IN FLANDERS.

THROUGH sleet and fogs to the saline bogs
Where the herring fish meanders,

An army sped, and then, 't is said,

Swore terribly in Flanders:

A hideous store of oaths they swore,

Did the army over in Flanders!

At this distant day we 're unable to say

What so aroused their danders;

But it's doubtless the case, to their lasting disgrace,

That the army swore in Flanders:

And many more such oaths they swore,

Did that impious horde in Flanders!

Some folks contend that these oaths without end

Began among the commanders,

That, taking this cue, the subordinates, too,

Swore terribly in Flanders:

Why, the air was blue with the hullaballoo

Of those wicked men in Flanders!

But some suppose that the trouble arose
With a certain Corporal Sanders,

Who sought to abuse the wooden shoes

That the natives wore in Flanders.

What marvel then, that the other men

Felt encouraged to swear in Flanders!

At any rate, as I grieve to state,

Since these soldiers vented their danders Conjectures obtain that for language profane There is no such place as Flanders.

This is the kind of talk you 'll find

If ever you go to Flanders.

!"

!

How wretched is he, wherever he be,
That unto this habit panders!

And how glad am I that my interests lie

In Chicago, and not in Flanders!

Would never go down in this circumspect town

However it might in Flanders.

WHEN

OUR BIGGEST FISH.

HEN in the halcyon days of eld, I was a little tyke,

I used to fish in pickerel ponds for minnows and

the like;

And oh, the bitter sadness with which my soul was fraught

When I rambled home at nightfall with the puny string I'd caught!

And, oh, the indignation and the valor I 'd display When I claimed that all the biggest fish I'd caught had got away!

Sometimes it was the rusty hooks, sometimes the fragile lines,

And many times the treacherous reeds would foil my just designs;

But whether hooks or lines or reeds were actually to blame

I kept right on at losing all the monsters just the

I never lost a little fish

- yes,

I am free to say

It always was the biggest fish I caught that got

away.

And so it was, when later on, I felt ambition

pass

From callow minnow joys to nobler greed for pike and bass;

I found it quite convenient, when the beauties would n't bite

And I returned all bootless from the watery chase

at night,

To feign a cheery aspect and recount in accents

gay

How the biggest fish that I had caught had somehow got away.

And really, fish look bigger than they are before they're caught—

When the pole is bent into a bow and the slender

line is taut,

When a fellow feels his heart rise up like a doughnut in his throat

And he lunges in a frenzy up and down the leaky

boat!