Excerpt: ...stare Of those unbending eyes. I never saw thee, lovely one, - Perchance I never may; It is not often that we cross Such people in our way; But if we meet in distant years, Or on some foreign shore, Sure I can take my Bible oath I've seen that face before. MY AUNT. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. My aunt! my dear unmarried aunt! Long years have o'er her flown; Yet still she strains the aching clasp That binds her virgin zone; I know it hurts her-though she looks As cheerful as she can; Her waist is ampler than her life, ...
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Excerpt: ...stare Of those unbending eyes. I never saw thee, lovely one, - Perchance I never may; It is not often that we cross Such people in our way; But if we meet in distant years, Or on some foreign shore, Sure I can take my Bible oath I've seen that face before. MY AUNT. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. My aunt! my dear unmarried aunt! Long years have o'er her flown; Yet still she strains the aching clasp That binds her virgin zone; I know it hurts her-though she looks As cheerful as she can; Her waist is ampler than her life, For life is but a span. My aunt! my poor deluded aunt! Her hair is almost gray; Why will she train that winter curl In such a spring-like way? How can she lay her glasses down, And say she reads as well, When, through a double convex lens, She just makes out to spell? Her father-grandpapa! forgive This erring lip its smiles- Vowed she should make the finest girl Within a hundred miles; He sent her to a stylish school; 'T was in her thirteenth June; And with her, as the rules required, "Two towels and a spoon." They braced my aunt against a board, To make her straight and tall; They laced her up, they starved her down, To make her light and small. They pinched her feet, they singed her hair, They screwed it up with pins;- O never mortal suffered more In penance for her sins. So, when my precious aunt was done, My grandsire brought her back; (By daylight, lest some rabid youth Might follow on the track;) "Ah!" said my grandsire, as he shook Some powder in his pan, "What could this lovely creature do Against a desperate man!" Alas! nor chariot, nor barouche, Nor bandit cavalcade, Tore from the trembling father's arms His all-accomplished maid. For her how happy had it been! And heaven had spared to me To see one sad, ungathered rose On my ancestral tree. COMIC MISERIES. JOHN G. SAXE. My dear young friend, whose shining wit...
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Add this copy of The Humorous Poetry of the English Language, From to cart. $25.00, very good condition, Sold by My Book Heaven rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Alameda, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1884 by Houghton Mifflin.
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