Eugene Field

A Little Book of Western Verse (1889)

• I feel a sort of yearnin' 'nd a chokin' in my throat
  When I think of Red Hoss Mountain 'nd of Casey's tabble dote!
  • Casey's Table d'Hôte, st. 1

• He could whip his weight in wildcats.
  • Modjesky as Cameel, st. 10

• The best of all physicians
  Is apple pie and cheese!
  • Apple Pie and Cheese, st. 5

• It always was the biggest fish I caught that got away.
  • Our Biggest Fish, st. 2

• When I demanded of my friend what viands he preferred,
  He quoth: "A large cold bottle, and a small hot bird!"
  • The Bottle and the Bird, st. 1

Love Songs of Childhood (1894)

• Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
  Sailed off in a wooden shoe—
  Sailed on a river of crystal light,
  Into a sea of dew.
  • Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, st. 1

• The little toy dog is covered with dust,
  But sturdy and stanch he stands;
  And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
  And his musket moulds in his hands.
  Time was when the little toy dog was new,
  And the soldier was passing fair;
  And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
  Kissed them and put them there.
  • Little Boy Blue, st. 1

• The gingham dog went "Bow-wow-wow!"
  And the calico cat replied "Mee-ow!"
  The air was littered, an hour or so,
  With bits of gingham and calico.
  • The Duel, st. 2

• Father calls me William, sister calls me Will,
  Mother calls me Willie, but the fellers call me Bill!
  Mighty glad I ain't a girl—ruther be a boy,
  Without them sashes, curls, an' things that 's worn by Fauntleroy!
  Love to chawnk green apples an' go swimmin' in the lake—
  Hate to take the castor-ile they give for bellyache!
  'Most all the time, the whole year round, there ain't no flies on me,
  But jest 'fore Christmas I'm as good as I kin be!
  • Jest 'Fore Christmas, st. 1

Unsourced

• He played the King as though under momentary apprehension that someone else was about to play the ace.

• Ideas came with explosive immediacy, like an instant birth. Human thought is like a monstrous pendulum; it keeps swinging from one extreme to the other.

• A little peach in an orchard grew,—
  A little peach of emerald hue;
  Warmed by the sun and wet by the dew
  It grew.
  • The little Peach.

• We twain
  Discussed with buoyant hearts
  The various things that appertain
  To bibliomaniac arts.
  • Dibdin’s Ghost.

• The fire upon the hearth is low,
  And there is stillness everywhere,
  And, like winged spirits, here and there
  The firelight shadows fluttering go.
  • In the Firelight.