Is there beside compares with this?
Ach, Gott! mein lieber Gott!

For if the fruit be proper young,
And if the crust be good,
How shall they melt upon the tongue
Into a savory flood!
How seek the Mecca down below,
And linger round that spot,
Entailing weeks and months of woe,--
Ach, Gott! mein lieber Gott!

If Nature gives men appetites
For things that won't digest,
Why, let _them_ eat whatso delights,
And let _her_ stand the rest;
And though the sin involve the cost
Of Carlsbad, like as not
'Tis better to have loved and lost,--
Ach, Gott! mein lieber Gott!

Beyond the vast, the billowy tide,
Where my compatriots dwell,
All kinds of victuals have I tried,
All kinds of drinks, as well;
But nothing known to Yankee art
Appears to reach _the spot_
Like this Teutonic onion tart,--
Ach, Gott! mein lieber Gott!

So, though I quaff of Carlsbad's tide
As full as I can hold,
And for complete reform inside
Plank down my horde of gold,
Remorse shall not consume my heart,
Nor sorrow vex my lot,
For I have eaten onion tart,--
Ach, Gott! mein lieber Gott!

GRANDMA'S BOMBAZINE.

IT'S everywhere that women fair invite and please my eye,
And that on dress I lay much stress I can't and sha'n't deny:
The English dame who's all aflame with divers colors bright,
The Teuton belle, the ma'moiselle,--all give me keen delight;
And yet I'll say, go where I may, I never yet have seen
A dress that's quite as grand a sight as was that bombazine.

Now, you must know 'twas years ago this quaint but noble gown
Flashed in one day, the usual way, upon our solemn town.
'Twas Fisk who sold for sordid gold that gravely scrumptious thing,--
Jim Fisk, the man who drove a span that would have joyed a king,--
And grandma's eye fell with a sigh upon that sombre sheen,
And grandpa's purse looked much the worse for grandma's bombazine.

Though ten years old, I never told the neighbors of the gown;
For grandma said, "This secret, Ned, must not be breathed in town."
The sitting-room for days of gloom was in a dreadful mess
When that quaint dame, Mi