CONTENTMENT. "Man wants but little here below." LITTLE I ask; my wants are few; I only wish a hut of stone, (A very plain brown stone will do,) That I may call my own;And close at hand is such a one, In yonder street that fronts the sun. Plain food is quite enough for me; Three courses are as good as ten;If Nature can subsist on three, Thank Heaven for three. Amen! I always thought cold victual nice; — My choice would be vanilla ice. I love so much their style and tone, One Turner, and no more, (A landscape, foreground golden dirt; The sunshine painted with a squirt.) Of books but few, —some fifty score For daily use, and bound for wear; The rest upon an upper floor; Some little luxury there Of red morocco's gilded gleam, And vellum rich as country cream. Busts, cameos, gems, such things as these, Which others often show for pride, I value for their power to please, And selfish churls deride; One Stradivarius, I confess, Two Meerschaums, I would fain possess. Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn, Nor ape the glittering upstart fool; Shall not carved tables serve my turn, But all must be of buhl? Give grasping pomp its double share, I ask but one recumbent chair. Thus humble let me live and die, Nor long for Midas' golden touch, If Heaven more generous gifts deny, I shall not miss them much, Too grateful for the blessing lent Of simple tastes and mind content! O. W. HOLMES. THE FIGHT OVER THE BODY OF KEITT. A fragment from the great American epic, the Washingtoniad. SING, O goddess, the wrath, the on- Who led on to the war the anti- Him followed Hickman, and Potter the wiry, from woody Wisconsin; Washburne stood with his brother, Cadwallader stood with Elihu; Broad Illinois sent the one, and woody Wisconsin the other. Mott came mild as new milk, with gray hairs under his broad brim, Leaving the first chop location and water privilege near it, Held by his fathers of old on the willow-fringed banks of Ohio. Wrathy Covode, too, I saw, and Montgomery ready for mischief. Who against these to the floor led on the Lecomptonite legions? Keitt of South Carolina, the clear grit, the tall, the ondauntedKeitt, and Reuben Davis, the ra'al hoss of wild Mississippi; Barksdale, wearer of wigs, and Craige from North Carolina; Craige and scorny McQueen, and Owen, and Lovejoy, and La Never more from a stump had he stirred up the free and enlightened; But though smart Keitt's mauleys, the mauleys of Grow were still smarter; Straight from the shoulder he shot, not Owen Swift or Ned Adams Ever put in his right with more delicate feeling of distance. As drops hammer on anvil, so dropped Grow's right into Keitt Just where the jugular runs to the point at which Ketch ties his drop-knot; Prone like a log sank Keitt, his dollars rattled about him. Forth sprang his friends o'er the body; first, Barksdale, wavingwig-wearer, Craige and McQueen and Davis, the ra'al hoss of wild Mississippi; Fiercely they gathered round Grow, catawampously up as to chaw Moved Mott, mild as new milk, with his gray hair under his broad brim, Preaching peace to deaf ears, and getting considerably damaged. Cautious Covode in the rear, as dubious what it might come to, Brandished a stone-ware spittoon 'gainst whoever might seem to deserve it, Little it mattered to him whether So raged this battle of men, till into the thick of the mêlée, Like to the heralds of old, stepped the Sergeant-at-Arms and the Speaker. LONDON PUNCH. PURITANS. OUR brethren of New England use As late it happened in a town Not out of malice, but mere zeal, Against the articles in force Between both churches, his and ours; For which he craved the saints to render Into his hands, or hang the offender. But they maturely having weighed They had no more but him of the AMAZED, confused, its fate unknown, The world stood trembling at Jove's throne; While each pale sinner hung his head, Jove nodding shook the heavens, and said; 66 Offending race of human kind, By nature, reason, learning, blind; You who through frailty stepped aside, And you who never erred through pride; You who in different sects were shammed, And come to see each other damned; (So some folks told you, but they knew No more of Jove's designs than you.) CHIQUITA. SWIFT. BEAUTIFUL! Sir, you may say so. Thar isn't her match in the county. Is thar, old gal, - Chiquita, my darling, my beauty? Feel of that neck, sir,—thar's velvet! Whoa! Steady, -ah, will you, you vixen! Whoa! I say. Jack, trot her out; let the gentleman look at her paces. |