Puck — May 1877 — page 5: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

PUCK. AT SUNSET—A POEM; WITH SOME PROSAIC REFLECTIONS BY THE AUTHOR. HE Summer's sun sinks down in royal 3 splendor . Upon a bed of gold and amethyst; ‘The rustling leaves make music soft and tender; ‘The day's fair face by sombre night is kissed, At which the modest West turns deeply crimson, And—(That will wash, but let me stop in time; I've ended with that dissyllabic “crimson,” ‘And where in thunder shall I find its rhyme?) ‘The song of birds is hushed, and restful quiet Broods over all the land. No more is heard ‘The busy hum of Labor's righteous riot, Which all the pulses of the day hath stirred. (That figure is a trifle stretched, no matter.) I love this peaceful hour, (yes, that’s true, For creditors call rarely after sunset, The time at which they’d surely get their dew!) Now rest the lowing kine. (I sometimes wonder Why “cows” are never introduced in rhyme.) The skies above me and the fresh fields under Are full of beauty, and this hallowed time Brings sweet repose to quench the day’s desires, To slake the thirst, (that metaphor, I fear, Will rouse a craving for a sherry-cobbler, And turn my thoughts from poesy to beer.) ‘The twilight deepens, and the moon, uprising, Sheds beauty over all the slumb'rous scene, Her spectral light the trees and fields baptizing In radiance soft, as in a silver sheen. Now stars come forth, like glittering gems be- decking ‘The sombre mantle which Night 'round her flings— (It strikes me that the people up in Saturn, Must have good cause to grumble over rings!) So calm, so comforting the scene around me, Why is my soul with tortuous thought op- pressed ? Has Memory, the fiend, forever bound me, And may I feel no more the angel Rest? Another night like this, in years forgotten, I stood up gazing at the skies—ah, then The golden dream of Love turned earth to heaven, And rosy Hope (well, there, I’m stuck again!) No more I feel the charm of gracious Summer, For love, once false, my very soul hath smitten— (She left me for a Boston dry-goods drummer, Who gave her gloves, as she gave me the mitten.) That she should barter love for gold and silver! So beautiful, yet with a heart of stone— (The fellow who can find a thyme for “silver” May end these lines, and claim ’em as his own.) . Marc E. Cook. PUCK’S PERSONAL INTELLIGENCE. DAM, the inventor of sin, died before the war. He left a large family. Onions are good for a bad breath. Two fresh onions, eaten just before going to an evening sociable, are sufficient. Dangling from Anna Dickinson's chatelaine belt are the scalps of half-a-dozen critics. George Washington never umpired a game of base-ball, never sat on store-boxes discussing the Louisiana question, and his education was deficient in other respects. Toad-stools are not made by toads, and there is room for improvement in mushrooms. Very few people eat salt on ice-cream. cream spoils the salt. The President Hayes never retires later than 3 A. M., as a general thing. By a curious coincidence, the distance from New York to Boston is just the same as from Boston to New York—if you go both ways by rail. Mr. Tweed, of whom some of our readers may have heard, says, ‘Eternal confession is the price of liberty.” When you strike a match, and it sputters and goes out, always put it back in the safe. ‘The next fellow that gets hold of it will feel good, and swear. Oakey Hall's favorite songs are: “Do they Miss me at Home?” ‘Over There.” ‘The hog-harvest in Chicago has closed. ‘The crop is said to have “ rooted” well. The easiest way to dig garden is to sit in the shade and watch a hired-man doing the work for seventy-five cents a day. Packard of New Orleans is the happiest man in Louisiana. You wouldn’t think so, though, to hear him talk. Dr. Mary Walker says, if she were a woman, she would split her pants in half and make her- self two eelskin-fitting dresses, such as are now worn by the softer sex. i The Sun's readers are patiently waiting for Dana to allude to Hayes as the “ Fraudulent President.” It is unhealthy.to eat R’s in a month that doesn’t contain an oyster—or some how that way. We are told that the days are growing longer. This is important, if true. Vinegar, mustard and oil make a good dressing; but it’s just as well to stick to flannels, until the summer sets in. Unripe fruit may be eaten with impunity by patients in the last stages of hydrophobia. Great interest is felt in the movements of the ground-hog. He prophesies for this summer considerable mixed weather. There will pro- bably be some rain, except during the dry spells. Spring trousers will be worn this season cut bias, with tulle or illusion ruches down the front, and cretonne gorings up the back box-pleat; two or more flounces in front, and a barége demi-train over the left corner. The Coaching Club expects to turn out a large number of equipages this season. Colonel Kane has started out first to keep Tally ho-w many are coming. Stewed Spitz cats and kittens are served with kerosene sauce. ‘The Fijians bake their aged parentsalive, and when a young Fijian comes home tight after supping off an enemy who has died from jim- jams, the old man isn’t on hand next morning to bounce him over his buckwheat cakes. Now is the time to put your holy wintersocks in the rag-bag, to use your thick tattered under- shirts as dusters, and buy gauze ones. Toe-nails are cut bias; corns are often cut by asses. A postage-stamp over the eyebrow is con- sidered, according to Stanley, full-dress at Ujiji. Red blankets trimmed with grasshoppers’ tongues are adored by boa-constrictors. Victoria is Queen of England. La(r)ger Beer can be bought at five cents a glass. We don’t know the price of smaller beer. Secretary Evarts has a strawberry mark on the O. P. side of his elbow. Plucky Jimmy, the eminent cracksman, is at the Tombs Hotel. If the baby cries at night, have its cot near, give it a chew of tobacco; that is a n’ar-cotic. Alexis and Admiral Boutakoff drink nothing but train oil for breakfast. Mr. Hayes drinks cold water. Mustard plasters are very good for intestinal derangements, and if taken with lemon-juice, the taste is completely disguised. FITZNOODLE IN NEW YORK. Vil. SPRING AND THE “TALLY HO.” Some of the fel- laws say that I'm becoming wegular- ly Amewicanized. I don’t see it my- y, self, but a fellaw can never see him- self so well as an- other fellaw can see him. BesidesI wather think it’s a mistake to say I look or act like an Amewican, The fellaws who make such wemarks want me, I suppose, to say they look like Englishmen, and I can’t find any wesem- blance, so I wefwain fwom weturning such vewy twanspawent compliments. I am not such a widiculous fool as I look. Amewica is quite an enduwable countwy after all, and I begin to like it a twifle, although there are so many devilish queer things in this wepublic. Evewybody is talking about Spwing, which has just put in an appearwance, and I hear a gweat deal about summer-wesorts and wetweats, places people go to when it’s vewy warm. There is a four-in-hand club here, and some tolerwably decent and appawently wespect- able fellaws with fair turnouts and cattle. They must be fellaws who have twaveled, because if they hadn’t been to London, they couldn’t have dweamt of having such jolly things as four-in-hands. One fellaw dwives a coach evewy day to a place called New Wochelle, just as my Uncle Waglan used to tool his Gweys to Bwighton. (I mean Bwighton in Gweat Bwi- tain, in case there might be a Bwighton here.) Some fwiends asked me to take the twip with them, and the dwiver, a fellaw named Kane, I believe he is a colonel, although I don’t know in what wegiment of the Amewican twoops, whether cavalwy, infantwy or artillewy. Evewy other fellaw is a militawy fellaw; I mean officers, of course; I don’t think there are any pwivates. Jack Carnegie refused to go, and said he thought it wather a piece of snobberwy for Amewican fellaws to dwive English stage-coaches in Amewica; and to twy to be like English fel- laws, was tomfoolerwy. I don’t agwee with Jack, for no fellaw ever twied to look like me, and if he did, it would be doosid gwatifying; for some fellaw used to say, ‘flatterwy was the sincerwest imitation.” ‘There was a cwowd at an inn called the ‘“ Bwunswick,” and seven tolerwably pwetty looking women, and four or five wather wespectably dwessed fellaws, for Amewicans, and our party. This Kane, the dwiver, is not a bad whip, and we dwove <P. Fifth avenue in quite decent style, then thwou, Centwal Park to Pelham and New Wochelle, where I had some “stout-and-bitter,” and other wefweshments. I felt wather bawed before we weturned. I’m afwaid I wasn’t vewy bwilliant in conversation. Perhaps Jack is not wong about this coaching in Amewica. A good deal of the countwy looks like wemote lanes in Wawickshire, with vewy few twees, and vewy many wocks and stones, and a gweat number of the wesidences on. the woad wesemble bwoken-down stables. I was obliged to gwin at a fellaw who hadn’t any Amewican silver to tip the dwiver and guard (the corwect thing to do), and gave them waggid pieces of paper which I am told used to be called “fwactional curwency.” I wish fellaws wouldn’t keep asking a fellaw if he doesn’t pwefer Amewica to Gweat Bwitain—it’s a baw. Crue treatment of the aged. Dr. Holmes has written a poem on his grandmother’s mother. Comicbooks.com