Kitabı oku: «The Bee's Bayonet (a Little Honey and a Little Sting)», sayfa 7

HER AND HIM

Her

 
To-day's her birthday: I'll not say which one,—
But I have known her twenty years or more
When courtship days were joyously begun,
And she had reached her sixteenth year, before.
 
 
And so her age is no concern of mine:
She may have dropped a birthday now and then,
But surely she's improved with age like wine:
I wouldn't wish her in her teens again.
 
 
And she's my Pal! O, yes, we love, of course!
But feel, besides, the joy of comradeship
That finds expression at Love's very source
In language of the heart—not of the lip.
 
 
And so she is my everlasting pride:
To Beauty's very pinnacle she's grown!
Thru life we'll seek our pleasures side by side;
Her heart athrob with love for me alone.
 

Him

 
O, yes! we're splendid friends, Old Jack and I:
He's growing grave and wrinkles now appear
Where once the smiles his cheeks were wont to ply.
He's losing all his energy, I fear.
 
 
I married him some twenty years ago
When dancing was a chief delight of his;
But now alone I trip the Terpsic toe,
For poor, old Jack has got the rheumatiz.
 
 
He's aging fast: I see it every day!
He's fat and short of breath, yet how he snores!
His few remaining hairs are saffron-grey,
For nicotine keeps oozing from his pores.
 
 
He seems so childish, but I humor him
Altho my friends declare I'm such a dunce.
Wrinkled, rheumatic; bare of brains and vim—
Good-bye, Old Jack! You were a good one once!
 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIVING

 
We bivouac here and barely get acquainted
Until the furlough ends; then we are sainted,
Whether our acts deserve rebuke or praise.
When we are dead the recollection stays
Of virtues only: vices are excused,
But to the living pardon is refused.
And yet, alive, I'd rather be unsung,
Than any Saint the catacombs among.
Tho critics flay me and the censors sneer,
'Twere better so, than praises on my bier.
And so we walk life's slender rope till, bing!
We slip and fall or someone cuts the string.
Ambition lures us, but the pinkest peach
Is always just beyond us, out of reach:
And when, at last, we think we are in line
To cross the threshold, lo! the Full House sign.
We never quite obtain the golden urn
Tho rainbows beckon every way we turn.
Who ever found, I ask you, all he sought?
Our best endeavors ofttimes come to naught:
And yet we trudge along, loath to confess
We're only groping in a wilderness;
Plodding the sands that burn our feet, and hurt;
Seeking the Promised Land, our just desert.
Had Cæsar reached the zenith of his life
When Brutus cut his friendship with the knife?
The ladder broke and he was headlong flung
While setting foot upon the topmost rung.
Thus picture Cæsar giving up the ghost
Just when he reached the pinnacle, almost!
Did Bonaparte receive his proper due?
He got it, but too late, at Waterloo.
He played with fire, aroused the seething crater,
And now, with Nick, inhabits the Equator.
So we conclude, delving the lines between,
He might as well have clung to Josephine.
Tho Tell's renown illumes the Alpine sky
Whose target was the Apple of his eye,
As much distinction, and applause to boot,
Should be bestowed on William's steady shoot:
More praise to him, than the Toxopholite,
Who held the apple but eschewed a bite!
The worst of us hath goodness in his breast;
The best of us but fails, put to the test,—
So, in arrears, we strive to pay the price
For Fortune's frowns or Fate's disastrous dice
Until we're bankrupt or too spent to wrest
Long hoped-for treasure from Mad Mammon's chest.
Tho life hath ups and downs, the weeping willow
Our ends shapes better than the downy pillow.
It takes stern measures to incline the bantling,
In right direction, without switch or scantling.
The optimist with farthings in his pouch,
Gets more enjoyment than the wealthy Grouch;
Thus cheerfulness, a product underrated,
In every household should be cultivated.
Give me the man who, tho in direst straits,
Will thumb his sharp proboscis at the Fates;
Who'll take the flimsy fire escape, or dive
Into the net, glad to get out alive;
Who, tho the skies be unpropitious, crowds
His way along, unmindful of the clouds;
Who never quits, in life's unequal bout,
But keeps on fighting till he's counted out.
 

THE SIXTH OF APRIL

 
Awake, Americans! Awake! Awake!
'Tis April Sixth! A year of War and yet
The Hun lines hold: Louvain is unavenged.
Be Thou our Guide, O God of Joshua!
Thru battles yet unstaged, and Comfort when,
From War's Inferno comes the phantom file,
The endless, ghastly file of martyred dead.
 
 
Daughters of Belgium, thy vestal tears
Make womanhood still more an honored name;
And Germany, when Reason reappears,
Must dearly pay for her revolting shame!
 
 
Awake, Americans! Our task is grim;
For Hell and all the Imps of Sin deride
The Code of Morals, spit upon the Cross,
Drive torturing nails into the bleeding flesh
Of all Mankind who follow Him thru paths
Made plain and gladsome by the Golden Rule;
And foist vile kultur as Refinement's height.
 
 
And what of skulking Sharks, scum of the sea,
That prey on Innocents, while o'er them fly
Poised to inflict a further agony,
The Vampire Bats that violate the sky?
 
 
Behold the ravaged homes of Serbia!
Where are her people? Ask the godless Goths
Whose Car of Kultur crushed beneath its wheels
This stalwart Race! Ask, too, the Bulgar hordes,
The mountain wolves, who pounce upon and rend,
In guise of Pacifiers of the Land,
Those who escaped the onslaughts of the Huns.
 
 
Tho sapped by hunger and disease; tho crushed
By overwhelming numbers of the foe,
Thy Star, O, Serb, when battles' din be hushed,
Shall rise again, suffused with Freedom's glow!
 
 
Now in the sacred name of God our guide,
Home, Country, Honor, Love and Motherhood,
Can we indifferent be to ravishment,
Wanton destruction, murder steeped in hate—
This loathsome litter whelped by Junkerdom?
'Tis ours to dare and crush this monstrous Thing:
Our Allies worn and bleeding, struggle on.
 
 
Armenian tears, a flood of pent-up grief,
Flow on and on, a torrent of despair.
Rape! Murder! Pillage! Is there no relief
For Niobe, deserted, weeping there?
 
 
Nation Invincible, unsheath thy blade!
God be thy leader: Justice be thy Sword!
Nor pause until the ruthless Beast is flayed
With sated steel—and Liberty restored!
 

BENEATH A CLOUD

 
Under a passing cloud the moon was hid.
I really was delighted to be rid
Of Super light, for I was with my Nell,
And I could see by her bright eyes as well.
We didn't need the aid of spheres above,
For that's our proper sphere—a making love.
Midst whispering pines we pledged our love aloud,
And thus our plight began beneath a cloud.
 

THE COLUMBIAD

 
America! Our home, our native land!
The joy of it—the rapture! when we say—
We who are freemen and can understand—
This is our heritage—the U. S. A.!
Hewn from the virgin forests by our sires,
And launched by giants capable and true,
Our Ship of State was manned, when Freedom's fires
Were beacon lights, by sturdy, godly crew,—
And so hath kept, steered by the Guiding Star
Of Faith, her steadfast course, thru shoal or blast,
Aloof from sirens luring from afar,
With Stars and Stripes still waving at the mast.
Here in our Land, where Plenty hath its store,
Where fertile fields teem with abundant grain,
Hunger ne'er casts its shadow on the door,
And Famine hath no lodge on hill or plain.
In truth doth Luxury with Plenty vie
To fill our laps with all the luscious things
That Nature doth provide—loath to deny
The satisfaction that such bounty brings.
To us was Freedom's heritage bequeathed
To have and hold while life and pride remain:
And so our sword must ever be unsheathed
To guard this priceless boon from hurt or stain—
So that the war-worn hosts in Europe's maze,
Who fight against the Despot's ruthless spear,
May see the light of Liberty ablaze,
Diffusing matchless splendor over here;
And, friendly beacon, be to them a sign
And Bow of Promise, in their dismal sky,
The Light of Hope eternally to shine
In God's resplendent galaxy on High.
But grim starvation, at the board, presides
Across the seas, where once the farmsteads poured
Autumnal wealth—and Desolation rides
Rough shod along where tramped the Prussian horde.
No life remains: the fields are stark and sere;
The forests, leaf and branch and root, are fled;
The flowers lie trampled on the soldier's bier:
Destroyed are e'en the shelters of the dead.
The gardens that held plenty in their wombs
Are stripped and barren as the sands of Dearth,
And now, instead, keep vigil o'er the tombs
Of demigods, redeemers of the Earth.
The vineyards where the fragrant fruitage hung
To cheer the peaceful peasant in his toil
Are desolate where Death his shroud has flung
Upon the breadth of France's sacred soil.
Wrecked are the homesteads: buzzard broods abound
Where shell-holes gape, and heaps of carnage rise
Above the naked bosom of the ground,
Mutely denying guilt, in sacrifice.
Still with the jackal at her wounds doth France
Fight on unmindful of her pains, and lo!
We hear her call and, seizing shield and lance,
Crusader-like, to her assistance go.
Her cause is just: we make her Cause our own!
For Liberty doth in the balance swing,
And we must guard her, if we fight alone
To rid the world of this malignant Thing
That, in the guise of Kultur, hides its hoofs
And horns, its tail and spear and hideous face,
And, as a pious priest, on Moslem roofs,
Extols itself, usurping Allah's place.
What blasphemy! Obsessed to germinate
Its propaganda, its infernal cult;
Condoning Cain's offense, instilling hate,
It strikes with poison, dirk and catapult
Against the precepts of the Prince of Peace;
Against the Conscience of the Universe.
But hatred, lust and war will never cease
Until God's Sword destroys this monstrous curse.
Audaciously the Priests of Kultur strive
To spread their doctrine, but the graven god
Against the Living Christ cannot survive,
And in His time will scourged be with His rod.
And so our Ship of State to battle hastes,
All sails a-drawing, sheets secure and taut,
Manned by a stalwart crew, stripped to the waists,
Inspired by battles that our fathers fought.
In port at last whence Lafayette once sailed
To aid our fight that made Britannia halt,
They take their stand where Frenchmen never failed
To hold the Verdun forts against assault.
A mighty effort this! To send our force
Three thousand miles, thru shark-infested sea,
Beneath dark skies where vultures lay their course,
To face the foe and ransom Liberty,
Thru sacrificial offering of our sons;
To arm and clothe five million men, and then
Build, to convey and feed them, countless tons
Of mighty vessels—transports, merchantmen;
To furnish, in addition, vast supplies
To allied Powers whose Cause we have embraced,
To hearten them—to strengthen friendly ties
And stay the hand that layeth Europe waste.
A task indeed! But let it not be thought
By foemen or by those whom we befriend
That Liberty our trust, so dearly bought,
Will not be guarded to the very end.
Tho Hercules the Strong should heave in sight
And challenge us to tests of thews and nerve,
We'd enter the arena in our might
And win new honors for the Land we serve;
For Antaeus and all the myths of old
'Gainst whom the supermen of yore engaged,
Were never half so mighty, half so bold
As peaceful freemen, righteously enraged:
And all the modern Bullies who presume
To dominate the world against the Right,
Must see their day-dreams doomed to blackest gloom
When Truth prevails against the Imps of Night.
So let us fabricate in forge and mill;
So let us plant and nurture grain and seed;
So let us labor and conserve until
There be an end to Kultur's cruel creed.
Each one of us must fight or toil or save;
Co-ordination be our battle song;
Hardships endure and gravest dangers brave
If we would victors be and right the wrong.
God's ways to mortal eyes are not revealed,
But Faith our guidance is thru War's grim task,
And with His help the Hosts of Sin must yield
And Satan be denuded of his mask.
 

HE'S ALL RIGHT, BUT—!

 
I like the good old-fashioned way—
A handshake or a slap,—
The boys who jab your ribs and say
"You're all right, Bill, Old Chap!"
 
 
I like the lad who sees you first
And always shouts your name,—
Who, tho your luck be at its worst,
Says—"Cheer up, Bill! Be game!"
 
 
I like the chum who's always glad
To soothe you when you're ill,—
Who, when he finds you broke and sad,
Says—"Here's a Dollar, Bill!"
 
 
I'd like to grab him by the throat
And hold his mouth tight shut,—
Who, questioned, makes you out the goat—
"Who? Bill? He's all right, but—!"
 

NATURE'S STUDIO

 
Go where the winds keep vigil o'er the trees,
Rocking the tender saplings in the breeze;
Go where the sunbeams play on rill and stream,
Making the purling waters all agleam;
Go where the birds rehearse their songs and trills
In cool retreats, led by the Whippoorwills;
Go where the bees, midst clover blooms, indulge
Their honey habit till their bellies bulge;
Go where the trout, in alder-arbored brooks,
Abate their hunger but eschew the hooks;
Go where the flowers, by fairy weavers spun,
Pour out their grateful incense to the Sun;
Go where the deer in secret nooks disport
And Nature, clad in verdure, holds her Court;
Go where—nay, stay! Yonder the artist stands,
With brush and prismy palette in her hands,
Before her easel, where the canvas seems
A masterpiece in wondrous color schemes.
What artistry! What fascinating views
Dame Nature paints! Behold the rainbow hues
That tint the dainty flowers and make the rose
Blush to its sepals when it seeks repose;
That tinge the moors and fields and turquoise sky,
And stain the Autumn leaves with crimson dye!
So tarry here, where moss and bluebells grow
Upon the floor of Nature's Studio!
 

PICARDY

 
With heads uncovered and with cautious tread
Approach ye here! where lie our martyred dead
In graves unmarked, here, there and everywhere:
So lest, ashamed, ye trample them, beware!
 

AMERICA'S PRAYER

 
God bless our Allies! damn the Huns!
And consecrate our swords and guns!
 

EPILOGUE

 
They say that a stitch that is timely saves nine:
You haven't your needle? O, well then, take mine;
And all my Dream Outfit—my pipe and my dope!
I've smoked my last hemp to the end of my rope.