The

A pair of very chubby legs
Encased in scarlet hose;
A pair of little stubby boots
With rather doubtful toes;
A little kilt, a little coat,
Cut as a mother can,
And lo! before us strides in state
The Future's 'coming man.'

His eyes, perchance, will read the stars,
And search their unknown ways;
Perchance the human heart and soul
Will open to their gaze;
Perchance their keen and flashing glance
Will be a nation's light,--
Those eyes that now are wistful bent
On some 'big fellow's' kite.

That brow where mighty thought will dwell
In solemn, secret state;

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poem by Anonymous Americas
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Will He No Come Back Again?

Royal Charlie's now awa,
Safely owre the friendly main;
Mony a heart will break in twa,
Should he ne'er come back again.
Will you no come back again?
Will you no come back again?
Better lo'ed you'll never be,
And will you no come back again?

Mony a traitor 'mang the isles
Brak the band o' nature's law;
Mony a traitor, wi' his wiles,
Sought to wear his life awa.
Will he no come back again?
Will he no come back again?
Better lo'ed he'll never be,
And will he no come back again?

The hills he trode were a' his ain,
And bed beneath the birken tree;

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poem by Anonymous Americas
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Missing

In the cool, sweet hush of a wooded nook,
Where the May buds sprinkle the green old mound,
And the winds and the birds and the limpid brook,
Murmur their dreams with a drowsy sound;
Who lies so still in the plushy moss,
With his pale cheek pressed on a breezy pillow,
Couched where the light and the shadow cross.
Through the flickering fringe of the willow?
Who lies, alas!
So still, so chill, in the whispering grass?

A soldier clad in the Zouave dress,
A bright-haired man with his lips apart,
One hand thrown up o'er his frank, dead face,
And the other clutching his pulseless heart,
Lies here in the shadows, cool and dim,
His musket swept by a trailing bough,
With a careless grace in each quiet limb,
And a wound on his manly brow
A wound, alas!

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poem by Anonymous Americas
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Another Yankee Doodle

Yankee Doodle had a mind
To whip the Southern traitors,
Because they didn't choose to live
On codfish and potatoes,
Yankee Doodle, doodle-doo,
Yankee Doodle dandy,
And to keep his courage up
He took a drink of brandy.

Yankee Doodle said he found
By all the census figures,
That he could starve the rebels out,
If he could steal their niggers.
Yankee Doodle, doodle-doo,
Yankee Doodle dandy,
And then he took another drink
Of gunpowder and brandy.

Yankee Doodle made a speech;
'Twas very full of feeling;

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poem by Anonymous Americas
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Jefferson's Daughter

'It is asserted, on the authority of an American Newspaper, that the
daughter of Thomas Jefferson, late President of the United States, was
sold at New Orleans for $1,000.'-Morning Chronicle.

Can the blood that, at Lexington, poured o'er the plain,
When the sons warred with tyrants their rights to uphold,
Can the tide of Niagara wipe out the stain?
No! Jefferson's child has been bartered for gold!

Do you boast of your freedom? Peace, babblers-be still;
Prate not of the goddess who scarce deigns to hear;
Have ye power to unbind? Are ye wanting in will?
Must the groans of your bondman still torture the ear?

The daughter of Jefferson sold for a slave!
The child of a freeman for dollars and francs!
The roar of applause, when your orators rave,
Is lost in the sound of her chain, as it clanks.

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poem by Anonymous Americas
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Knitting Socks

CLICK, click! how the needles go
Through the busy fingers, to and fro--
With no bright colors of berlin wool,
Delicate hands today are full:
Only a yarn of deep, dull blue,
Socks for the feet of the brave and true.
Yet click, click, how the needles go,
'Tis a power within that nerves them so.
In the sunny hours of the bright spring day,
And still in the night time far away.
Maiden, mother, grandame sit
Earnest and thoughtful while they knit.
Many the silent prayers they pray,
Many the tear drops brushed away.
While busy on the needles go,
Widen and narrow, heel and toe.
The grandame thinks with a thrill of pride
How her mother knit and spun beside
For that patriot band in olden days
Who died the Stars and Stripes to raise--

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poem by Anonymous Americas
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The Sermon in the Stocking

The supper is over, the hearth is swept,
And in the wood-fire's glow
The children cluster to hear a tale
Of that time so long ago,

When grandmamma's hair was golden brown,
And the warm blood came and went
O'er the face that could scarce have been sweeter then
Than now in its rich content.

The face is wrinkled and careworn now,
And the golden hair is gray;
But the light that shone in the young girl's eyes
Has never gone away.

And her needles catch the fire's light
As in and out they go,
With the clicking music that grandma loves
Shaping the stocking's toe.

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poem by Anonymous Americas
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The Old Man's Wish

If I live to be old, for I find I go down,
Let this be my fate: In a country town
May I have a warm house, with a stone at the gate,
And a cleanly young girl to rub my bald pate.
May I govern my passion with an absolute sway,
And grow wiser and better as my strength wears away,
Without gout or stone, by a gentle decay.

Near a shady grove, and a murmuring brook,
With the ocean at distance, whereupon I may look,
With a spacious plain without hedge or stile,
And an easy pad-nag to ride out a mile.
May I govern my passion with an absolute sway,
And grow wiser and better as my strength wears away,
Without gout or stone, by a gentle decay.

With Horace and Petrarch, and two or three more
Of the best wits that reign'd in the ages before,
With roast mutton, rather than ven'son or veal,
And clean though coarse linen at every meal.

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poem by Anonymous Americas
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Nothing At All In the Paper Today

Nothing at all in the paper today!
Only a murder somewhere or other;
A girl who has put her child away,
Not being a wife as well as a mother;
Or a drunken husband beating a wife,
With the neighbors lying awake to listen,
Scarce aware he has taken a life,
Till in at the window the dawn rays glisten.
But that is all in the regular way--
There's nothing at all in the paper today.

Nothing at all in the paper today!
To be sure, there's a woman died of starvation,
Fell down in the street, as so many may
In this very prosperous Christian nation;
Or two young girls, with some inward grief
Maddened, have plunged into the inky waters;
Or father has learnt that his son's a thief,
Or mother been robbed of one of her daughters.
Things that occur in their regular way--

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poem by Anonymous Americas
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Dan's Wife

Up in early morning light,
Sweeping, dusting, 'setting right,'
Oiling all the household springs,
Sewing buttons, tying strings,
Telling Bridget what to do,
Mending rips in Johnny's shoe,
Running up and down the stair,
Tying baby in her chair,
Cutting meat and spreading bread,
Dishing out so much per head,
Eating as she can by chance,
Giving husband kindly glance;
Toiling, working, busy life,--
Smart woman,
Dan's wife.

Dan comes home at fall of night,
Home so cheerful, neat, and bright;
Children meet him at the door,
Pull him in and looked him o'er;

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poem by Anonymous Americas
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