But still my heart is not “with anguish torn,”
And life with me is one continued racket.
Whene’er the captain sends me with a boat,
The seamen know an idiot has got ‘em;
They make their wills and are prepared to die,
Quite certain they are going to the bottom.
But what care I! For when I go ashore,
In uniform with buttons bright and shining,
The girls all cluster ‘round me to adore,
And lots of ‘em for love of me are pining.
I strut and dance, and fool my life away;
I’m nautical in past and future tenses!
Long as I know an ocean from a bay,
I’ll shy the rest, and take the consequences.
I’m the dearest, I’m the sweetest little mid
That ever graced the tail-end of his classes,
And through a four years’ course of study slid,
First am I in the list of Nature’s—donkeys!
—_Scribner’s Magazine Bric-a-Brac, 1881._
INDIGNANT POLLY WOG.
BY MARGARET EYTINGE.
A tree-toad dressed in apple-green
Sat on a mossy log
Beside a pond, and shrilly sang,
“Come forth, my Polly Wog—
My Pol, my Ly,—my Wog,
My pretty Polly Wog,
I’ve something very sweet to say,
My slender Polly Wog!
“The air is moist, the moon is hid
Behind a heavy fog;
No stars are out to wink and blink
At you, my Polly Wog—
My Pol, my Ly—my Wog,
My graceful Polly Wog;
Oh, tarry not, beloved one!
My precious Polly Wog!”
Just then away went clouds, and there
A sitting on the log—
The other end I mean—the moon
Showed angry Polly Wog.
Her small eyes flashed, she swelled until
She looked almost a frog;
“How
“Your
“Why, one would think you’d spent your life
In some low, muddy bog.
I’d have you know—to
My name’s Miss Mary Wog.”
One wild, wild laugh that tree-toad gave,
And tumbled off the log,
And on the ground he kicked and screamed,
“Oh, Mary, Mary Wog.
Oh, May! oh, Ry—oh, Wog!
Oh, proud Miss Mary Wog!
Oh, goodness gracious! what a joke!
Hurrah for Mary Wog!”
“KISS PRETTY POLL!”
BY MARY D. BRINE.
“Kiss Pretty Poll!” the parrot screamed,
