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That could n't be split nor bent nor broke, —
That was for spokes and floor and sills;

He sent for lancewood to make the thills;

The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees;

The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;

The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,"

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Never an axe had seen their chips,

And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;

Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,

Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,

Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.

That was the way he "put her through."

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"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she 'll dew! "

Do! I tell you, I rather guess

She was a wonder, and nothing less!

Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,

Deacon and deaconess dropped away,

Children and grandchildren - where were they?

But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED;

- it came and found

The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.

Eighteen hundred increased by ten;

"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.

Eighteen hundred and twenty came;

Running as usual; much the same.

Thirty and forty at last arrive,

And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.

Little of all we value here

Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.

In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.

(This is a moral that runs at large;

Take it. You 're welcome. - No extra charge.)

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FIRST OF NOVEMBER, the Earthquake-day.

There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,

A general flavor of mild decay,

But nothing local as one may say.

There could n't be, for the Deacon's art

Had made it so like in every part

That there was n't a chance for one to start.
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,
And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floor,
And the whippletree neither less nor more,
And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore,
And spring and axle and hub encore.
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt
In another hour it will be worn out!

First of November, 'Fifty-five!

This morning the parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys, get out of the way!"

Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay,
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
"Huddup!" said the parson.

Off went they.

The parson was working his Sunday's text,-
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the - Moses was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill.

- First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill,-

And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half past nine by the meet'n'-house clock,
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!

What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you 're not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once,
All at once, and nothing first, -
Just as bubbles do when they burst.

End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.
Logic is logic. That's all I say.

ESTIVATION.

AN UNPUBLISHED POEM, BY MY LATE LATIN TUTOR.

IN candent ire the solar splendor flames; The foles, languescent, pend from arid rames; . His humid front the cive, anheling, wipes, And dreams of erring on ventiferous ripes.

How dulce to vive occult to mortal eyes,
Dorm on the herb with none to supervise,
Carp the suave berries from the crescent vine,
And bibe the flow from longicaudate kine!

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To me, alas! no verdurous visions come,
Save yon exiguous pool's conferva-scum,
No concave vast repeats the tender hue
That laves my milk-jug with celestial blue!

Me wretched! Let me curr to quercine shades! Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids!

O, might I vole to some umbrageous clump,

Depart, be off, excede, evade, erump!

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