And, oh! how the gingham and calico flew!
(Don’t fancy I exaggerate—
I got my views from the Chinese plate!)
Next morning where the two had sat
They found no trace of dog or cat;
And some folks think unto this day
That burglars stole that pair away!
But the truth about the cat and pup
Is this: They ate each other up!
Now what do you really think of that!
(The old Dutch clock it told me so,
And that is how I came to know.)
EUGENE FIELD
THE POLICEMAN’S LOT When a felon’s not engaged in his employment,
Or maturing his felonious little plans,
His capacity for innocent enjoyment
Is just as great as any other man’s.
Our feelings we with difficulty smother
When constabulary duty’s to be done:
Ah, take one consideration with another,
A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.
When the enterprising burglar’s not a-burgling,
And the cut-throat isn’t occupied in crime,
He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling,
And listen to the merry village chime.
When the coster’s finished jumping on his mother,
He loves to lie a-basking in the sun:
Ah, take one consideration with another,
A policeman’s lot is not a happy one!
W. S. GILBERT
ELEGY ON THE
DEATH OF A MAD DOG Good people all, of every sort,
Give ear unto my song;
And if you find it wondrous short,
It cannot hold you long.
In Islington there was a man
Of whom the world might say,
That still a godly race he ran—
Whene’er he went to pray.
A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes:
The naked every day he clad—
When he put on his clothes.
And in that town a dog was found,
As many dogs there be,
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,
And curs of low degree.
This dog and man at first were friends;
But when a pique began,
The dog, to gain his private ends,
Went mad, and bit the man.
Around from all the neighboring streets
The wondering neighbors ran,
And swore the dog had lost his wits,
To bite so good a man!
The wound it seemed both sore and sad
To every Christian eye:
And while they swore the dog was mad,
They swore the man would die.
But soon a wonder came to light,
That showed the rogues they lied:—
The man recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died!
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
THE PESSIMIST Nothing to do but work,
Nothing to eat but food;
Nothing to wear but clothes
To keep one from going nude.
Nothing to breathe but air,
Quick as a flash ’tis gone;
Nowhere to fall but off,
Nowhere to stand but on,
Nothing to comb but hair,
Nowhere to sleep but in bed;
Nothing to weep but tears,
Nothing to bury but dead.
Nothing to sing but songs;
Ah, well, alas! alack!
Nowhere to go but out,
Nowhere to come but back.
Nothing to see but sights,
Nothing to quench but thirst;
Nothing to have but what we’ve got;
Thus thro’ life we are cursed.
Nothing to strike but a gait;
Everything moves that goes.
Nothing at all but common sense
Can ever withstand these woes.
BEN KING
THE OWL AND THE PUSSY-CAT The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat;
They took some honey, and plenty of money
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
“O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love!
What a beautiful Pussy you are,—
You are, you are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!”
Pussy said to the Owl, “You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
Oh, let us be married,—too long we have tarried,—
But what shall we do for a ring?”
They sailed away for a year and a day
To the land where the Bong-tree grows,
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,—
His nose, his nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
“Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?” Said the Piggy, “I will.”
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined upon mince and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon,
And hand in hand on the edge of the sand
They danced by the light of the moon,—
The moon, the moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
EDWARD LEAR
THERE WAS A LITTLE GIRL There was a little girl, she had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead;
And when she was good, she was very, very good,
And when she was bad, she was horrid.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
THE PELICAN A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill can hold more than his belican.
He can take in his beak,
Food enough for a week,
But I’m damned if I see how the helican.
DIXON MERRITT
FLEAS Adam
Had’em
OGDEN NASH
WHAT’S THE USE? Sure, deck your limbs in pants,
Yours are the limbs, my sweeting.
You look divine as you advance …
Have you seen yourself retreating?
OGDEN NASH
OWED TO NEW YORK Vulgar of manner, overfed,
Overdressed and underbred,
Heartless, Godless, hell’s delight,
Rude by day and lewd by night;
Bedwarfed the man, o’ergrown the brute,
Ruled by boss and prostitute:
Purple-robed and pauper-clad,
Raving, rotting, money-mad;
A squirming herd in Mammon’s mesh,
A wilderness of human flesh;
Crazed by avarice, lust and rum,
New York, thy name’s “Delirium.”
BYRON RUFUS NEWTON
THE BALLAD OF YUKON JAKE Begging Robert W. Service’s Pardon
Oh the north countree is a hard countree
That mothers a bloody brood;
And its icy arms hold hidden charms
For the greedy, the sinful and lewd.
And strong men rust, from the gold and the lust
That sears the Northland soul,
But the wickedest born, from the Pole to the Horn,
Is the Hermit of Shark-Tooth Shoal.
Now Jacob Kaime was the Hermit’s name
In the days of his pious youth,
Ere he cast a smirch on the Baptist Church
By betraying a girl named Ruth.
But now men quake at “Yukon Jake,”
The Hermit of Shark-Tooth Shoal,
For that is the name that Jacob Kaime
Is known by from Nome to the Pole.
He was just a boy and
the parson’s joy
(Ere he fell for the gold and the muck),
And had learned to pray, with the hogs and the hay
On a farm near Keokuk.
But a Service tale of illicit kale,
And whisky and women wild,
Drained the morals clean as a soup tureen
From this poor but honest child.
He longed for the bite of a Yukon night
And the Northern Light’s weird flicker,
Or a game of stud in the frozen mud,
And the taste of raw red licker.
He wanted to mush along in the slush,
With a team of husky hounds,
And to fire his gat at a beaver hat
And knock it out of bounds.
So he left his home for the hell-town Nome,
On Alaska’s ice-ribbed shores,
And he learned to curse, and to drink, and worse,
Till the rum dripped from his pores,
When the boys on a spree were drinking it free
In a Malamute saloon
And Dan Megrew and his dangerous crew
Shot crap with the piebald coon;
When the Kid on his stool banged away like a fool
At a jag-time melody,
And the barkeep vowed, to the hard-boiled crowd,
That he’d cree-mate Sam McGee—
Then Jacob Kaime, who had taken the name
Of Yukon Jake, the Killer,
Would rake the dive with his forty-five
Till the atmosphere grew chiller.
With a sharp command he’d make ’em stand
And deliver their hard-earned dust,
Then drink the bar dry of rum and rye,
As a Klondike bully must.
Without coming to blows he would tweak the nose
Of Dangerous Dan Megrew,
And, becoming bolder, throw over his shoulder
The lady that’s known as Lou.
Oh, tough as a steak was Yukon Jake—
Hard-boiled as a picnic egg.
He washed his shirt in the Klondike dirt,
And drank his rum by the keg.
In fear of their lives (or because of their wives)
He was shunned by the best of his pals,
An outcast he, from the comradery
Of all but wild animals.
So he bought him the whole of Shark-Tooth Shoal,
A reef in the Bering Sea,
And he lived by himself on a sea lion’s shelf
In lonely iniquity.
But, miles away, in Keokuk, Ia.,
Did a ruined maiden fight
To remove the smirch from the Baptist Church
By bringing the heathen Light;
And the Elders declared that all would be spared
If she carried the holy words
From her Keokuk home to the hell-town Nome
To save those sinful birds,
So, two weeks later, she took a freighter,
For die gold-cursed land near the Pole,
But Heaven ain’t made for a lass that’s betrayed—
She was wrecked on Shark-Tooth Shoal!
All hands were tossed in the Sea, and lost—
All but the maiden Ruth,
Who swam to the edge of the sea lion’s ledge
Where abode the love of her youth.
He was hunting a seal for his evening meal
(He handled a mean harpoon)
When he saw at his feet, not something to eat,
But a girl in a frozen swoon,
Whom he dragged to his lair by her dripping hair,
And he rubbed her knees with gin.
To his great surprise, she opened her eyes
And revealed—his Original Sin!
His eight-months beard grew stiff and weird,
And it felt like a chestnut burr,
And he swore by his gizzard, and the Arctic blizzard
That he’d do right by her.
But the cold sweat froze on the end of her nose
Till it gleamed like a Tecla pearl,
While her bright hair fell, like a flame from hell,
Down the back of the grateful girl.
But a hopeless rake was Yukon Jake,
The Hermit of Shark-Tooth Shoal!
And the dizzy maid he rebetrayed
And wrecked her immortal soul!…
Then he rowed her ashore, with a broken oar,
And he sold her to Dan Megrew
For a husky dog and some hot eggnog,
As rascals are wont to do.
Now ruthless Ruth is a maid uncouth
With scarlet cheeks and lips,
And she sings rough songs to the drunken throngs
That come from the sealing ships.
For a rouge-stained kiss from this infamous miss
They will give a seal’s sleek fur,
Or perhaps a sable, if they are able;
It’s much the same to her.
Oh, the North Countree is a rough countree,
That mothers a bloody brood;
And its icy arms hold hidden charms
For the greedy, the sinful and lewd.
And strong men rust, from the gold and the lust
That sears the Northland soul,
But the wickedest born from the Pole to the Horn
Was the Hermit of Shark-Tooth Shoal!
EDWARD E. PARAMORE, JR.
A WISE OLD OWL A wise old owl lived in an oak;
The more he saw the less he spoke;
The less he spoke the more he heard:
Why can’t we all be like that bird?
EDWARD HERSEY RICHARDS
THE BLIND MEN
AND THE ELEPHANT It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.
The First approached the elephant,
And, happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the elephant
Is nothing but a wall!”
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried: “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis mighty clear
This wonder of an elephant
Is very like a spear!”
The Third approached the animal,
And, happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the elephant
Is very like a snake!”
The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee:
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
“’Tis clear enough the elephant
Is very like a tree.”
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an elephant
Is very like a fan!”
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the elephant
Is very like a rope!”
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an eleph
ant
Not one of them has seen!
JOHN GODFREY SAXE
THE CREMATION OF SAM MCGEE There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam ’round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he’d often say in his homely way that he’d “sooner live in hell”.
On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn’t see;
It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.
And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and “Cap,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I’m asking that you won’t refuse my last request.”
Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
“It’s the cursed cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet ’tain’t being dead — it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”
A pal’s last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
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