Songs of Friendship | Page 9

friend Neverfail, When he wags yer hand as honest as an old dog wags his tail!
I like to strike the man I owe the same time I can pay,?And take back things I've borried, and su'prise folks thataway; I like to find out that the man I voted fer last fall,?That didn't git elected, was a scoundrel after all;?I like the man that likes the pore and he'ps 'em when he can; I like to meet a ragged tramp 'at's still a gentleman;?But most I like--with you, my boy--our old friend Neverfail, When he wags yer hand as honest as an old dog wags his tail!
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MY BACHELOR CHUM
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,?And a wobble uncertain--as though?His little bow-legs had forgotten the pace?That in youth used to favor him so.
He is forty, at least; and the top of his head?Is a bald and a glittering thing;?And his nose and his two chubby cheeks are as red?As three rival roses in spring;
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[Illustration: His mouth is a grin with the corners tucked in]
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His mouth is a grin with the corners tucked in,?And his laugh is so breezy and bright?That it ripples his features and dimples his chin?With a billowy look of delight.
He is fond of declaring he "don't care a straw"--?That "the ills of a bachelor's life?Are blisses, compared with a mother-in-law?And a boarding-school miss for a wife!"?So he smokes and he drinks, and he jokes and he winks,?And he dines and he wines, all alone,?With a thumb ever ready to snap as he thinks?Of the comforts he never has known.
But up in his den--(Ah, my bachelor chum!)--?I have sat with him there in the gloom,?When the laugh of his lips died away to become?But a phantom of mirth in the room.?And to look on him there you would love him, for all?His ridiculous ways, and be dumb?As the little girl-face that smiles down from the wall?On the tears of my bachelor chum.
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[Illustration: Art and poetry--headpiece]
ART AND POETRY
TO HOMER DAVENPORT
Wess he says, and sort o' grins,?"Art and Poetry is twins!
"Yit, if I'd my pick, I'd shake?Poetry, and no mistake!
"Pictures, allus, 'peared to _me_,?Clean laid over Poetry!
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"Let me _draw_, and then, i jings,?I'll not keer a straw who sings.
"'F I could draw as you have drew,?Like to jes' swop pens with you!
"Picture-drawin' 's my pet vision?Of Life-work in Lands Elysian.
"Pictures is first language we?Find hacked out in History.
"Most delight we ever took?Was in our first Picture-book.
"'Thout the funny picture-makers,?They'd be lots more undertakers!
"Still, as I say, Rhymes and Art?'Smighty hard to tell apart.
"Songs and pictures go together?Same as birds and summer weather."
So Wess says, and sort o' grins,?"Art and Poetry is twins."
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[Illustration: Down to the Capital--headpiece]
DOWN TO THE CAPITAL
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 Don't wear their pants in pairs at all--and yit how proud we are!
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Old Flukens, from our deestrick, jes' turned in and tuck and made Me stay with him whilse I was there; and longer 'at I stayed The more I kep' a-wantin' jes' to kind o' git away,?And yit a-feelin' sociabler with Flukens ever' day.
You see I'd got the idy--and I guess most folks agrees--?'At men as rich as him, you know, kin do jes' what they please; A man worth stacks o' money, and a Congerssman and all,?And livin' in a buildin' bigger'n Masonic Hall!
Now mind, I'm not a-faultin' Fluke--he made his money square: We both was Forty-niners, and both bu'sted gittin' there; I weakened and onwindlassed, and he stuck and stayed and made His millions; don't know what _I'm_ worth untel my pension's paid.
But I was goin' to tell you--er a-ruther goin' to try?To tell you how he's livin' now: gas burnin' mighty nigh?In ever' room about the house; and ever' night, about,?Some blame reception goin' on, and money goin' out.
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They's people there from all the world--jes' ever' kind 'at lives, Injuns and all! and Senators, and Ripresentatives;?And girls, you know, jes' dressed in gauze and roses, I declare, And even old men shamblin' round a-waltzin' with 'em there!
And bands a-tootin' circus-tunes, 'way in some other room Jes' chokin' full o' hothouse plants and pinies and perfume; And fountains, squirtin' stiddy all the time; and statutes, made Out o' puore marble, 'peared-like, sneakin' round there in the shade.
And Fluke he coaxed and begged and pled with me to take a hand And sashay in amongst 'em--crutch and all, you understand; But when I said how tired I was, and made fer open air,?He follered, and tel five o'clock we set