to cheer,
With all its sweets for the whole year,
And no such thing those times were seen
As the swift raising stump machine,
And where main road was low and damp
With logs he built a road through swamp,
But a smooth ride could not enjoy
While it was naught but corduroy,
Each year added earth and gravel,
Now smoothly o’er they can travel,
For it doth make an excellent road
For John and Jane to go abroad,
And it is now a great highway
Where hundreds travel every day.
There were no roads in early days
But bridle path, their guide the blaze,
And mills and marts so far away,
They never could return same day;
Log school house served as church for all,
Of various creeds, and for town hall.
These scenes to youth do now seem strange
So wondrous quick hath been the change,
O’er paths where oxen only trod,
Cows quickly speed o’er the railroad,
And every way both up and down
There has sprung up a thriving town.
No more he fights with forest trees,
But both enjoy their wealth and ease,
Long since the old folks both are gone
And left the whole to Jane and John;
The log house now has passed away
With all its chinks filled in with clay,
And in its place fine house of stone
With lawn where choice shrubs are grown.
With sons and daughters they are blest,
The young men say they’ll move Northwest;
This gives their mother some alarm,
She wants them still on the home farm,
But father will not have them tarry
They can plow so quick on prairie,
And they find coal makes a good fire,
And build their fences of barbed wire
They would not be forever gone
As they could talk by telephone.
O for a Lodge
“O for a lodge in some vast wilderness”
A man cried out in his distress,
For he was tired and sick of life,
And weary of this worldly strife,
And longed for to be far away
From the continuous daily fray.
But the fond partner of his life,
His own dearest, loving wife,
Those sentiments did not admire,
For fiercely they did rouse her ire,
Said she, I’ll never let you budge
To go and join another lodge,
Your lodges take six nights each week,
And still another lodge you seek,
For your whole time they soon will steal,
You won’t get home even to a meal,
Continuous abroad you’ll roam,
And never enter your own home.
Potato Bug Exterminators
During the summer of 1883 we were walking along past a large field of potatoes in North Oxford, where we beheld the strange spectacle of a pair of bipeds drilling their offspring to march up one potato row and down the other, so as to annihilate the enemy, who had assembled in vast armies, dressed in yellow garments, and who were committing fearful depredations on the fruits of the husbandmen, until the valuable auxilliary forces rushed to the rescue of the farmer, o’erwhelming the enemy and with one fell swoop, bringing on them consternation and ruin dire. It appears that the foe, or their progenitors, had been citizens of Colorado in the far West. And that, having conquered all before them, they sought another World to conquer here.
When we do trace out nature’s laws,
And view effects, and muse on cause,
For the future there’s great hope
If we our eyes do only ope.
With joy they will often glisten,
If to truth one doth but listen;
But people often turn deaf ear
And what is useful will not hear.
Now for a minute, lend your luggs,
Our theme, it is potato bugs.
Just buy a pair of young peafowl,
Their voice may be like to screech owl,
But soon as the potato shows
You there will find the peafowl goes,
Up one row and down the other
Like loving sister with brother.
And you will find that down their muggs
Have disappeared potato bugs,
There’s no more need of Paris green
For they will keep potatoes clean.
And faithful they will work all day,
For to them ’tis gay sport and play;
No more you need their voice bewail,
But admire beauties of the tail.
We fear to say, and yet we must,
Dried apples once were full of dust,
And you all know it is no joke.
Saturate with tobacco smoke,
And the hole where string did go through
Was nest for animalcule,
And collected the kitchen steam.
But process now is sweet and clean,
Viewed with pleasure by spectator,
Work of the evaporator.
Wars in Queen Victoria’s Reign
We will now sing in thoughtful strain
Of wars in Queen Victoria’s reign.
The Russian bear did ages lurk,
All ready for to spring on Turk,
For Russian statesmen did divine
That they should conquer Constantine,
But like a greyhound after hare
The Lion did drive back the Bear,
And made it feel the British rule
At gates of strong Sebastopol.
Then insolent was Persia,
Till Lion had to dictate law,
And while engaged in scenes like these
He was attacked by the Chinese,
And for this outrage all so wanton
He then resolved to seize on Canton.
But soon there came a dismal cry
Of slaughter’d Britons from Delhi,
The Bengal Tiger sick with gore
Did tremble at the Lion’s roar,
But Britain got a serious shock
By losing of brave Havelock,
But Campbell ’mid a numerous foe
Full quick these armed hosts did o’erthrow,
In Abyssinian dungeons vile
Lay captives of Great Britain’s isle,
But soon the tyrant Theodore
Lay sadly weltering in his gore.
The savage tribes of Ashantee
From British troops did quickly flee,
In Afghan and Zulu wars
Many did find their deadly scars;
In the land of the Pharaohs
The Christians suffered cruel woes,
Till in Alexandria Bay
The British iron clads did display,
The mighty power they did wield,
While their steel sides from harm did shield,
And British army on the land
Marched bravely o’er the burning sand,
And Arabi found ’twas useless labor,
His strong trench of Tel-el-Kebir,
Egyptians did not wish to feel
In their breasts cold British steel,
Their great power was soon laid low
And Wolseley entered Grand Cairo.
Egyptians now no more revile
The Christians on the banks of Nile.
We have sung three heroes’ names.
Havelock from the land of Thames,
And Campbell from the banks of Clyde,
And Wolseley from Liffy’s side,
When rose, thistle, shamrock unite
They do prove victors in the fight,
Now Britain once more does command
Respect alike on sea and land,
But now may wars forever cease
And mankind ever live in peace.
