Charles Astor Bristed

“ With ruddy, rosy blinking;
I couldn't hurt the worst of men,
While drinking, drinking, drinking!
But ah! my thirst grows fiercer still
With every flask I ope here,
Which is th' inevitable ill
Of every genuine toper. ”

“ While Benson [9] for an essay smart is seeking inspiration,
Stone mingles science with his art, and takes an observation. [10]
There's Bierstadt, recreant to his name, does what he "hadn't oughter,"
Though canvas gives him all his fame, he really paints on water.
He passes by the ruby brink, the aggravating creature,
And C. B. couldn't make him drink, no more than Stone could Beecher. ”

“ If I drink, where's the crime?Can you tell?
Look round us! All Nature is drinking as well.
The Earth drinks the dew, and the Sun, floating free,
Stoops to drink of the wave from the cup of the sea. ”

“ A majority of the cities and towns of Massachusetts voted yesterday to license the sale of cider and beer.—Morning papers.
I met a gaunt Aquarian,
⁠His nose was long and blue;
He looked so bad, that watery cad,
⁠'Twas painful him to view;
Adown his face there rolled apace
⁠A salt and bitter tear;
"Alas!" he cried (and sore he sighed) ,
⁠"They've licensed cider and beer!
"We thought we'd drawn our leading-strings
⁠Around the state so tight,
Cold water on its healing wings
⁠Would put all foes to flight. ”

“ Better by none than shrewd DeMapes—
Poculis accenditur animi lucerna
Cor imbutum nectare volat ad superna.
"The lantern of the intellect is lighted by the cup,
The spirit soaked in nectar to Olympus mounteth up." ”

“ The Celts that meet about the Park so notedly irascible
So prominent in everything that's make-a-man-jack-ass-able,
Could not have made more noise than we and scarce have been more riotous;
We got a going such a pace no mortal man could quiet us ”

“ O sage sentiment and sober!
⁠O grave Malatromba of ours!
Come, cease to look stiff as a crowbar!
⁠Come, strew your life's pathway with flowers!
But waste no bad claret your cash on;
⁠For here is a brand you don't know ”

“ Harping upon woman's wrong.
⁠Woman's right is here to-night,
⁠And the right women too;
Women by travel and study enlightened,
⁠Who know what's what and who's who;
Women who are not too easily frightened,
⁠Whatever you say or do ”

“ He gave his foes no end of fits, and gave his friends their wishes.
Made women tear their king to bits, and turned men into fishes;
Raised Ariadne to the skies, and 'verted [3] all the East,
But Johnston's doings more surprise the sharers of his feast. ”

“ Wherefore it was said by an irreverent person that Benson would be the fittest man to paint the recent peace conference, because he was accustomed to represent d—m sels. ↑ "With a glass operated on by means of a bottle." See Orpheus C. Kerr. ↑ The story goes that Stone, being at the Athenæum one night, approached the punch bowl as his wont is, and distributed of the same to the passers-by. Now, of these passers chanced to be Henry Ward Beecher, and it was Beecher's boast that no one ever dared to offer him a glass of liquor. ”

“ The way she cast back the long sweep of her curls!
Th' above panegyric is borrowed from Whittier.
Perhaps, when you read, you are ready to pity her,
For being so far behind or outside
The fashion, since rarely a maid is descried
Who will let her hair loose in long curls now-a-days.
If she wanders in fashion's mysterious ways,
She bunches it up in some curious maze.
So I hasten to tell you at once (without joke)
The curls that I speak of were ringlets of smoke,
VII.
Look at her! ”

“ Wer liebt nicht Weib und Lager,
⁠Whenever the chance comes by,
He is a great goose and not of much use,
⁠And just as well may die,
And when you go on a Summer ride,
Not knowing what may else betide,
⁠Lay in a good supply. ”

“ If Clara in her blooming youth
⁠Were teasing me with kisses.
Since life is short and care is long,
⁠This aim the wise can boast of,
The time that will not spare us long,
⁠We mean to make the most of ”

“ And if any High art lover, to his Mistress crown the brim,
Let my aspirations hover round and hallow it for him.
[I caught this last idea from a party named Tom Moore,
Who is sometimes rather freer than the parsons can endure.] ”

“ Keep shaving and cornering, bulling and bearing,
(If the Editor shrinks
From this stanza, and thinks
Such an insinuation might possibly stop all his
Circulation in this our commercial metropolis.
Why then he may just
Leave it out and be—blessed,
Or fill up with asterisks as he likes best)
And your poor tired muse
Beseechingly wooes
The balmiest breezes of eve to come at her—
In short, under every stage of thermometer
All times and all seasons are good for Champagne,
Especially that of P. C. K. ”

“ Until it forced him to recline in posture problematical.
Thus No A's drink became no ease, and brought him to disaster,
While Johnston's liquor only frees our tongues to talk the faster.
When Noah grew too old and staid to follow out his mission,
Young Bacchus started in the trade, and set up opposition ”

“ When the mocking bird can speak, he
⁠Talks just so,
⁠I know.
↑ Namely, by the expressmen, a catastrophe not uncommon in our corporation-ridden country. ↑ It is to be hoped that the reader will appreciate the simple beauty of this couplet. The author considers it nearly up to Tupper and a long way ahead of Dr. Holland. ↑ Countess Gerace was a beautiful woman. Her cousin, the Duke of Terranova, took to politics late in life and went mad. ”

“ Fervidus at dominae teneam mollissima membra,
⁠Languidaque amplexu cincta sit Anna meo!
Dellicias magnorum ergo nil inde morabor,
⁠Posthabita Eoi regis et uxor erit,
Dummodo languescens, ulnis circumdatus Annae,
⁠Divinas reddam suscipiamque vices. ”

“ Newman thinks it hasn't. ↑ See Odyssey, book iv., 219–30. ↑ Not '45 John but 2′ 40′′ George. A man of great courage, who sometimes makes desperate raids into foreign tongues with such success as that recorded above. ”