Tom Hall

“ I think we'd oft see stormy weather.
"But, oh, there are some things in life
Worth more to men than fame or money;
And one of them's a sweet young wife,
So pure, so honest, and so bonnie."
Dreaming of You.
My soul feels refreshed, like a rose kissed by dew,
When waking I know I've been dreaming of you.
They thought I was mad. Ah, my sweet, if they knew
That my malady simply was dreaming of you!
I've one wish. 'Tis to sleep all the long ages through
By your side, you my bride, and I dreaming of you. ”

“ Put her down in your ledger, and label her "Sold"
She's only a beauty with somebody's name,
And the Church for a pittance will wash out the shame.
Sell her,—that's right!
Time and Place.
Hasten on! The mad moonlight is beaming
On the hatred and love 'twixt us two;
And it beams on the maid who is dreaming,
And the grave made for me or for you.
Time and place,—love and life in the balance,
Fear and hope in the glance of your eye.
Draw your blade! Forget not we are gallants
Who can laugh at our fate as we die.
On your guard! There'll be blood on the metal
Ere she wakes from her innocent dreams ”

“ I've money and beauty and college-bred brains;
Though my 'scutcheon's not spotless, who'll mind a few stains?
To caper I wish in the chorus of style,
And wed an aristocrat after a while
So please tell me truly, and please tell me fair,
Just how many miles it's from Madison Square.
It's here, it's there,
Is Vanity Fair.
It's not like a labyrinth, not like a lair.
It's North and it's South, and it's East and it's West;
You can see it, oh, anywhere, quite at its best.
Dame Fashion is queen, Ready Money is king,
You can join it, provided you don't know a thing. ”

“ Would you were bride, and ah, would I were groom!
On all the seashore none fairer than you;
What but adore you could any one do?
Cheeks like the pink of an evening sky,
Eyes that might bid a man laughingly die. ”

“ I guess that I'm done for, old chappie!
Done, whether she loves me or not,—
But don't look so deuced unhappy,—
Y'know it was I fired the shot.
Thanks, awfully. Give me the whiskey,—
There's a horrible pain in my head;
It's queer that my nerves should be frisky
When my heart is as heavy as lead.
I'm worthless; I own it! ”

“ I've sisters by the dozen;
Please make it in the next degree,
For one may wed a cousin."
Two Kinds.
Oh, her eyes, her beautiful eyes!
How they melt when she sobs or she sighs!
How they droop
When she blushes!
How they flash
When she crushes
The love she's compelled to disguise! ”

“ If a man's within reach.
It's better than sleigh-rides, cotillons, or teas,
It makes the dull Patriarch's knickerbocked knees
Shake in the dance,
And then one has a chance,
If one's pretty and smart,
With a tongue not too tart,
Of presenting papaw
With a new son-in-law,
Down at the beach,—
If a man's within reach. ”

“ And I've even seen her use it as a brush.
But still it has one fault
In my eyes. I'd better halt,
Had I not, and ponder well what I shall say?
She is darting warning glances.
Well, under certain circumstances,
The visor's always getting in my way.
Theft.
The moonlight steals around the pine;
Star-eyes steal radiance from thine.
Low music steals upon the ear;
Can there be theft when thou art near? ”

“ At Old Point Comfort.
You don't think of dresses, or ducats, or dukes;
You don't care for chaperone's rigid rebukes;
It's just simply grand,
To lie there on the sand,
Down at the beach,—
If a man's within reach. ”

“ Three years in Europe sometimes make a change
In girls like you, who've always been adored;
And when you laughed, I thought it rawther strange.
Aw, I beg pawdon; p'haps you feel, aw—bored.
You don't? You think it fun—a fellah's pains
At words like yours? You don't know how they smart.
I know you think I haven't any brains;
But still, Miss Nellie, I've a—I've a heart.
Jokers
Her Yachting Cap. ”

“ And I've promised to cut you hereafter,—
Small chance, though, we ever shall meet,—
So let's turn our old love into laughter,
And face the thing through. Shall we, sweet?
Can you give me up, Jack, to this roué,
Just because we may always be poor?
There's still enough time, dear, et tu es
Un brave,—you will come, I am sure.
Put your trunk on the swiftest Cunarder,
And don't give me up, Jack, for—well,
There are things in this world that are harder
Than poverty. Come to me!
NELL."
The Editor's Valentine. ”

“ S. of H.: He's not all right.
No, by the fame of Shakespeare, he's all wrong.
A certain convocation of talented amateurs
Are e'en at him.
Your amateur is your only emperor for talent;
There's not a genius in the universe
Who will essay as much.
S. of L.: Or, who will imitate nature so abominably.
Your head is level, Ham., and I—even I,
Laertes, suffered at the hands of one
Whose fiery hair, parted in the middle
Like a cranberry pie, caused me to believe
That some of nature's journeymen had made a man,
And not made him well, he imitated nature
So abominably. ”

“ I've a rival who is rich;
With one of us sweet Jen will hitch.
But which?
Her Peculiarities.
The Question of the Learned Man.
How doth the little blushing maid
Employ each shining hour?
Doth she, in sober thought arrayed,
Learn knowledge that is power? ”

“ I rendered them phonetically from the pronunciation of a young Apache whom I hired to teach me the language. Many Apache words have no perceptible accent. A, here, has the sound of a in father.
The Old-fashioned Girl.
There's an old-fashioned girl in an old fashioned street,
Dressed in old-fashioned clothes from her head to her feet ”