.

I sing all-I eat all-I sing in turn of Dr. Bluffem's Anti

bilious Pills.

No subject is too small, too insignificant, for Nature's poet. I sing of the cocktail, a new song for every cocktail, hundreds of songs, hundreds of cocktails.

It is a great and a glorious land! The Mississippi, the Missouri, and a million other torrents roll their waters to the ocean.

It is a great and a glorious land! The Alleghanies, the Catskills, the Rockies (see atlas for other mountain ranges too numerous to mention) pierce the clouds ! And the greatest and most glorious product of this great and glorious land is Walt Whitman ;

This must be so, for he says it himself.

There is but one greater than he between the rising and the setting sun.

There is but one before whom he meekly bows his humbled head.

Oh, great and glorious land, teeming producer of all things, creator of Niagara, and inventor of Walt Whitman. Erase your national advertisements of liver pads and cures for rheumatism from your public monuments, and inscribe thereon in letters of gold the name of Judy. Judy. December 10, 1884.

WHITMAN IN LONDON,

OH, site of Coldbath Fields Prison !

Oh, eight and three-quarter acres of potential Park for the plebs ;

I

gaze at you; I, Walt, gaze at you through cracks in the black hoarding,

Though the helmeted blue-coated Bobby dilates to me on the advantages of moving on.

I marvel at the stupidity of Authorities everywhere.

I stand and inhale a playground, which in a week or two will be turned into a Post Office by Government orders!

Instead of plants growing here, bricks will be planted. Instead of girlhood, boyhood playing here, cash will be counted, stamps will be affixed (savagely) by the public, and letters weighed when the young women have time, and also inclination, to do so.

I, from the wild Western Continent, wilder myself, weep for this Park soon to be devoured.

I am like a buck-jumper: I buck at it.

I am like the Giant Cowboy: only I am not gigantic, and I am cowed by it.

Oh, Northerly end of Farringdon Street!

Oh, Coldbath

Fields Square! Oh, dwellers in all the adjacent slums and rookeries, redolent of old clothes' shops, swarthy Italian organ-grinders, and the superannuated herring. Are you going to see another House of Correction-a Postal one-built where the old one stood?

If so, it is I who correct you: I, who am so correct myself!

And you, too, Clerkenwell Gaol!

What are the dodrotted Authorities going to do with you? Eh? Clear you away, and build a Board School there? But why build anything?

Clerkenwell is mine: I am à propos of Clerkenwell : Clerkenwell is à propos of me.

Morally, if not legally, it is mine; morally it is yours as well, you wizened, pallid, blue-nozed, dunderheaded Metropolitan Citizen!

In this jungle of houses, what is wanted is fresh air. Everyone of you toilers should be given the real "Freedom of the City," by having free spaces bestowed on you. It is better to learn how to expand the limbs, and play rounders, and leap over the frog, and fly kites, Than to acquire in a school-room elementary education, ccnsisting of algebra and Assyrian hieroglyphics, spelling, Greek, Italian, and advanced trigonometry. Allons, then! Esperanza! Also cui bono! Go to your Home Secretary, your Postmaster in General, and tell them that no Post Office, or School, shall be built on this spot.

Because I, Walt, hailing hoarsely from Manhattan, have spotted it,

And Punch, the lustrous camerado, the ineffable dispensator, will spot it too!

Punch. September 3, 1887.

A PENSION FOR WALT WHITMAN.

A prosaic bill, drawn up in the tiresome form of such measures, was introduced into the United States Congress in 1887, to give Walt Whitman a pension. He was a hospital nurse in the war, and earned such a recognition.

When the bill reaches the Senate, however, says the Boston Record, Senator Blair or some other poet, ought to substitute a bill couched in Whitmanese, somewhat as follows:

"BE it enacted, solidified, plastered, pasted, nailed, tied, hem-stitched, and generally made invulnerable,

That Walt Whitman, bard, slinger of pronouns, server of mixed drinks in the form of verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs,

Be granted, allowed, made to swallow, consume, and digest the sum of dollars, ducats, promises to pay hereinafter mentioned, said, sung, and cast up."

ST. SMITH OF UTAH (A.D. 1844.)

A SONG of the Far West,

A song of the Great Salt Lake, of Utah, Nauvoo, Jackson County, and the new Jerusalem.

Listen, individuals, communities, sects, nations;

I am (for this occasion only) a Transatlantic bard, None of your smooth court-poets of worn-out Euròpian monarchies,

But a bird of the backwoods--a loud-throated warbler of the forest ;

My inspiration is the breath of the boundless prairie; my mental food is the roll of the raging Atlantic. Rhyme? I scorn it. Metre?-Snakes and alligators! what is that to ME?

Libertad for ever! I intend to sing anyhow-and all-how, just as I tarnation please.

Universe, are you listening? very well, then; here goes, right away.

SMITH !!!!

Smith the Apostle ! ! !
Smith the Evangelist !!

Smith the Discoverer of the Book of Mormon !

His name was Joseph, and he was raised at Sharon, Windsor, County Vermont, U.S.

His parents were tillers of the soil-poor, but dishonest, When they wanted money, they took it; horses, they boned

them; sheep, they annexed them;

But saints may spring from sinners, as a butterfly springs from a maggot.

Angels heavenly visions !!

In white robes, with crowns, harps, and everything according,

Bless'd the youthful Smith with their presence beatific.

He went into solitude, loafing in caves, backwoods, and lonely canyons.

Those angels meant business; thrice in one night they sought him.

They told him all his sins were liquidated,

Told him the history of the world (not according to Moses), Told him the Red Injuns was one of the lost tribes of Israel; Told him where to find the sacred book of the Prophet Mormon,

Told him to bring it out, and make a good "spec" of the business.

Getting behind a screen, he dictated to Oliver Cowdrey (Smith was not a literatus, and couldn't have jerk'd it grammatically).

In eighteen-thirty, hurrah! the glorious Book was publish'd. But carping critics of orthodoxy murmured "fraud !" and "humbug!"

"Where's your authority? Show us the original !" Smith disdained to do so; he and his friends had seen it, But nobody else has seen it, nor will they see it forever. Yet did Smith triumph, and gathered in converts like hay in the sunshine.

Virtue will ever prevail, as long as the world circumvolvulates on its axis.

O, Nauvoo, city of Beauty!

Land of delight, fertility, promise, and blossoming realizations !

When I beheld thee my soul was enthrall'd, and danced a spirited can-can.

Thither came 15.000 saints, and squatted in glory,

And the desert blossom'd as the rose, beneath the smile of Smith.

He preach'd the gospel, and got up a government-house and militia,

Was mayor of the town, high priest, and commander-inchief of the army;

O, gloria! triumph! bravo! hosannah! huzza! halleluiah! (These are the words of a soul jumping out of its skin with felicity.)

move against the intruder in overwhelming force. The movement was a surprise. Sheridan had been absent at Washington, and he was returning to his post, when he met the whole army running towards him in panic and rout. Then began the famous "ride" from Winchester to the front. Deploying his cavalry across the valley to stop the first stragglers, he dashed forward with a handful of men right through his own beaten force towards the victorious foe. As he met each flying regiment he ordered the men to turn about, reminding them that, while they were making excellent progress, they were "going the wrong way.' His desperate energy, and his bon mot together, saved the battle, and turned the rout into a victory.

General Philip Sheridan was born in Ireland, in March, 1831, and died at Nonquit, Massachusetts, on Sunday, August 5, 1888.

UP from the south at break of day,
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,
The affrighted air with a shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain's door,
The terrible grumble and rumble and roar,
Telling the battle was on once more-

And Sheridan twenty miles away!
And wilder still those billows of war,
Thundered along the horizon's bar;
And louder yet into Winchester rolled
The roar of that red sea uncontrolled,
Making the blood of the listener cold-
As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray,
With Sheridan twenty miles away!

But there is a road from Winchester town,

A good, broad highway leading down;

And there, through the flash of the morning light,
A steed as black as the steeds of night,
Was seen to pass as with eagle flight;
As if he knew the terrible need,

He stretched away with the utmost speed;
Hills rose and fell-but his heart was gay,
With Sheridan fifteen miles away

Still spring from these swift hoofs thundering south.
The dust, like the smoke from the cannon's mouth,
Or the trail of a comet sweeping faster and faster ;
Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster:
The heart of the steed and the heart of the master,
Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls,
Impatient to be where the battle-field calls:
Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play,
With Sheridan only ten miles away!

Under his spurning feet, the road
Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed;
And the landscape sped away behind
Like an ocean flying before the wind;

And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace ire,
Swept on with his wild eyes full of fire:
But, lo! he is nearing his heart's desire—
He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray,
With Sheridan only five miles away!

The first that the General saw, were the groups
Of stragglers, and then, the retreating troops!
What was done-what to do-a glance told him both,
And striking his spurs with a terrible oath,
He dashed down the line 'mid a storm of huzzahs,
And the wave of retreat checked its course there,
Because the sight of the master compelled it to pause,

With foam and with dust the black charger was grey :

By the flash of his eye, and his red nostril's play,
He seemed to the whole great army to say,
"I have brought you Sheridan, all the way
From Winchester down to save the day !"

Hurrah! Hurrah! for Sheridan !
Hurrah, hurrah for horse and man!
And when their statues are placed on high
Under the dome of the Union sky,

The American soldier's Temple of Fame,-
There with the glorious general's name,
Be it said in letters both gold and bright:
"Here is the steed that saved the day
By carrying Sheridan into the fight,
From Winchester-twenty miles away!"

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

SCHLOSSER'S RIDE.

RIGHD from der front one putiful day,
Bringin' der rear some fresh dismay,
A frightened sendinel broughd der news
(He looked as if he vas scared like der doose,
Der vay he kigged his legs so loose).
Delling der rebels were coming aheadt,
"Und shooding like hell," dot's vot he said.
De gallant soldiers, I haf no doubd,

Ad dis schweed news mid joy should shoud,

Bud as der news vas spread aboud,

Do dell der druth, dey looked down in der moud;
Exbecially von boor Dutchman dere,

Who, when he heard der guns in der air,
Almost did durn himself gray hair.
Pore Schlosser didn't like id ad all,
Do gid himself gud mit a cannon-ball.

Und dalk as you may, dot Dutchman vas righd-
In a baddle its petter do bin oud of sighd;

Do been shod und exploded dot ain't much fun,
So long as you hafe any chance for do run,
Und as dose shells did bust around,
Und knocked der soldiers on der ground,
Exbloding mit a gentle sound,

Dot Schlosser quick made ub his mind,
De first goot horse dot he should find,
He'd ride avay as quick as der vind,
Und leaf de baddle far behint.

Und soon he finds him a schblendid horse,
Und climbs on him midoud some pause;
Den shburs his side mid his big heel,
Und gallobs from der battle-fieid.
Dere is a road righd near dot schbot,
A first-rate road for a horse do drot,
Und dere dot frightened Schlosser rides,
Und kigs der poor horse in der sides,
Und shcreams so much at him besides ;
Der drees, der road dey bass like a schot.
Fadigue and exposure dot cubble feel not,
Dey vish do get only avay from dot schbot.
Doo-forty dot hot horse he goes flyin' avay;
Der hills rise and fall, und Schlosser is gay,
'Cause he is more as fife miles avay.
Shdill der hoofs of dot old nag
For efen a minute did never lag;
He shtrained him efery sdhrength he got,
Und Schlosser, as he on him sot,
Vas heard to laugh in a cholly vay,
'Cause now he vas ten miles avay.

Und sdhill old Schlosser pushed him aheadt,

"I feel quite bedder now," he said,
Und his face god back ids natural red;
But nod a minute did he stay,

Und soon he was dwenty miles avay.
So goot dot horse his duty done,
Dot pefore der setting of der sun,
He carried his rider-dat son of a gun-
Away from der sount of any gun.
Und ven dot baddle vos at ids dop,
Und de swords mit awful noise did pop,
Und de ground mit heldy blood did sop,
Dot Schlosser as he rode along,
He singed himself a funny song.

He vasn'd dinkin' 'boud der fray-
He vas more as a hundred miles avay,

Dree cheers! dree cheers! for Schlosser, bold.
Four cheers! four cheers! for dot horse so old.

There is another parody, also in the Dutch patois, entitled Schneider's Ride, it relates how Schneider saved his contraband whiskey from the revenue officers. It does not follow the original very closely, and is not of sufficient interest to be inserted here.

:0:

Read, an artist as well as a poet, first came into notice as the author of several sweet and graceful lyrics. His best poems are those which have a pastoral character, of which the following, taken from The Diversions of the Echo Club, is an imitation :

A SYLVAN SCENE.

THE moon, a reaper of the ripened stars,
Held out her silver sickle in the west;

I leaned against the shadowy pasture-bars,
A hermit, with a burden in my breast.
The lilies leaned beside me as I stood;
The lilied heifers gleamed beneath the shed;
And spirits from the high ancestral wood
Cast their articulate benisons on my head.

The twilight oriole sang her valentine

From pendulous nests above the stable-sill,
And, like a beggar, asking alms and wine,
Came the importunate murmur of the mill.
Love threw his flying shuttle through my woof,
And made the web a pattern I abhorred;
Wherefore alone I sang, and far aloof,
My melting melodies, mightier than the sword.
The white-sleeved mowers, coming slowly home,
With scythes like rainbows on their shoulders hung,
Sniffed not, in passing me, the scent of Rome,
Nor heard the music trickling from my tongue.

The milkmaid following, delayed her step,
Still singing as she left the stable-yard:

'Twas "Sheridan's Ride," she sang; I turned and wept, For woman's homage soothes the suffering bard.

SONG.

TRUST not man for he'll deceive you,

Treach'ry is his sole intent;