POETRY.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1886, 10 March 1880, Page 3

POETRY.

THE OLD SUBSCRIBER. It was the old subscriber. His eyes were old and dim, But “ he wan’t takin’ no paper That was pokin’ chaff at him.” For he picked his paper up one day, And it went to his heart like a rocket; “Whom the gods love, die young,” it said, “But they whose hearts are dry,” he read, “ As summer’s dust, burn to the socket.” Then he looked through the paper with wrath and doubt. And his heart with anger burned, For he found a t had been left out, And he found an o that was “ turned,” And he lifted his voice with a mighty shout As the sheet with his feet he spurned. Ho stopped his paper ; he would not read Such a blundering, villainous sheet; Of the news it contained he had no need, He could hear the news on the street. Only ten days later he sold his corn, But he pounded his head full of dents, When he learned, after selling for twelre-and-a-half, It was quoted at forty-two cents. And his farm was sold for taxes, because He didn’t know when they were due. And he bet on a race three days after date, And he bet on the wrong horse, too. He was fined nine dollars and seventy scents For going out shooting on Sunday, For he didn’t know, with no paper to read, Whether ’twaa Sunday or Monday. Ho came to town to the Fourth of July, But it had been gone for a week, And he felt so mad, that he wanted to cry, For he didn’t know how to speak. He thought that Grant was President yet, And he never had heard of Hayes ; It was worry, and blunder, and trouble, and fret, All of his weary days. So he came to town, one summer morn And “ signed” for his paper again, And went back home to his wheat and corn, The happiest man among men. —“ Burlington Hawk Eye.”