Kitabı oku: «The Bee's Bayonet (a Little Honey and a Little Sting)», sayfa 5

JINGLES

 
Little Bo Peep
Went fast to sleep;
Losing her sheep.
There were ninety and nine of these lambkins that fled
When poor, little Bo was asleep in her bed;
And when they returned they were mutton instead.
O, what a stew!
'Twixt me and yew
What could Bo do?
 
 
O! Jack and Jill
Went up the hill,
Their pail to fill.
The water was running: they didn't pursue,
But filled up their growler with Double X Brew,
And Jill, in a measure, was full, and Jack too.
Both had a thirst:
Jack's was the worst:
He tumbled first.
 
 
Horner boy Jack
Had the right knack;
Cornered the snack.
His fortune grew fast from that one Christmas plum;
His profits on 'Change showed a marvelous sum,
Till he soon had Financialdom under his thumb.
O! what a wiz!
Jack knew his biz:
All now is his.
 
 
Good old King Cole,
"Merry old Soul,"
Knew how to bowl.
No high-balls were spared at his nocturnal spread,
And the fumes of the liquor would strike in his head
Till, knocked off his pins, he was set up in bed.
Jackass or king
Will have his fling:
Naughty, Old Thing.
 
 
Old Lady Drew
Lived in a shoe:
Children there too.
Their home was too cramped for a dozen or more,
But others have suffered from tight shoes before,
So the latch-string was always hung out on the door.
To upper skies
Good old sole flies,
With all her ties.
 
 
The Drews and Jack Horner lived on the same street:
Jack gambled with Hymen and Drew Marguerite,
And love for his sole-mate affected his feet.
There ne'er was a "comeback" to poor Jack and Jill;
The King followed after them going "down hill,"
And Bo, left alone, is a sheepish maid still.
 

THE WEIGHT OF LOVE

 
I was sitting in the parlor
With my Sweetheart on my knee,
And the fireplace lights and shadows
Silhouetted her and me.
 
 
Heavy grew she towards the morning,
When the gold-fringed sunbeams leap:
She was wide awake as ever
But my leg was fast asleep.
 
 
Flesh is weak and so I shifted
My loved load, as best I could,
From the numb knee to the other;
From the leg of flesh to wood.
 
 
Then I felt my Sweetheart shiver,
And I realized her state
When she drew a white-ash sliver
From the leg articulate.
 

DO IT!

 
Dare to do it!
You'll not rue it
If you save some Human Craft
From the rocks where fierce gales blew it,
Using Kindness for a raft.
 
 
O, dare to do!
Be kind and true
To the friends you make thru life;
Then High Heaven will reward you
With immunity from strife.
 
 
If a Lion
Were a dyin',
Would you go into his lair
And attempt to soothe his cryin'?
Do it! Do it, if you dare!
 

AMENITIES

 
The Parson tied the Hymen knot
That made two halves a whole;
The while a speculating what
Would be his marriage toll.
 
 
The Groom, when he had kissed the Bride,
Was taken with the chills:
Her icy lips could not abide
Osculatory thrills.
 
 
But soon his fever was effaced;
His hand obeyed his will,
And in the Parson's palm he placed
A soiled One Dollar Bill.
 
 
"Anathema!" the preacher cried,—
"Thou reptile of the Earth!"
The Groom replied—"Then take the Bride!
I think it's all she's worth!"
 

"DANSER SUR UN VULCAN"

 
Now goeth forth the Swell elite,
With patent leathers on his feet;
With collar spotless, cuffs to suit,
In truth bon-ton, from hat to boot.
 
 
A bootblack, with an eye to biz,
With dirty hands and ugly phiz,
Beholds him as he goes, and throws
Banana peels beneath his toes.
 
 
Along the pave Adonis trips;
He steps upon the peel, and slips
Into the juicy gutter:
His eyes are filled with fire and ire,
But water, muck and mire conspire
To drown the words he'd utter.
 

L'ENVOI

 
Go where you will, the stars will shine,
And so will Tony, I opine:
But O! the stars Adonis spied
When he went "out," a sewerside.
 

AT THE BULGING UDDER TIME

 
Years have passed since I, an urchin,
Drove the Cow, so sleek and prime,
Down the path, where crows were perchin'
At the Bulging Udder Time.
 
 
Those were days well worth one's living,
When I watched, with joy sublime,
What the generous Cow was giving
At the Bulging Udder Time.
 
 
Later on, when we grew older,
Father gave us each a dime—
Me and Bill—to milk and hold her,
At the Bulging Udder Time:
 
 
But, alas! we came to grieving:
Bill was kicked and smeared with grime,
And the Cow boo-booed on leaving—
"Come around some udder time!"
 

VAGARIES

 
The husky Corn has pushed ahead with silken locks atop;
O, Brother, ain't it shocking?
And Colonels are expecting quite a bumper Bourbon crop—
Saloonward they are flocking!
But when they strip the ears and find the wasteful worms surrounding,
'Twill make the "moonshine" dimmer;
For ev'ry still has coils of worms illicitly abounding
Where sour-mash mixtures simmer.
The hillside Stills their fragrance breathe, and wood birds are a sounding;
My jug is in the hollow:
So fill it up, but watch your step and Secret Service hounding!
The scent is sweet to follow.
 
 
The Cotton Bolls are bursting forth with weevils in the sepals;
Come, Dinah, get to picking!
And rush the staple to the mart to clothe the naked peoples!
Or you will get a licking!
The baleful Gins are all prepared to do the fibre-squeezing:
Get busy, Massa Willie!
And set the weevils back a bit, and save the folks from freezing!
It's getting powerful chilly!
You Pickaninnies hustle now, and do the proper bagging!
The possum's cooking, Honey!
And when the work is thru we'll do our banjo stunts, and ragging
And get our "Cakewalk" money.
 

A SHATTERED ROMANCE

 
My heart is aflame with a love that enslaves
My passion for thee is afire;
My soul is athirst for the love that it craves,
And you are the one I admire.
 
 
Pray speak, Dear! and say your affections are mine,
And all the sweet charms you possess;
Then I will surrender my wishes to thine
And be but thy slave, I confess.
 
 
When she answered, at length, I felt very sure
I'd pleaded my cause quite enough;
"You're the one man on earth I couldn't endure,
So cut out that comedy stuff!"
 

THE MILKY WAY

 
I went to school, like any lad,
And learned to read and write:
With pencil, books and writing-pad
I grew quite erudite.
 
 
Promoted soon, my Teacher thought
I would some day, be great;
And so painstakingly he taught
Me how to conjugate.
 
 
And talked to me about the Moon,
Of Venus, Saturn, Mars,
Till I was rated, very soon,
Authority on Stars.
 
 
A graduate, I searched the skies
For orbs unknown before,
Determined that I'd specialize
In Astronomic lore:
 
 
But how to buy a telescope
And all the charts required?
An attick was my only hope
Of all the things desired:
 
 
And so I compromised and bought
Binoculars and case,
And ev'ry night the Stars I sought
At Daly's Burlesque Place.
 
 
The one, bright, meteoric Flame
In all that stellar group,
Soon fell for me; then took my name
And quit the Burlesque Troupe.
 
 
But I'm eclipsed! the Satellite
That twinkles in the crib,
Keeps Mother pinning, day and night,
A didy or a bib.
 

THE LOGOTHETE

 
"Beware the dog!" Beware the Logothete!
The Octoped with elephantine feet:
(I mean by this—with the big understanding;
The Byzantine Pup of Theodore's branding.)
A thousand years chained to Hellespont's brink,
He never once whimpered or lapped up a drink.
Hydrophobia? No! just aphasia,
'Cause he couldn't cross over to Asia.
 
 
The old Logothete is the Watch Dog of State:
He feeds upon figures (he'll cipher an eight!)
And starts ev'ry meal with a twelve or sixteen,
Then multiplies units to munch on between.
Voracity thus as an integer stands
For his diurnal gorge on multiplicands.
Numerical strength makes the Logothete thrive,
And fractions he dotes on—just eats 'em alive!
 
 
He lashes his tail by Marmora's flood,
But eats from the hand of Sultan Ahmud;
A collar of gold, set with aquamarines,
Makes him the envy of Justin's near-queens;
His Kennel-Kiosque (the hyphen's germane!)
Rivals the harems of Constantine's reign.
Innocuous? No! nor yet desuetude,
For he daily absorbs whole columns of food.
 
 
His teeth are as sharp as the Damaskeene blade
That severed the chains on the Macedon maid;
And as keen as the knife avenging the dame
Who was sold to the Sheik in Mesopotame.
But the point that I make—no whimper or yelp
Had ever been voiced by this Logothete whelp
Until Archæologists, searching the grounds,
Unearthed dogmatisms and bitumen sounds
Of the highest known pitch, resembling a whine
Or unrav'ling snarls of the Octopedine.
And thus they've exploded the silence complete
Tradition ascribes to the old Logothete¹—
And so, in unleashing this Byzantine Pup,
They merit grave censure for digging things up.
 

THE PRICE OF PEACE

 
There's music in the Eagle's shriek;
There's ditto in the Lion's roar,
But discord marks the Bolshevik
Because the Bear doth growl no more.
 
 
The Dogs of War are out of tune,—
No harmony doth move the critters:
Unless they cease their fighting soon
The wounded whelps will have no litters.
 
 
Jerusalem! the Turk is spent!
The bagpipes took his breath, I think.
The Crescent now is badly bent,
And Allah's cause is on the blink.
 
 
The Bulgar too has shot his bolt,
And soon will quit—the poor pariah!
For now there's rumor of revolt
In Ananias and Sofia.
 
 
The Hun is playing with the Slav—
The Kremlin Mouse and Potsdam Cat;
But Cossack, too, can smear the salve,
And 'twixt them twain doth Peace fall flat.
 
 
Some day the Dove of Peace will swoop
With long, befigured bill, and put it
Against the Vulture-Kultur coop
And make the Prussian Junkers foot it.
 

MEN HAD HORNS THEN

Newspaper Item, Athens, Pa., July 29: The archaeologists who are traversing the Susquehanna River Valley, visiting sites of Indian villages and digging up aborigines and other relics, are said to have made a most astounding discovery on the Murray farm, near here, in finding the bones of sixty-eight pre-historic men. The average height of these men when their skeletons were assembled was seven feet, while many were much taller. Additional evidence of their gigantic size is found in the massive stone battle axes in their graves. The average age of these men is said to have been from thirty to forty. Another amazing point of this discovery is the allegation that "perfectly formed skulls were found from which horns grew straight out from the head."

 
The Homestead of Satan, they say, has been found
Near Athens, P. A., in a hole in the ground;
And people are flocking from Athens and Sayre
To view the remains of their ancestors there.
 
 
When Satan established himself in this zone
He found it distasteful to live all alone;
So he went to Towanda in quest of a bride,
And then tilled the soil till his seed multiplied.
 
 
So scores of young Devils at Murray's were born
That measured five cubits between hoof and horn.
Each one was equipped with a tail and two wings,
And asbestos garments at Nick's Sulphur Springs.
 
 
And that's why you find all their skeletons here
In good preservation: but isn't it queer
That Devils at Athens, the place of their birth,
Were the sole legatees of Hell upon Earth?
 
 
But Devils, like men, reach the ends of their ropes,
And have disappointments and unfulfilled hopes,—
So Satan discovered, too late we are told,
The climate at Murray's was too beastly cold.
 
 
His imps all contracted pneumonia and died;
So he buried them here in the Pit, side by side,
Near Athens, P. A., by the River Chemung,
Where they've been unmolested till now, and unsung.
 
 
And there their bones bleached, in the Sulphuric Pits,
Until Archæologists came with their kits
And made excavations, not thinking of harm,
But raising the devil at Rube Murray's Farm.
 
 
Now Satan's exposed and his ossified get,
(A few yet remain in the flesh, I regret!)
And Murray of Athens is living, I wot
On skeletons dug from this Hell-enic spot.
 

SUB ROSA

 
The Busy Bee, to gather honey, goes
Touching the clover bloom and then the rose;
An easy prey, the clover blossom yields
Its treasures garnered from the fragrant fields;
But all the sweetness that the rose adorns,
Protected is from theft by jealous thorns.
The Bee, ergo, in quest the flowers among,
Gets sometimes honey and gets sometimes stung.
 

WHITMANESQUE

 
The snow is falling on the hemlock boughs:
Courage, Comrade, Spring will come again!
The birds are leaving the evergreen trees,
And that's why they are not deciduous.
O, Winter! I shake thy icy hand,
And, shaking, shovel the beautiful snow:
But what shall I do with such an abundance?
It is already piled high in my neighbor's yard,
And he is watching me from his attic window.
And yet more snow! How pure you seem tho' falling!
 

AN APEOLOGY

 
This is the Ape, made famous, you'll agree,
By Darwin's Evolution Theory.
His destiny fulfilled, he rests at ease
With tribal Apes, Baboons and Chimpanzees;
Preferring, so, to recreation find,
Than with his tailless counterpart, Mankind,
A doubtful branch of his posterity:
And makes a monkey, thus, of you and me.
 

THE BUG

 
This is the Bug, unable to resist
The blandishments of Entomologist.
He soon succumbs to net or trap or pin
And fills his place the cabinet within.
A volume then explains his habits, source,
And all his secrets and his aims of course;
Which leads me to conclude, when facts are dug,
The Man of Science is the biggest "Bug."
 

WAKE, MY LOVE!

 
Darling, I my vigil keep
Close beside you, while you sleep.
Let the Dream of Love abide!
Cupid will not be denied;
For he whispers to you now,
And prints kisses on your brow;
While his velvet finger tips
Hush the protest on your lips.
Wake, My Love! And do not chide
Cupid pleading by your side!
 
 
Darkness lingers in the skies
Till the light of your bright eyes
Adds new brilliance to the sun:
Not till then is Day begun!
Ope your lips and speak one word—
Sweetest cadence ever heard!
Loose your tresses! Let them rest
On your snowy, virgin breast,
And entwine these roses rare
In the ringlets nestling there.
 
 
Wake, My Love! The sunbeams shed
Golden treasures on your head;
While Æolus woos your cheeks,
And exacts the kiss he seeks.
Love, aquiver, draws his bow
 
 
And demands that sleep must go;
For a jealous elf is he
Who will brook no rivalry.
So let Love a Kingdom make
In his Heart for Thee: Awake!
 

FIRST PSALM

 
Happy indeed is he who goes
The Straight and Narrow Way,
And heedeth not the lure of those
Who from His precepts stray.
 
 
With joy observeth he the acts
The Master doth proclaim,
And, day or night, no fervor lacks
To bless His holy name.
 
 
And he shall be a fruitful tree
Deep-rooted in the Truth;
And not a leaf shall withered be
Nor fruitage cease, forsooth.
 
 
But those who follow not the Course
The Master hath decreed,
Shall shrivel and decay, perforce,
And barren be their seed.
 
 
It follows then, that those who sin
Must turn again to clay,
While righteous men are gathered in
On Resurrection Day.
 
 
For God rewards the Pure in Heart
And knoweth all their needs;
While those who from his ways depart
Shall be like broken reeds.