Distichs
I
Wisely a woman prefers to a lover a man who neglects her.
This one may love her some day, some day the lover will not.
II
There are three species of creatures who when they seem coming are going,
When they seem going they come: Diplomates, women, and crabs.
III
Pleasures too hastily tasted grow sweeter in fond recollection,
As the pomegranate plucked green ripens far over the sea.
IV
As the meek beasts in the Garden came flocking for Adam to name them,
Men for a title to-day crawl to the feet of a king.
V
What is a first love worth, except to prepare for a second?
What does the second love bring? Only regret for the first.
VI
Health was wooed by the Romans in groves of the laurel and myrtle.
Happy and long are the lives brightened by glory and love.
VII
Wine is like rain: when it falls on the mire it but makes it the fouler,
But when it strikes the good soil wakes it to beauty and bloom.
VIII
Break not the rose; its fragrance and beauty are surely sufficient:
Resting contented with these, never a thorn shall you feel.
IX
When you break up housekeeping, you learn the extent of your treasures;
Till he begins to reform, no one can number his sins.
X
Maidens! why should you worry in choosing whom you shall marry?
Choose whom you may, you will find you have got somebody else.
XI
Unto each man comes a day when his favorite sins all forsake him,
And he complacently thinks he has forsaken his sins.
XII
Be not too anxious to gain your next-door neighbor's approval:
Live your own life, and let him strive your approval to gain.
XIII
Who would succeed in the world should be wise in the use of his pronouns.
Utter the You twenty times, where you once utter the I.
XIV
The best loved man or maid in the town would perish with anguish
Could they hear all that their friends say in the course of a day.
XV
True luck consists not in holding the best of the cards at the table:
Luckiest he who knows just when to rise and go home.
XVI
Pleasant enough it is to hear the world speak of your virtues;
But in your secret heart 't is of your faults you are proud.
XVII
Try not to beat back the current, yet be not drowned in its waters;
Speak with the speech of the world, think with the thoughts of the few.
XVIII
Make all good men your well-wishers, and then, in the years' steady sifting,
Some of them turn into friends. Friends are the sun shine of life.
Golyer
Ef the way a man lights out of this world
Helps fix his heft for the other sp'ere,
I reckon my old friend Golyer's Ben
Will lay over lots of likelier men
For one thing he done down here.
You did n't know Ben? He driv a stage
On the line they called the Old Sou'-west;
He wa'n't the best man that ever you seen,
And he wa'n't so ungodly pizen mean,
No better nor worse than the rest.
He was hard on women and rough on his friends;
And he did n't have many, I'll let you know;
He hated a dog and disgusted a cat,
But he'd run off his legs for a motherless brat,
And I guess there's many jess so.
I've seed my sheer of the run of things,
I've hoofed it a many and many a miled,
But I never seed nothing that could or can
Jest git all the good from the heart of a man
Like the hands of a little child.
Well! this young one I started to tell you about,
His folks was all dead, I was fetchin' him through,
He was just at the age that's loudest for boys,
And he blowed such a horn with his sarchin' small voice,
We called him "the Little Boy Blue."
He ketched a sight of Ben on the box,
And you bet he bawled and kicked and howled,
For to git 'long of Ben, and ride thar too;
I tried to tell him it wouldn't do,
When suddingly Golyer growled,
"What's the use of making the young one cry?
Say, what's the use of being a fool?
Sling the little one up here whar he can see,
He won't git the snuffles a-ridin' with me,
The night ain't any too cool."
The child hushed cryin' the minute he spoke;
"Come up here, Major! don't let him slip."
And jest as nice as a woman could do,
He wropped his blanket around them two,
And was off in the crack of a whip.
We rattled along an hour or so,
Till we heerd a yell on the still night air.
Did you ever hear an Apache yell?
Well, ye needn't want to, this side of hell;
There's nothing more devilish there.
Caught in the shower of lead and flint
We felt the old stage stagger and plunge;
Then we heerd the voice and the whip of Ben,
As he gethered his critters up again,
And tore away with a lunge.
The passengers laughed. "Old Ben's all right,
He's druv five year and never was struck."
"Now if I 'd been thar, as sure as you live,
They'd'a' plugged me with holes as thick as a sieve;
It's the reg'lar Golyer luck."
Over hill and holler and ford and creek
Jest like the hosses had wings, we tore;
We got to Looney's, and Ben come in
And laid down the baby and axed for his gin,
And dropped in a heap on the floor.
Said he, "When they fired, I kivered the kid,
Although I ain't pretty, I'm middlin' broad;
And look! he ain't fazed by arrow nor ball,
Thank God! my own carcase stopped them all."
Then we seen his eye glaze, and his lower jaw fall,
And he carried his thanks to God.
