Uncle Walt [Walt Mason], the Poet Philosopher. Walt Mason

she understood it, and her conscience didn't hurt, when dyspepsia boldly sought him, and the sexton came and got him, and his tortured frame was buried 'neath a wagon-load of dirt. O, those marriageable misses, thinking life all love and kisses, mist and moonshine, glint and glamour, stardust borrowed from the skies! Man's a gross and sordid lummix—men are largely made of stomachs, and the songs of all the sirens will not take the place of pies!

The Flag

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      Bright-hued and beautiful, it floats upon the summer air; and every thread of it denotes the love that's woven there; the love of veterans whose tread has sounded on the fields of red; and women old, who mourn their dead, but mourn without despair. Bright-hued and beautiful, it courts caresses of the breeze; and, straining at its staff it sports, in flaunting ecstasies; and other flags, that once were gay, long, long ago were laid away, and many men, whose heads are gray, are thinking now of these. Serene and beautiful it waves, the flag our fathers knew; in Freedom's sunny air it laves, and gains a brighter hue; and may it still the symbol be of all that makes a nation free; still may we cherish Liberty, and to our God be true.

Doc Jonnesco

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      "O Doc," I cried, "I humbly beg, that you will amputate my leg." The doctor cheerfully complied, and shot some dope into my hide, and made his bucksaw fairly sail, until it struck a rusty nail. "Hoot, mon!" he said, quite undismayed, "I'll have to finish with a spade." And as he dug and toiled away, we talked about the price of hay, the recent frightful rise in pork, the sugar grafters in New York, the things we found in Christmas socks, the flurry in Rock Island stocks, the hookworm and the hangman's noose, the bright career of Captain Loose. I felt no pain or ache or shock; it pleased me much to watch the doc; and when the job was done, I said: "Now that you're here, cut off my head." With skillful hands he wrought and wrought, and soon cut off my dome of thought, and when I asked him for his bill: "There is no charge, already, still; I work for Science, not for scads, so keep the dollars of your dads; to banish pain is my desire; to nothing more do I aspire; if I may win that goal, you bet, I'll be so happy, always, yet!" Is there a more heroic game? Could any man have nobler aim? One poet, old, and bald and fat, to this great man takes off his hat!

Little Girl

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      Little girl, so glad and jolly, playing with your home-made dolly, built of rags and straw, fill the sunny air with laughter, heedless of the sorrow after—that is childhood's law! Let no sad and sordid vision cheat you of the joy Elysian that to youth belongs; let no prophecy of sorrow scheduled for a sad tomorrow still your joyous songs! Soon enough will come the worry, and the labors, and the hurry, soon you'll cook and scrub; soon with milliners and drapers you will fuss, and read long papers, at the Culture Club. Lithe your form, but soon you'll force it in a torture-chamber corset that will make you bawl; and those little feet, that twinkle, you will squeeze, until they wrinkle, into shoes too small. And those sunny locks so tangled will be tortured and kedangled into waves and curls; and you'll buy complexion powder, and your bonnets will be louder than the other girl's. Little girl, with home-made dolly, cut out woe and melancholy, jump and sing and play! Fill the rippling air with laughter! Tears and corns will follow after! This is childhood's day!

The Landlady

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      I run a hash bazaar, just up the street; there all my boarders are yelling for meat; boarders carniverous, boarders herbiverous; Allah deliver us! just watch them eat! Boarders are ravenous, all the world o'er; "feed till you spavin us," thus they implore; boarders are gluttonous, roastbeef and muttonous; "come and unbutton us, so we'll eat more!" Little they pay me for chicken and rice; yet they waylay me for dainties of price; "bring us canary birds"—these are their very words, bawling like hairy Kurds—"bring them on ice!" I give them tea and toast, jelly and jam, some kind of stew or roast, codfish or ham; their words are Chaucerous: "Dame Cup-and-Saucerous, bring us rhinoceros, boiled with a yam!" I run a boarding booth, as I have said; there Age and Smiling Youth, raise the Old Ned; maybe the clamoring, knocking and hammering bunch will be stammering, when I am dead!

Twilight Reveries

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      At that hour supremely quiet, when the dusk and darkness blend, and the sordid strife and riot of the day are at an end; when the bawling and the screaming of the mart have died away, then I like to lie a-dreaming of my castles in Cathay. I would roam in flowery spaces watered by the fabled streams, I would travel starry spaces on the winged feet of dreams; I would float across the ages to a more heroic time, when inspired were all ages, and the warriors sublime. At that hour supremely pleasing, dreams are all knocked galley west, by the phonograph that's wheezing: "Birdie, Dear, I Love You Best."

King and Kid

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      The king sat up on his jeweled throne, and he heaved a sigh that was like a groan, for his crown was hard, and it bruised his head, and his scepter weighed like a pig of lead; the ladies smirked as they came to beg; the knights were pulling the royal leg. The king exclaimed: "If I had my wish, I would cut this out, and I'd go and fish. For what is pomp to a weary soul that yearns and yearns for the fishing hole; the throne's a bore and the crown a gawd, and I'd swap the lot for a bamboo rod, and a can of worms and a piece of string—but there's no such luck for a poor old king!" And a boy who passed by the palace high, to fish for trout in the streamlet nigh, looked up in awe at the massive walls, and caught a glimpse of the marble halls, and he said to himself: "Oh, hully chee! Wisht I was the king, and the king was me! To reign all day with your crown on straight is a whole lot better'n diggin' bait, and fishin' round when the fish won't bite, and gettin' licked for your luck at night!"

The Little Green Tents

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      The little green tents where the soldiers sleep, and the sunbeams play and the women weep, are covered with flowers today; and between the tents walk the weary few, who were young and stalwart in 'sixty-two, when they went to the war away. The little green tents are built of sod, and they are not long, and they are not broad, but the soldiers have lots of room; and the sod is part of the land they saved, when the flag of the enemy darkly waved, the symbol of dole and doom. The little green tent is a thing divine; the little green tent is a country's shrine, where patriots kneel and pray; and the brave men left, so old, so few, were young and stalwart in 'sixty-two, when they went to the war away!