Kitabı oku: «Mother Goose for Grown-ups», sayfa 3

THE GASTRONOMIC GUILE OF SIMPLE SIMON

 
Conveniently near to where
Young Simple Simon dwelt
There was to be a county fair,
And Simple Simon felt
That to the fair he ought to go
In all his Sunday clothes, and so,
Determined to behold the show,
He put them on and went.
(One-half his clothes was borrowed and the other half was lent.)
 
 
He heard afar the cheerful sound
Of horns that people blew,
Saw wooden horses swing around
A circle, two and two,
Beheld balloons arise, and if
He scented with a gentle sniff
The smells of pies, what is the dif-
Ference to me or you?
(You cannot say my verse is false, because I know it's true.)
 
 
As Simple Simon nearer came
To these attractive smells,
Avoiding every little game
Men played with walnut shells,
He felt a sudden longing rise.
The sparkle in his eager eyes
Betrayed the fact he yearned for pies:
The eye the secret tells.
('Tis known the pie of county fairs all other pies excels.)
 
 
So when he saw upon the road,
Some fifty feet away,
A pieman, Simple Simon strode
Toward him, shouting: "Hey!
What kinds?" as lordly as a prince.
The pieman said: "I've pumpkin, quince,
Blueberry, lemon, peach, and mince:"
And, showing his array,
He added: "Won't you try one, sir? They're very nice to-day."
 
 
Now Simon's taste was most profuse,
And so, by way of start,
He ate two cakes, a Charlotte Russe,
Six buns, the better part
Of one big gingerbread, a pair
Of lady-fingers, an eclair,
And ten assorted pies, and there,
His hand upon his heart,
He paused to choose between an apple dumpling and a tart.
 
 
Observing that upon his tray
His goods were growing few,
The pieman cried: "I beg to say
That patrons such as you
One does not meet in many a moon.
Pray, won't you try this macaroon?"
But soon suspicious, changed his tune,
Continuing: "What is due
I beg respectfully to add's a dollar twenty-two."
 
 
Then Simple Simon put a curb
Upon his appetite,
And turning with an air superb
He suddenly took flight,
While o'er his shoulder this absurd
And really most offensive word
The trusting pieman shortly heard
To soothe his bitter plight:
"Perhaps I should have said before your wares are out of sight."
 
 
The moral is a simple one,
But still of consequence.
We've seen that Simon's sense of fun
Was almost too intense:
Though blaming his deceitful guise,
We with the pieman sympathize,
The latter we must criticize
Because he was so dense:
He might have known from what he ate that Simon had no cents.
 

THE HARMONIOUS HEEDLESSNESS OF LITTLE BOY BLUE

 
Composing scales beside the rails
That flanked a field of corn,
A farmer's boy with vicious joy
Performed upon a horn:
The vagrant airs, the fragrant airs
Around that field that strayed,
Took flight before the flagrant airs
That noisome urchin played.
 
 
He played with care "The Maiden's Prayer;"
He played "God Save the Queen,"
"Die Wacht am Rhein," and "Auld Lang Syne,"
And "Wearing of the Green:"
With futile toots, and brutal toots,
And shrill chromatic scales,
And utterly inutile toots,
And agonizing wails.
 
 
The while he played, around him strayed,
And calmly chewed the cud,
Some thirty-nine assorted kine,
All ankle-deep in mud:
They stamped about and tramped about
That mud, till all the troupe
Made noises, as they ramped about,
Like school-boys eating soup.
 
 
Till, growing bored, with one accord
They broke the fence forlorn:
The field was doomed. The cows consumed
Two-thirds of all the corn,
And viciously, maliciously,
Went prancing o'er the loam.
That landscape expeditiously
Resembled harvest-home.
 
 
"Most idle ass of all your class,"
The farmer said with scorn:
"Just see my son, what you have done!
The cows are in the corn!"
"Oh drat," he said, "the brat!" he said.
The cowherd seemed to rouse.
"My friend, it's worse than that," he said.
"The corn is in the cows."
 
 
The moral lies before our eyes.
When tending kine and corn,
Don't spend your noons in tooting tunes
Upon a blatant horn:
Or scaling, and assailing, and
With energy immense,
Your cows will take a railing, and
The farmer take offense.
 

THE INEXCUSABLE IMPROBITY OF TOM, THE PIPER'S SON

 
A Paris butcher kept a shop
Upon the river's bank
Where you could buy a mutton chop
Or two for half a franc.
The little shop was spruce and neat,
In view of all who trod the street
The decorated joints of meat
Were hung up in a rank.
 
 
This Gallic butcher led a life
Of highly moral tone;
He never raised his voice in strife,
He never drank alone:
He simply sat outside his door
And slept from eight o'clock till four;
The more he slept, so much the more
To slumber he was prone.
 
 
One day outside his shop he put
A pig he meant to stuff,
And carefully around each foot
He pinned a paper ruff,
But, while a watch he should have kept,
His habit conquered, and he slept,
And for a thief who was adept
That surely was enough.
 
 
A Scottish piper dwelt near by,
Whose one ungracious son
Beheld that pig and murmured: "Why,
No sooner said than done!
It seems to me that this I need."
And grasping it, with all his speed
Across the Pont des Invalides
He started on a run.
 
 
Then, turning sharply to the right,
Without a thought of risk,
He fled. 'Tis fair to call his flight
Inordinately brisk.
But now the town was all astir,
In vain his feet he strove to spur,
They caught him, shouting: "Au voleur!"
Beside the Obelisk.
 
 
The breathless butcher cried: "A mort!"
The crowd said: "Conspuez!"
And some: "A bas!" and half a score
Responded: "Vive l'armée!"
While grim gendarmes with piercing eye,
And stern remarks about: "Canaille!"
The pig abstracted on the sly.
Such is the Gallic way!
 
 
The piper's offspring, his defeat
Deep-rooted in his heart,
A revolutionary sheet
Proceeded then to start.
Thenceforward every evening he
In leaders scathed the Ministry,
And wished he could accomplish the
Return of Bonaparte.
 
 
The moral is that when the press
Begins to rave and shout
It's often difficult to guess
What it is all about.
The editor we strive to pin,
But we can never find him in.
What startling knowledge we should win
If we could find him out!