so to speak,
Across the sandy bar to port;
And hers is like a putting-green,
The haven where I boast to be,
For she assures me she is keen
To halve the round of life with me.

Raise me a bunker, if you can,
That beetles o'er a deadly ditch,
Where any but the bogey-man
Is practically bound to pitch;
Plant me beneath a hedge of thorn,
Or up a figurative tree,
What matter, when my love has sworn
To halve the round of life with me?

X. SWORDS AND PLOUGHSHARES.

PART I. PRESTO FURIOSO.

Spontaneous Us!
O my Camarados! I have no delicatesse as a diplomat, but I go blind
on Libertad!
Give me the flap-flap of the soaring Eagle's pinions!
Give me the tail of the British lion tied in a knot inextricable,
not to be solved anyhow!
Give me a standing army (I say 'give me,' because just at present we
want one badly, armies being often useful in time of war).

I see our superb fleet (I take it that we are to have a superb fleet
built almost immediately);
I observe the crews prospectively; they are constituted of various
nationalities, not necessarily American;
I see them sling the slug and chew the plug;
I hear the drum begin to hum;

Both the above rhymes are purely accidental and contrary to my
principles.
We shall wipe the floor of the mill-pond with the scalps of
able-bodied British tars!
I see Professor Edison about to arrange for us a torpedo-hose on
wheels, likewise an infernal electro-semaphore;
I see Henry Irving dead-sick and declining to play Corporal
Brewster;
Cornell, I yell! I yell Cornell!

I note the Manhattan boss leaving his dry-goods store and investing
in a small Gatling-gun and a ten-cent banner;
I further note the Identity evolved out of forty-four spacious and
thoughtful States;
I note Canada as shortly to be merged in that Identity; similarly
Van Diemen's Land, Gibraltar and Stratford-on-Avon;
Briefly, I see Creation whipped!

O ye Colonels! I am with you (I too am a Colonel and on the
pension-list);
I drink to the lot of you; to Colonels Cleveland, Hitt, Vanderbilt,
Chauncey M. Depew, O'Donovan Rossa and the late Colonel
Monroe;
I drink an egg-flip, a morning-caress, an eye-opener, a maiden-bosom,
a vermuth-cocktail, three sherry-cobblers and a gin-sling!
Good old Eagle!