John Smith, U.S.A.

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Title: John Smith, U.S.A.
Author: Eugene Field
Release Date: June 23, 2004 [EBook #12696]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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[Illustration: Eugene Field]
JOHN SMITH
U.S.A.
BY
EUGENE FIELD
AUTHOR OF
THE CLINK OF THE ICE
IN WINK-A-WAY-LAND
HOOSIER LYRICS, ETC.
1905.
INTRODUCTION.
From whatever point of view the character of Eugene Field is seen, genius--rare and quaint presents itself is childlike simplicity. That he was a poet of keen perception, of rare discrimination, all will admit. He was a humorist as delicate and fanciful as Artemus Ward, Mark Twain, Bill Nye, James Whitcomb Riley, Opie Read, or Bret Harte in their happiest moods. Within him ran a poetic vein, capable of being worked in any direction, and from which he could, at will, extract that which his imagination saw and felt most. That he occasionally left the child-world, in which he longed to linger, to wander among the older children of men, where intuitively the hungry listener follows him into his Temple of Mirth, all should rejoice, for those who knew him not, can while away the moments imbibing the genius of his imagination in the poetry and prose here presented.
Though never possessing an intimate acquaintanceship with Field, owing largely to the disparity in our ages, still there existed a bond of friendliness that renders my good opinion of him in a measure trustworthy. Born in the same city, both students in the same college, engaged at various times in newspaper work both in St. Louis and Chicago, residents of the same ward, with many mutual friends, it is not surprising that I am able to say of him that "the world is better off that he lived, not in gold and silver or precious jewels, but in the bestowal of priceless truths, of which the possessor of this book becomes a benefactor of no mean share of his estate."
Every lover of Field, whether of the songs of childhood or the poems that lend mirth to the out-pouring of his poetic nature, will welcome this unique collection of his choicest wit and humor.
CHARLES WALTER Brown.
Chicago, January, 1905.
CONTENTS.
John Smith?The Fisherman's Feast?To John J. Knickerbocker, Jr.?The Bottle and the Bird?The Man Who Worked with Dana on the "Sun"?A Democratic Hymn?The Blue and the Gray?It is the Printer's Fault?Summer Heat?Plaint of the Missouri 'Coon in the Berlin Zoological Gardens The Bibliomaniac's Bride?Ezra J. M'Manus to a Soubrette?The Monstrous Pleasant Ballad of the Taylor Pup?Long Meter?To DeWitt Miller?Francois Villon?Lydia Dick?The Tin Bank?In New Orleans?The Peter-Bird?Dibdin's Ghost?An Autumn Treasure-Trove?When the Poet Came?The Perpetual Wooing?My Playmates?Mediaeval Eventide Song?Alaskan Balladry?Armenian Folk-Song--The Stork?The Vision of the Holy Grail?The Divine Lullaby?Mortality?A Fickle Woman?Egyptian Folk-Song?Armenian Folk-Song--The Partridge?Alaskan Balladry, No. 1?Old Dutch Love Song?An Eclogue from Virgil?Horace to Maecenas?Horace's "Sailor and Shade"?Uhland's "Chapel"?"The Happy Isles" of Horace?Horatian Lyrics?Hugo's "Pool in the Forest"?Horace I., 4?Love Song--Heine?Horace II., 3?The Two Coffins?Horace I., 31?Horace to His Lute?Horace I., 22?The "Ars Poetica" of Horace XXIII?Marthy's Younkit?Abu Midjan?The Dying Year?Dead Roses
JOHN SMITH.
To-day I strayed in Charing Cross as wretched as could be With thinking of my home and friends across the tumbling sea; There was no water in my eyes, but my spirits were depressed And my heart lay like a sodden, soggy doughnut in my breast. This way and that streamed multitudes, that gayly passed me by-- Not one in all the crowd knew me and not a one knew I!?"Oh, for a touch of home!" I sighed; "oh, for a friendly face! Oh, for a hearty handclasp in this teeming desert place!" And so, soliloquizing as a homesick creature will,?Incontinent, I wandered down the noisy, bustling hill?And drifted, automatic-like and vaguely, into Lowe's,?Where Fortune had in store a panacea for my woes.?The register was open, and there dawned upon my sight?A name that filled and thrilled me with a cyclone of delight-- The name that I shall venerate unto my dying day--?The proud, immortal signature: "John Smith, U.S.A."
Wildly I clutched the register and brooded on that name-- I knew John Smith, yet could not well identify the same.?I knew him North, I knew him South, I knew him East and West-- I knew him all so well I knew not which I knew the best.?His eyes, I recollect, were gray, and black, and brown, and blue, And, when he was not bald, his hair was of chameleon hue; Lean, fat, tall, short, rich, poor, grave, gay, a blonde and a brunette-- Aha, amid this London fog, John Smith, I