AN OLD YEAR'S ADDRESS

“I have twankled the strings of the twinkering rain;

I have burnished the meteor's mail;

I have bridled the wind

When he whinnied and whined

With a bunch of stars tied to his tail;

But my sky-rocket hopes, hanging over the past,

Must fuzzle and fazzle and fizzle at last!”

I had waded far out in a drizzling dream,

And my fancies had spattered my eyes

With a vision of dread,

With a number ten head,

And a form of diminutive size —

That wavered and wagged in a singular way

As he wound himself up and proceeded to say,—

“I have trimmed all my corns with the blade of the moon;

I have picked every tooth with a star:

And I thrill to recall

That I went through it all

Like a tune through a tickled guitar.

I have ripped up the rainbow and raveled the ends

When the sun and myself were particular friends.”

And pausing again, and producing a sponge

And wiping the tears from his eyes,

He sank in a chair

With a technical air

That he struggled in vain to disguise,—

For a sigh that he breathed, as I over him leant,

Was haunted and hot with a peppermint scent.

“Alas!” he continued in quavering tones

As a pang rippled over his face,

“The life was too fast

For the pleasure to last

In my very unfortunate case;

And I'm going” — he said as he turned to adjust

A fuse in his bosom,— “I'm going to — BUST!”

I shrieked and awoke with the sullen che-boom

Of a five-pounder filling my ears;

And a roseate bloom

Of a light in the room

I saw through the mist of my tears,—

But my guest of the night never saw the display,

He had fuzzled and fazzled and fizzled away!