Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CARRYING COALS. In the gloomsome abysses where darkness is kept, And the spirit of silence for ages has slept, In the great shaft of Potsville, way down in the hole, There came seven parties, all dealers in coal; But they never had been in that chasm before, Nor had the sensation of darkness all o'er, Which so greatly expandeth the soul. And one of 'em said, " It's an awful delight To be infinite deep into no end of night, Where the heavenly sunshine can't manage to spring,— And, talking of that, I Ve a notion, by Jing ! Let we ourselves mine out some coal lumps to-day To show to the folks,—which I think, by the way, Would be a poetical thing." So they filled up their pockets, untried by a doubt, And in the hotel they unveiled 'em all out; But their glances grew strange as they turned o'er the weight, Till one of them shouted, " By thunder, it's slate !" Yet the youngest among them had dealered in coal, And unto that traffic surrendered his soul, Since the Anno Eighteen Forty-eight. For all of man's wisdom is only a dream, Which passeth away like a plate of ice-cream, And the best of experience fails, as we mark, If you go for to dig when you 're all in the dark; For there 's always a moral inside of a tale, And big things in little things always prevail As sure as there 's wood in the bark. CAREY, OF CARSON. The night-mist dim and darkling, As o'er the roads we pass, Lies in the morning sparkling As dewdrops on the grass. E'en so the deeds of darkness, Which come like midnight dews, Appear as sparkling items Next morning in the news. Away in Carson city, Far in the Silver Land, There lives one Justice Carey, A man of head and hand; And as upon his table The Judge a-smoking sat There rowdied in a rougher ...