;
While Nap went back to Italy, the land that loved him well,
Convinced that when he sailed that time his country to forsake,
He must have got aboard the ship when he was half awake,
And got to London, not New York, by some most odd mistake.

_MY COLOR_

MY best-loved color? Well, I think I like
A soft and tender dewy green--for grass.
Sometimes a pink my fancy too will strike--
In lobster _puree_ or a Sauterne glass.

Blue is a color, too, I greatly love.
It's sort of satisfying to my eyes.
'Tis their own color; and I'm quite fond of
This hue also for soft Italian skies.

For blushes, give me red, nor hesitate
To pile it on; I like it good and strong
Upon the cheeks of her I call my Fate,
The loveliest of all the lovely throng.

On golden-yellow oft my fancy dwells.
'Tis almost godlike, as it sparkles through
The effervescent fizz; and wondrous spells
It casts o'er me when coined in dollars, too.

Hence, friend, it is I cannot specify
What hues particular my joys enhance.
I like them all; their popularity
At special times depends on circumstance.

_CONTENTMENT IN NATURE_

I WOULD not change my joys for those
Of Emperors and Kings.
What has my gentle friend the rose
Told them, if aught, do you suppose--
The rose that tells me things?

What secrets have they had with trees?
What romps with grassy spears?
What know they of the mysteries
Of butterflies and honey-bees,
Who whisper in my ears?

What says the sunbeam unto them?
What tales have brooklets told?
Is there within their diadem
A single rival to the gem
The dewy daisies hold?

What sympathy have they with birds
Whose songs are songs of mine?
Do they e'er hear, as though in words
'Twas lisped, the message of the herds
Of grazing, lowing kine?

Ah no! Give me no lofty throne,
But just what Nature yields.
Let me but wander on, alone
If need be, so that all my own
Are woods and dales and fields.

_THE HEROIC GUNNER_

When the order was given to withdraw from battle for breakfast,
one of the gun-captains, a privileged character, begged
Commodore Dewey to let them keep on fighting until "we've wiped
'em out."--_War Anecdote in Daily Paper._

AT the battle of Manila,
In the un-Pacific sea,
Stood a gunner with his mad up
Just as far as it could be--