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    John Smith U.S.A.: "The biggest fish he ever caught were those that got away"
    John Smith U.S.A.: "The biggest fish he ever caught were those that got away"
    John Smith U.S.A.: "The biggest fish he ever caught were those that got away"
    Ebook109 pages1 hour

    John Smith U.S.A.: "The biggest fish he ever caught were those that got away"

    By Eugene Field

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    About this ebook

    Eugene Field was born on 2nd September 1850 in St. Louis, Missouri. His mother died when he was six and his father when he was nineteen. His academic life was not taken seriously and he preferred the life of a prankster until, in 1875, he began work as a journalist for the St. Joseph Gazette in Saint Joseph, Missouri.

    In his career as a journalist he soon found a niche that suited him. His articles were light, humorous and written in a personal gossipy style that endeared him to his readership. Some were soon being syndicated to other newspapers around the States. Field soon rose to city editor of the Gazette.

    Field had first published poetry in 1879, when his poem ‘Christmas Treasures’ appeared. This was the beginning that would eventually number over a dozen volumes. As well as verse Field published an extensive range of short stories including ‘The Holy Cross’ and ‘Daniel and the Devil.’

    In 1889 whilst the family were in London and Field himself was recovering from a bout of ill health he wrote his most famous poem; ‘Lovers Lane’.

    On 4th November 1895 Eugene Field Sr died in Chicago of a heart attack at the age of 45.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPortable Poetry
    Release dateOct 21, 2018
    ISBN9781787802056
    John Smith U.S.A.: "The biggest fish he ever caught were those that got away"
    Author

    Eugene Field

    Eugene Field (1850-1895) was a noted author best known for his fairy tales and nursery rhymes. Many of his children's poems were illustrated by Maxfield Parrish. Also an American journalist and humorous essay writer, Field was lost to the world at the young age of 45 when he died of a heart attack.

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      Book preview

      John Smith U.S.A. - Eugene Field

      John Smith, U.S.A. by Eugene Field

      Eugene Field was born on 2nd September 1850 in St. Louis, Missouri.  His mother died when he was six and his father when he was nineteen.  His academic life was not taken seriously and he preferred the life of a prankster until, in 1875, he began work as a journalist for the St. Joseph Gazette in Saint Joseph, Missouri.

      In his career as a journalist he soon found a niche that suited him.  His articles were light, humorous and written in a personal gossipy style that endeared him to his readership.  Some were soon being syndicated to other newspapers around the States.  Field soon rose to city editor of the Gazette.

      Field had first published poetry in 1879, when his poem ‘Christmas Treasures’ appeared. This was the beginning that would eventually number over a dozen volumes. As well as verse Field published an extensive range of short stories including ‘The Holy Cross’ and ‘Daniel and the Devil.’

      In 1889 whilst the family were in London and Field himself was recovering from a bout of ill health he wrote his most famous poem; ‘Lovers Lane’.

      On 4th November 1895 Eugene Field Sr died in Chicago of a heart attack at the age of 45.

      Index of Contents

      Introduction

      John Smith

      The Fisherman's Feast

      To John J. Knickerbocker, Jr.

      The Bottle and the Bird

      The Man Who Worked with Dana on the Sun

      A Democratic Hymn

      The Blue and the Gray

      It is the Printer's Fault

      Summer Heat

      Plaint of the Missouri 'Coon in the Berlin Zoological Gardens

      The Bibliomaniac's Bride

      Ezra J. M'Manus to a Soubrette

      The Monstrous Pleasant Ballad of the Taylor Pup

      Long Meter

      To DeWitt Miller

      Francois Villon

      Lydia Dick

      The Tin Bank

      In New Orleans

      The Peter-Bird

      Dibdin's Ghost

      An Autumn Treasure-Trove

      When the Poet Came

      The Perpetual Wooing

      My Playmates

      Mediaeval Eventide Song

      Alaskan Balladry

      Armenian Folk-Song—The Stork

      The Vision of the Holy Grail

      The Divine Lullaby

      Mortality

      A Fickle Woman

      Egyptian Folk-Song

      Armenian Folk-Song—The Partridge

      Alaskan Balladry, No. 1

      Old Dutch Love Song

      An Eclogue from Virgil

      Horace to Maecenas

      Horace's Sailor and Shade

      Uhland's Chapel

      The Happy Isles of Horace

      Horatian Lyrics

      Hugo's Pool in the Forest

      Horace I., 4

      Love Song—Heine

      Horace II., 3

      The Two Coffins

      Horace I., 31

      Horace to His Lute

      Horace I., 22

      The Ars Poetica of Horace XXIII

      Marthy's Younkit

      Abu Midjan

      The Dying Year

      Dead Roses

      Eugene Field – A Short Biography

      Eugene Field – A Concise Bibliography

      INTRODUCTION

      From whatever point of view the character of Eugene Field is seen, genius—rare and quaint presents itself is childlike simplicity. That he was a poet of keen perception, of rare discrimination, all will admit. He was a humorist as delicate and fanciful as Artemus Ward, Mark Twain, Bill Nye, James Whitcomb Riley, Opie Read, or Bret Harte in their happiest moods. Within him ran a poetic vein, capable of being worked in any direction, and from which he could, at will, extract that which

      his imagination saw and felt most. That he occasionally left the child-world, in which he longed to linger, to wander among the older children of men, where intuitively the hungry listener follows him into his Temple of Mirth, all should rejoice, for those who knew him not, can while away the moments imbibing the genius of his imagination in the poetry and prose here presented.

      Though never possessing an intimate acquaintanceship with Field, owing largely to the disparity in our ages, still there existed a bond of friendliness that renders my good opinion of him in a measure

      trustworthy. Born in the same city, both students in the same college, engaged at various times in newspaper work both in St. Louis and Chicago, residents of the same ward, with many mutual friends, it is not surprising that I am able to say of him that the world is better off that he lived, not in gold and silver or precious jewels, but in the bestowal of priceless truths, of which the possessor of this book becomes a benefactor of no mean share of his estate.

      Every lover of Field, whether of the songs of childhood or the poems that lend mirth to the out-pouring of his poetic nature, will welcome this unique collection of his choicest wit and humor.

      CHARLES WALTER Brown

      Chicago, January, 1905

      JOHN SMITH

      To-day I strayed in Charing Cross as wretched as could be

      With thinking of my home and friends across the tumbling sea;

      There was no water in my eyes, but my spirits were depressed

      And my heart lay like a sodden, soggy doughnut in my breast.

      This way and that streamed multitudes, that gayly passed me by—

      Not one in all the crowd knew me and not a one knew I!

      Oh, for a touch of home! I sighed; "oh, for a friendly face!

      Oh, for a hearty handclasp in this teeming desert place!"

      And so, soliloquizing as a homesick creature will,

      Incontinent, I wandered down the noisy, bustling hill

      And drifted, automatic-like and vaguely, into Lowe's,

      Where Fortune had in store a panacea for my woes.

      The register was open, and there dawned upon my sight

      A name that filled and thrilled me with a cyclone of delight—

      The name that I shall venerate unto my dying day—

      The proud, immortal signature: John Smith, U.S.A.

      Wildly I clutched the register and brooded on that name—

      I knew John Smith, yet could not well identify the same.

      I knew him North, I knew him South, I knew him East and West—

      I knew him all so well I knew not which I knew the best.

      His eyes, I recollect, were gray, and black, and brown, and blue,

      And, when he was not bald, his hair was of chameleon hue;

      Lean, fat, tall, short, rich, poor, grave, gay, a blonde and a

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