TOM HALL.

A BACHELOR’S VIEWS.

    A pipe, a book,
    A cosy nook,
  A fire,—­at least its embers;
    A dog, a glass:—­
    ’Tis thus we pass
  Such hours as one remembers.

    Who’d wish to wed? 
    Poor Cupid’s dead
  These thousand years, I wager. 
    The modern maid
    Is but a jade,
  Not worth the time to cage her.

    In silken gown
    To “take” the town
  Her first and last ambition. 
    What good is she
    To you or me
  Who have but a “position”?

    So let us drink
    To her,—­but think
  Of him who has to keep her;
    And sans a wife
    Let’s spend our life
  In bachelordom,—­it’s cheaper.

TOM HALL.

PIPES AND BEER.

  Before I was famous I used to sit
    In a dull old under-ground room I knew,
  And sip cheap beer, and be glad for it,
    With a wild Bohemian friend or two.

  And oh, it was joy to loiter thus,
    At peace in the heart of the city’s stir,
  Entombed, while life hurried over us,
    In our lazy bacchanal sepulchre.

  There was artist George, with the blond Greek head,
    And the startling creeds, and the loose cravat;
  There was splenetic journalistic Fred,
    Of the sharp retort and the shabby hat;

  There was dreamy Frank, of the lounging gait,
    Who lived on nothing a year, or less,
  And always meant to be something great,
    But only meant, and smoked to excess;

  And last myself, whom their funny sneers
    Annoyed no whit as they laughed and said,
  I listened to all their grand ideas
    And wrote them out for my daily bread!

  The Teuton beer-bibbers came and went,
    Night after night, and stared, good folk,
  At our table, noisy with argument,
    And our chronic aureoles of smoke.

  And oh, my life! but we all loved well
    The talk,—­free, fearless, keen, profound,—­
  The rockets of wit that flashed and fell
    In that dull old tavern under-ground!

  But there came a change in my days at last,
    And fortune forgot to starve and stint,
  And the people chose to admire aghast
    The book I had eaten dirt to print.

  And new friends gathered about me then,
    New voices summoned me there and here;
  The world went down in my dingy den,
    And drew me forth from the pipes and beer.

  I took the stamp of my altered lot,
    As the sands of the certain seasons ran,
  And slowly, whether I would or not,
    I felt myself growing a gentleman.

  But now and then I would break the thrall,
    I would yield to a pang of dumb regret,
  And steal to join them, and find them all,
    With the amber wassail near them yet,—­