The following amusing rhyme clipped from an old paper shows to advantage some of the peculiarities of the English language: SALLY SALTER. Sally Salter, she was a young teacher, that taught, And her friend Charley Church was a preacher, who praught; Though his friends all declared him a screecher, who scraught. His heart, when he saw her, kept sinking, and sunk, And his eyes, meeting hers, kept winking, and wunk; While she, in her turn, fell to thinking, and thunk. He hastened to woo her, and sweetly he wooed, For his love for her grew—to a mountain it grewed, And what he was longing to do, then he doed. In secret he wanted to speak, and he spoke: To seek with his lips what his heart had long soke; So he managed to let the truth leak, and it loke. He asked her to ride to the church and they rode; They so sweetly did glide, that they both thought they glode, And they came to the place to be tied, and were tode. Then "Homeward," he said, "let us drive," and they drove, As soon as they wished to arrive they arrove; For whatever he couldn't contrive she controve. The kiss he was dying to steal, then he stole, At the feet where he wanted to kneel, there he knole, And he said, "I feel better than ever I fole." So they to each other kept clinging, and clung, While Time his swift circuit was winging, and wung; And this was the thing he was bringing, and brung: The man Sally wanted to catch, and had caught— That she wanted from others to snatch, and had snaught, Was the one that she now liked to scratch, and she scraught. And Charley's warm love began freezing and froze, While he took to teasing, and cruelly tose The girl he had wished to be squeezing and squoze. "Wretch!" he cried, when she threatened to leave him, and left, "How could you deceive me, as you have deceft?" And she answered, "I promised to cleave, and I've cleft!" Plodding Changes.—Some of our plodding readers may like to peruse the following curious variations of the well-known line from Gray's "Elegy," "The ploughman homeward plods his weary way": The weary ploughman homeward plods his way. The weary ploughman plods his homeward way. The homeward ploughman plods his weary way. The homeward ploughman, weary, plods his way. The homeward, weary, ploughman plods his way. The weary, homeward ploughman plods his way. Homeward the weary ploughman plods his way. Homeward, weary, the ploughman plods his way. Homeward the ploughman plods his weary way. Homeward the ploughman, weary, plods his way. Weary, the homeward ploughman plods his way. Weary, homeward the ploughman plods his way. Weary, the ploughman plods his homeward way. The ploughman plods his homeward, weary way. The ploughman plods his weary homeward way. The ploughman homeward, weary, plods his way. The ploughman, weary, homeward plods his way. The ploughman, weary, plods his homeward way. "My Madeline! My Madeline! Mark my melodious midnight moans; Much may my melting music mean, My modulated monotones. "My mandolin's mild minstrelsy, My mental music magazine, My mouth, my mind, my memory, Must mingling murmur, 'Madeline.' "Muster 'mid midnight masquerades, Mark Moorish maidens', matrons' mien, "Mankind's malevolence may make Much melancholy music mine; Many my motives may mistake, My modest merits much malign. "My Madeline's most mirthful mood Much mollifies my mind's machine; My mournfulness' magnitude Melts—makes me merry, Madeline! "Match-making mas may machinate, Manoeuvring misses me misween; Mere money may make many mate, My magic motto's—'Madeline!' "Melt, most mellifluous melody, 'Midst Murcia's misty mounts marine, Meet me by moonlight—marry me, Madonna mia!—Madeline." It is well known that the letter e is used more than any other letter in the English alphabet. Each of the following verses contains every letter of the alphabet except the letter e: "A jovial swain should not complain Of any buxom fair Who mocks his pain and thinks it gain To quiz his awkward air. "Quixotic boys who look for joys, Quixotic hazards run; A lass annoys with trivial toys, Opposing man for fun. "A jovial swain may rack his brain, And tax his fancy's might; To quiz is vain, for 'tis most plain That what I say is right" Northampton (England) Courier. Here is the result of a rhyming punster's efforts: "A pretty deer is dear to me, A hare with downy hair, A hart I love with all my heart, But barely bear a bear. "'Tis plain that no one takes a plane To pare a pair of pears, Although a rake may take a rake To tear away the tares. "Sol's rays raise thyme, time raises all, And through the whole holes wears. A scribe in writing right may write To write and still be wrong; For write and rite are neither right, And don't to right belong. "Robertson is not Robert's son, Nor did he rob Burt's son, Yet Robert's sun is Robin's sun, And everybody's sun. "Beer often brings a bier to man, Coughing a coffin brings, And too much ale will make us ail, As well as other things. "The person lies who says he lies When he is not reclining; And when consumptive folks decline, They all decline declining. "Quails do not quail before a storm. A bow will bow before it; We cannot rein the rain at all, No earthly power reigns o'er it. "The dyer dyes awhile, then dies— To dye he's always trying; Until upon his dying bed He thinks no more of dyeing. "A son of Mars mars many a son, All Deys must have their days; "'Tis meet that man should mete out meat To feed one's fortune's sun; The fair should fare on love alone, Else one cannot be won. "Alas, a lass is sometimes false; Of faults a maid is made; Her waist is but a barren waste— Though stayed she is not staid. "The springs shoot forth each spring and shoots Shoot forward one and all; Though summer kills the flowers, it leaves The leaves to fall in fall. "I would a story here commence, But you might think it stale; So we'll suppose that we have reached The tail end of our tale." And here is a zoÖlogical romance, by C. F. Adams, inspired by an unusual flow of animal spirits: No sweeter girl ewe ever gnu Than Betty Martin's daughter Sue. With sable hare, small tapir waist, And lips you'd gopher miles to taste; Bright, lambent eyes, like the gazelle, Sheep pertly brought to bear so well; Ape pretty lass it was avowed, Of whom her marmot to be proud. Deer girl! I loved her as my life, And vowed to heifer for my wife. Alas! A sailor on the sly, Had cast on her his wether eye. He said my love for her was bosh, And my affection I musquash. He'd dog her footsteps everywhere, Anteater in the easy-chair; He'd setter round, this sailor chap, And pointer out upon the map Where once a pirate cruiser boar Him captive to a foreign shore. The cruel captain far outdid The yaks and crimes of Robert Kid. He oft would whale Jack with the cat, And say, "My buck, doe you like that? "What makes you stag around so, say? The catamounts to something, hey?" Then he would seal it with an oath, And say: "You are a lazy sloth! "I'll starve you down, my sailor fine, Until for beef and porcupine!" And, fairly horse with fiendish laughter, Would say, "Henceforth, mind what giraffe ter!" In short, the many risks he ran Might well a llama braver man; Then he was wrecked and castor shore While feebly clinging to anoa; Hyena cleft among the rocks He crept, sans shoes and minus ox. And when he fain would go to bed, He had to lion leaves instead. Then Sue would say, with troubled face, "How koodoo live in such a place?" And straightway into tears would melt, And say, "How badger must have felt!" While he, the brute, woodchuck her chin, And say, "Aye-aye, my lass!" and grin. * * * * * * * Excuse these steers.... It's over now; There's naught like grief the hart can cow. Jackass'd her to be his, and she— She gave Jackal, and jilted me. And now, alas! the little minks Is bound to him with Hymen's lynx. —Detroit Free Press. While upon the subject of puns, we might quote the following, clipped from the "Graphic": "On being consulted about it Spikes says that Uncle Sam aunticipates the transfer of the Indian Bureau to some mother department, and if this should father improve the condition of the children of the forest, in sondry ways, by cousin them to be more comfortable, it would be a niece arrangement and daughter be made." We are inclined, in nephew instances, The "Graphic" is also responsible for the following English stanza transformed into Russian, said to have been found in a room after it had been vacated by Alexis while in this country. It is introduced as an example of how "she can be oddly wrote": "Owata jollitimiv ad Sinci tooklevov mioldad! Owata merricoviv bin— Ivespenta nawful pilovtin! Damsorri tolevami now, But landigoshenjingo vow, Thetur kishwar mustavastop Gotele graphitoff topop." The following clever paraphrase of the old rhythmic story of "Jack's House" is a good illustration of the scope and flexibility of our Behold the mansion reared by dÆdal Jack. See the malt stored in many a plethoric sack, In the proud cirque of Ivan's bivouac. Mark how the Rat's felonious fangs invade The golden stores in John's pavilion laid. Anon, with velvet foot and Tarquin strides, Subtle Grimalkin to his quarry glides— Grimalkin grim, that slew the fierce rodent Whose tooth insidious Johann's sackcloth rent. Lo! now the deep-mouthed canine foe's assault, That vexed the avenger of the stolen malt, Stored in the hallowed precincts of that hall That rose complete at Jack's creative call. Here stalks the impetuous Cow with crumpled horn, Whereon the exacerbating hound was torn, Who bayed the feline slaughter-beast that slew The Rat predaceous, whose keen fangs ran through The textile fibers that involved the grain That lay in Hans' inviolate domain. Here walks forlorn the Damsel, crowned with rue, Lactiferous spoils from vaccine dugs, who drew Of that corniculate beast whose tortuous horn Tossed to the clouds, in fierce vindictive scorn, The harrowing hound, whose braggart bark and stir Arched the lithe spine and reared the indignant fur Of Puss, that with verminicidal claw Struck the weird Rat, in whose insatiate maw Lay reeking malt, that erst in Ivan's courts we saw Behold the man whose amorous lips incline, Full with young Eros' osculative sign, To the lorn maiden whose lact-albic hands, Drew albu-lactic wealth from lacteal glands Of that immortal bovine, by whose horn Distort, to realm ethereal was borne The beast catulean, vexer of that sly Ulysses quadrupedal, who made die The old mordacious Rat, that dared devour Antecedaneous Ale, in John's domestic bower. Lo, here, with hirsute honors doffed, succinct Of saponaceous locks, the Priest who linked In Hymen's golden bands the torn unthrift, Whose means exiguous stared from many a rift, Even as he kissed the virgin all forlorn, Who milked the cow with implicated horn, The loud cantankerous Shanghai comes at last, Whose shouts arouse the shorn ecclesiast, Who sealed the vows of Hymen's sacrament, To him who robed in garments indigent, Exosculates the damsel lachrymose, The emulgator of that horned brute morose, That tossed the dog, that worried the cat, that kilt The Rat that ate the malt, that lay in the house that Jack built. |
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