Charles Godfrey Leland

“ All Baltimore and New Orleans seemed centered into one,
As if their stars of beauty had been fused into a sun;
But, oh! her frosty dignity expressed a kind of glow
Like sunshine when thermometers show thirty grades below.
But it flashed a gleam of shrewdness into the head of Gale,
And with aggravatin’ humour he exclaimed to Mr. Dale,
“Since every girl’s a cricket-ball and you’re the only bat,
If you want to show you’re champion, go in and mash on that.
“I will bet a thousand dollars, and plank them on the rub,
That if you try it thither, you will catch a lofty snub. ”

“ BALLAD OF THE FOXES
There is a golden glory in my song
As of a picture by Carpaccio,
For it is of the early morning-time
When every man believed with tender faith
That animals could talk—oh, lovely lore!
So, lady, listen as the lay runs on.
There was a goose, and she was travelling
Across the land for her dyspepsia,
And at the noontide sat to rest herself
In a small thicket, when there came along
Two starving foxes, perishing to find
Something which was not too-too-utter-ish
To serve for dinner. ”

“ They found the natives worshipping—a suit of Samuel’s clothes!
And this was the tradition of the people of the soil,
How once a great divinity had ruled upon their isle;
Four fathom tall, with eyes like fire, and such was their believin’,
One night he got upon the moon—and sailed away to Heaven!
“Wall, it’s a fact,” cried Doolittle, “I’ll swear
A rover ain’t contented anywhere;
But if he is a real sailor slip,
He’s happiest on the hull—aboard a ship—
For there at times he has his tallest fun,
Especially if ’tis a dandy one
Where all is fine—O mateys, that’s the thing!” ”

“ This is called poetic justice when arrangements fit in time,
And Fate allows the titles to accommodate in rhyme.
And a lovely sense of autumn seemed to warble in the air;
Boys with baskets selling peaches were vibratin’ everywhere,
While in the mellow distance folks were gettin’ in their corn,
And the biggest yellow punkins ever seen since you were born.
Now a gradual sensation emotioned this our Gale,
That he’d seldom seen so fine a man for cheek as Mr. Dale;
Yet simultaneous he felt that he was all the while
The biggest dude and cock-a-hoop within a hundred mile. ”

“ Until the thought came to me on a time,
While I was listening to that merry throng,
That I would write their stories out in rhyme,
And weave into it many a sailor’s song,
That men might something of the legends know
Of the North End of Boston, long ago. ”

“ At first there came an angry look, and when that look did get,
He larft a wild and hollow larf, and said, “I take the debt.
“The brave deserve the lovely—every woman may be won;
What men have fixed before us may by other men be done.
You will lose your thousand dollars. For the first time in my life
I have gazed upon a woman whom I wish to make my wife.”
Like a terrier at a rabbit, with his hat upon his eyes
Mr. Dale, the awful masher, went head-longing at the prize,
Looking rather like a party simply bent to break the peace,
Mr. Gale, with smiles, expected just a yell for the police. ”

“ That ’twas all along of this here Finn:
For it is true, and on re-córd
There’s no good luck with a Finn on board.
And the long and short of this debate
Was that one night our second mate,
Bein’ as mad as a man might be,
Pitched Eric Jansen into the sea:
For it is true, unless I’ve erred,
There’s no good luck with a Finn on board. ”

“ Thus uplifted to his pardner: “Glory! Moses, let us squat!”
Thus rebounded Moses Adams: “Glory was the foremost word
Which in the untrammelled silence of this wilderness was heard,
And I arnswer, dimly feelin’ like a prophet, grand and slow,
‘Glory kinder sounds like Money—up to glory let her go!’ ”
And this casual conversation in the year of Sixty-eight,
As if by an inspiration he recorded on a slate,
Which ’twas said in later ages—six weeks after—used to hang
As a curiositary in the principal shebang. ”

“ Where the palm-trees are a-growing, and the wind is ever blowing,
There they lie alow, low, low.
Sometimes when the moon is bright
You can see the three, like gulls in flight,
Flitting along above the waves,
Or sitting and talking on their graves,
Where they lie alow, low, low,
Nor hear the cockrel’s crow.
Where the palm-trees are a-growing, and the wind is ever blowing,
There they lie alow, low, low. ”

“ Said Ezra Bullard, late of Marblehead,
“There’s one at least who never goes to sleep,
And mighty little good of him is said;
His special dispensation is to watch
The bottom of the ocean, and to see
It don’t fall out—for if it did we catch
The very direst kind of misery,
For all the water runnin’ through the hole
Would leave it dry as you can understand,
And from the Arctic to the ’tother pole,
’Twould be one thunderin’ lot of empty land.” ”

“ There, no more a man of glory, Moses Adams dropped his load,
And when resting from his labour and refreshing from his jug,
Having known a town called Julesberg, called his shanty Splendourbug.
On the following morn as usual in due time arose the sun,
And the Gloryvillins followed his example one by one;
While he smiled upon the city, as on other things beneath,
’Twas observed one snag was wanting in the double row of teeth.
Little said the Left-behinders, but they seemed to take the hint,
And each man surveyed his neighbour with a shrewd and genial squint ”

“ A gale in petticoats, and one that’s stinging;
I’ll sing a song on that—to end our singing.
You’ve known the girl-wind, boys—I never doubt it;
And here’s a ballad which is all about it:”
THE GIRL-WIND
A hurly-burly, hurl-wind
Is hurrying o’er the waves;
Before it runs the Girl-wind
Fresh up from the Ocean caves.
She’s the little puff who goes before
To tell of the blow that’s coming,
She sounds like a hive when winters o’er
And you hear the bees a-humming.
It’s all very well when a young girl can
Come tripping along with laughter ”

“ While in Night’s cushion stars like pin-heads shine.
“Oh, Vivian!” she gurgled, like a dove,
“Oh, do you think I will let up on you?
And do you deem I would go back upon
The note I signed, and run to protest?—no—
Not while the snowy paper of my truth
Is quiréd by the young-eyed cherubim,
And in Night’s cushion stars like pin-heads shine.”
Three months or ninety days went by, and then
Upon a golden Californian
December afternoon, with azure skies
Like those of summer as they are produced
In less expensive countries, men beheld
A diamondaine wedding at the house
Of Ethelberta’s sire. ”

“ This main purpose was to set forth with scrupulous care, as of a statue photographed from many sides, the mariner of the sailing—not steaming—ship, who is now rapidly passing away, although some tens of thousands of the species are still to be found in the remoter routes of travel. This kind of man should be interesting, because he is almost the only one who is drawn into his calling by a desire to rove about the world and lead an adventurous, reckless, manly life. ”

“ But having got away alive, though all his cash was gone,
He said, “If there is Vengeance, I will surely try it on!
And I do wish I may be damned if I don’t clear the score
With Señor Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador!”
He shipped a crew of seventy men—well-arméd men were they,
And sixty of them in the hold he darkly stowed away,
And sailing back to Vera Cruz was sighted from the shore,
By the Señor Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador.
With twenty-five soldados he came on board so pleased
And said: “Maldito Yankee—again your ship is seized.
How many sailors have you got?” ”

“ Till offered fifty dollars by the people of the town,
And that then he wouldn’t do it till he got the money down.
Last of all we heard the instance of Golias Purple Fife,
Who went into an awful well to save a fellow’s life,
A man who always spoke of Fife as of a blooming fool,
And who recently had done him blind in trading for a mule;
And on top of this, moreover, in addition, ’twas a fact,
He refused a quarter-dollar for this noble manly act,
And when they asked him what he’d drink, or if he’d take a bite,
He jumped in silence on his mule and rode into the night. ”

“ While Samuel, standing on the deck, beheld it safe and sound.
Now when the sea grew soft and still, and all the gale was o’er,
Sam Jackson made himself a raft, and paddled safe ashore.
For fear of fatal accidents—not knowin’ what might come,
He took a gun and matches, with a prudent cask of rum.
Now this island where he landed proved as merry as a fife,
For its indigents had ne’er beheld a white man in their life ”

“ Their very latest victim was a fine young man named Gale.
ARIZONA JOHN
When in a situation it always pays the best
To have your wits about you, for it helps the interest;
And a man gets so encouraged by succeedin’ when he tries,
That the more you crowd him downward, the more he’s bound to rise.
As when near Tres Alamos, while workin’ at his mine,
John Lyons, late of Tombstone, without the least design
To involve himself whatever in any kind of tricks,
Got inside an unprovided and a most unpleasant fix. ”

“ But her spars were tough as whalebone, and ’twas time for us to go.
We dropped the cruiser in the night, and our cargo landed we,
And ashore we went, with our pockets full of dollars, on the spree.
And when the liquor it is out, and the locker it is low,
Then to sea again, in the ebony trade, ’twill be time for us to go.
Time for us to go,
Time for us to go,
Then to sea again, in the ebony trade, ’twill be time for us to go. ”

“ Now when they saw this Samuel approachin’ on his raft,
The news through all the island shades was quickly telegrapht,
How all their tribulations would speedily be past,
’Cos the long-expected sucker was invadin’ ’em at last.
Now when Sam Jackson stept ashore, as modest as you please,
Nine thousand bloomin’ savages received him on their knees;
He looked around in wonderment, regardin’ it as odd,
Not bein’ much accustomed to be worshipped as a god.
But he twigged the situation, and with a pleasin’ smile
Stretched out his hands, a-blessin’ all the natives of the isle ”

“ And so they would have chantyd all night long,
But some one broke it with another song.
THE BIRD CREW
The Albatross
Is the captain and boss,
Haul away boys, haul away!
The sea-gull queers
Are the officeers,
Haul away boys, haul away!
And the Carey chickens as I guess
Is every one an A.B.S.,
Haul away boys, haul away!
“I’ve heard,” said Chapin, “many folk agree,
Those birds are souls of sailors lost at sea,
And often one around the vessel flies
To give us warning ere the storms arise.” ”

“ It was in the Indian summer-time, when life is tender brown,
And people in the country talk of going into town,
When the nights are crisp and cooling, though the sun is warm by day,
In the home-like town of Glasgow, in the State of Iowa;
It was in the railroad deepô of that greatly-favoured zone,
That a young man met a stranger, who was still not all unknown,
For they had run-countered casual in riding in the car,
And the latter to the previous had offered a cigar.
Now as the primal gentleman was nominated Gale,
It follows that the secondary man was Mr. Dale ”

“ But as this is not a folk-lore book, in which a writer is held sternly accountable “to give authority for every word,” and as a mass of notes would have simply defeated the whole aim of the book, I have preferred making myself amenable to the charge of plagiarism to boring my reader—even as an Italian devoted servant of whom I once heard, preferred to be carried off by the police, on the charge of stealing oranges, rather than awaken and disturb his master who could have explained the matter. ”

“ With toothpicks made of her last pin-feathers,
The first observed, and that quite affably,
“Only a goose would ever make attempt
To settle a dispute when foxes fight”—
Oh, lady, listen as the lay runs on!
“And while I have a very great respect
For any peacemaker,” said Number Two,
“I would suggest that I invariably
Have found, if they be really honest folk
Who interfere with reprobates like us,
They’re always eaten up; there is, I think,
More clanship between devils any day
Than among all the angels. ”

“ While the ducks upon the water were a-ducking just the same,
And every mortal human man kept on his little game.
And the old man to the strangers very affable let slip
How that zealousy policeman had given him the tip,
And how his cash was buttoned in his pocket dark and dim,
And how he guessed no man alive on earth could gammon him.
In ardent conversation ere long the three were steeped,
And in that good man’s confidence the younger party deeped.
The p’liceman, as he shadowed them, exclaimed in blooming rage,
“They’re stuffin’ of that duck, I guess, and leavin’ out the sage.” ”

“ Till, in fact, he stated plainly that, between his face and cash,
There was not a lady living whom he was not sure to mash;
The wealthiest, the loveliest, of families sublime,
At just a single look from him must all give in in time. ”

“ Ye are wealthy, ye are gifted, ye have house and lands and rent,
Yet unto a suff’rin’ mortal ye will not donate a cent;
Ye expend your missionaries to the heathen and the Jew,
But there isn’t any heathen that is half as small as you.
“Ye are lucky—ye hev cheque-books and deeposits in the bank,
And ye squanderate your money on the titled folks of rank;
The onyx and the sardonyx upon your garments shine,
An’ ye drink at every dinner p’r’aps a dollar’s wuth of wine.
“Ye are goin’ for the summer to the islands by the sea,
Where it costs four dollars daily—setch is not for setch as me ”