Henry Livingston, Jr.
Henry Livingston's Poetry



    Weekly Museum, unsigned
    16 Mar 1795
    Weekly Museum, unsigned
    23 Mar 1798
    Poughkeepsie Journal
    3 Jun 1795
    Feb 1820

Don Foster 1/10/00 A parody of this poem appears in the PoK Journal, issue of Feb. [illeg] 1820, which is one that I copied when I first looked at microfilm copies of the PoK Journal. But the 1820 PoK J text of the parody is headed: "Parody on the Sonnet which appeared in the Herald of the 16th Instant"-- which means that the original must have been published in 1795, again in the Herald in 1820. This seems worth looking into. What are the reasons that you? WSThomas? ascribed it to HL?

Well, it looks as if you may be right about one version or the other. And since HL uses "parody' where we'd say "paraphrase" (not necessarily "to make fun of"), it's at least *possible* that both versions are his.

Mac Jackson "time"-"fine="; "Tho'", "I'm". Possibly HL.
Mary Van Deusen Uses rhyme scheme of Invitation to the Country; Much word repetition (happy); much sound repetition (sweet, molasses); uses "lover's cant"; humorous; much phrase reversal 'Admiring I gaz'd on each charm' just SOUNDS like him.

BUT

Works of Washington Irving
The young poet was discouraged in his personalities, but not his art; for he contributed metrical effusions to the "Weekly Museum," a little periodical of four pages, published in Peck Slip, to which he also contributed moral essays.
Word Match All Words



Cant Phrases


[Weekly Museum]

AS sound as a nut, o'er the plain
I of late whistled, chock full of glee;
A stranger to sorrow and pain,
As happy, as happy could be.

As plump as a partridge I grew,
My heart being lighter than cork;
My slumbers were calmer than dew!
My body was fatter than pork.

Thus happy I hop'd I should pass,
Sleek as grease down the current of time;
But pleasures are brittle as glass,
Although as a fiddle, there fine.

Jemima, the pride of the vale,
Like a top, nimbly danc'd o'er our plains;
With envy the lasses were pale--
With wonder stood gaping the swains.

She smil'd like a basket of chips--
As tall as a hay-pole her size--
As sweet as molasses her lips--
As bright as a button her eyes.

Admiring I gaz'd on each charm,
My peace that would trouble so soon,
And thought not of danger nor harm,
Any more than the man in the moon.

But now to my sorrow I find,
Her heart is as hard as a brick;
To my passion forever unkind,
Tho' of passion I'm full as a tic.

I sought her affection to win,
In hopes of obtaining relief,
Till I like a hatchet grew thin,
And she like a haddock grew deaf.

I late was as fat as a doe,
And playsome and spry as a cat;
But now I am dull as a hoe,
And lean and as weak as a rat.

Unless the unpitying fates
With passion as ardent shall cram her,
As certain of death or as rates,
I soon shall be dead as a hammer.







        
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