Two Pictures

I.    I. CAN’T.
I. Can’t sat down by a mole-hill 
     And mumbled under his breath,
"This way is so hard to clamber, 
     I shall certainly catch my death.

They say the Delectable Islands
     Are away off there in the blue:
But I can't swim, for the water
     Will wet me through and through.

There's gold at the foot of the Rainbow,—
     Humph! that's exactly the way!
It only comes out when it's showery:
     Why not in a good clear day?

'm told there are diamonds yonder,
     Far off where the Lions feed;
I know if I go they’ll eat me, 
     And I'd rather they wouldn't, indeed.

Rail-fenced with alligators,
     The pippins of bullion grow, 
And that’s 'way down in the Antipodes,
     Where it takes a life to go!

There be Icebergs up in Alaska,
     I could sell them hero in a week,
But a great white bear is squatting 
     On every particular peak.

There's gold in the rocks of Nevada,—
     My scalp doesn't sit very tight!
There's hard coal down in Earth's cellars, 
     But a body can't work all night.

I wish there was something, somewhere 
     Where there's never a dragon to dine!
Or that some true Lamp of Aladdin, 
     With a good tame Genie were mine.

If bears and lions and tigers, 
     Must all sit around in a ring,
Where the Apples of Gold are hanging,
     Do you see?—Why—I can't get a thing!"

So sat and pined and dwindled, 
     And mumbled and muttered I. CAN'T,
Till shrunk to the grit that was in him, 
     He was lugged to her nest by an Ant!

II.    I. WILL.
I. WILL. Stands up like a hero
     And smites the rock in its face, 
Its black jaws open, a tunnel
     Where his snorting fire-steeds race.

He snuffed the gales of the morning
     That over the Spice Isles blow, 
And built him an iron dragon 
     On the roaring waves to go.

In the very teeth of the tempest
     He drove his rivetted scales;
And he had white wings to waft him
     Before the obedient gales.

He has laid his hand on lightning,
     And his bridle-rein is of wire;
And lo, on his three-penny errands
     Off trots that demon of fire!

He would whisper the price of cotton
     To his neighbor just over the sea,
So the flame-Imp dives to the bottom,
     It is done within clock-ticks three.

The rocks of the steep Nevada
     In his molars of steel are torn;
And he winnows the crags for treasure
     As a farmer his golden corn.

He plucks the mantle of winter
     From all the shuddering lakes,
To temper the burning solstice
     When the fiend of fever wakes.

He has sold blue-frost by inches,
     And said to his ice-berg Shares,
“Go up, go up, old Baldheads,
     And now, fetch on your Bears!”

The terrible bears of Alaska,
     Did they frighten his laughing girls?
No, they followed in sweet pomatum
     The wave of their golden curls.

He holds the Lamp of Aladdin
     In the resolute eye and brain,
For the Genii that conquers Fortune
     Is a purpose strong and fain.

So grows into power and honor
     The soul of the gallant I. WILL,
Till matching the grit that is in him
     Can its grandeur the ages fill!