And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,

And give her to the god of storms,

The lightning and the gale!

Oliver Wendell Holmes

JIM BLUDSO, OF THE PRAIRIE BELLE

Wall, no! I can't tell whar he lives,
Becase he don't live, you see;
Leastways, he's got out of the habit

Of livin' like you and me.

Whar have you been for the last three year

That you haven't heard folks tell

How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks
The night of the Prairie Belle?

He weren't no saint,

them engineers

Is all pretty much alike,

One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill
And another one here, in Pike;
A keerless man in his talk, was Jim,
And an awkward hand in a row,
But he never flunked, and he never lied, -
I reckon he never knowed how

And this was all the religion he had,

To treat his engine well;

Never be passed on the river;

To mind the pilot's bell;

And if ever the Prairie Belle took fire,

A thousand times he swore,

He'd hold her nozzle agin the bank
Till the last soul got ashore.

All boats has their day on the Mississip,
And her day come at last,

The Movastar was a better boat,

But the Belle she wouldn't be passed.
And so she come tearin' along that night -
The oldest craft on the line-

With a nigger squat on her safety-valve,
And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine.

The fire bust out as she clared the bar,
And burnt a hole in the night,

And quick as a flash she turned, and made
For that willer-bank on the right.

There was runnin' and cursin', but Jim yelled out,

Over all the infernal roar,

"I'll hold her nozzle agin the bank

Till the last galoot's ashore."

Through the hot, black breath of the burnin' boat
Jim Bludso's voice was heard,

And they all had trust in his cussedness,
And knowed he would keep his word.
And, sure's you're born, they all got off
Afore the smokestacks fell,-
And Bludso's ghost went up alone
In the smoke of the Prairie Belle.

He weren't no saint, - but at jedgment
I'd run my chance with Jim,

'Longside of some pious gentlemen
That wouldn't shook hands with him.
He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing,
And went for it thar and then;
And Christ ain't a going to be too hard
On a man that died for men.

- John Hay

KITTY OF COLERAINE

As beautiful Kitty one morning was tripping,
With a pitcher of milk, from the fair of Coleraine,
When she saw me she stumbled, the pitcher down tumbled,
And all the sweet buttermilk watered the plain.

"Oh! what shall I do now - 't was looking at you, now; Sure, sure, such a pitcher I'll ne'er meet again! 'T was the pride of my dairy! Oh! Barney MacCleary, You're sent as a plague to the girls of Coleraine."

I sat down beside her, and gently did chide her,
That such a misfortune should give her such pain;
A kiss then I gave her, and, ere I did leave her,
She vowed for such pleasure she'd break it again.

"T was hay-making season - I can't tell the reason -
Misfortunes will never come single, 't is plain;
For very soon after poor Kitty's disaster

The devil a pitcher was whole in Coleraine.

- Charles Dawson Shanly

RONDEAU

Jenny kiss'd me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get

Sweets into your list put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,

Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,

ON A FAVORITE CAT, DROWNED IN A TUB OF GOLD FISHES

'T was on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dyed

The azure flowers that blow,
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared:
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,

Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes -
She saw, and purr'd applause.

Still had she gazed, but 'midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The Genii of the stream:

Their scaly armor's Tyrian hue

Through richest purple, to the view
Betray'd a golden gleam.

The hapless Nymph with wonder saw:
A whisker first, and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish

She stretch'd, in vain, to reach the prize —
What female heart can gold despise?
What Cat's averse to fish?

Presumptuous maid! with looks intent
Again she stretch'd, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between
Malignant Fate sat by and smiled-
The slippery verge her feet beguiled;
She tumbled headlong in!

Eight times emerging from the flood
She mew'd to every watery god,
Some speedy aid to send: -

No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirr'd,
Nor cruel Tom nor Susan heard
A favorite has no friend!

From hence, ye Beauties! undeceived,
Know, one false step is ne'er retrieved,
And be with caution bold:

Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize,
Nor all that glisters, gold!

Thomas Gray