Kitobni o'qish: «A line-o'-verse or two»

NOTE

For the privilege of reprinting the rimes gathered here I am indebted to the courtesy of the Chicago Tribune and Puck, in whose pages most of them first appeared. “The Lay of St. Ambrose” is new.

One reason for rounding up this fugitive verse and prisoning it between covers was this: Frequently – more or less – I receive a request for a copy of this jingle or that, and it is easier to mention a publishing house than to search through ancient and dusty files.

The other reason was that I wanted to.

B. L. T.

TO MY READERS

Not merely of this book, – but a larger company, with whom, through the medium of the Chicago Tribune, I have been on very pleasant terms for several years, – this handful of rime is joyously dedicated.

THE LAY OF ST. AMBROSE

 
“And hard by doth dwell, in St. Catherine’s cell,
Ambrose, the anchorite old and grey.”
 

– The Lay of St. Nicholas.

 
Ambrose the anchorite old and grey
Larruped himself in his lonely cell,
And many a welt on his pious pelt
The scourge evoked as it rose and fell.
 
 
For hours together the flagellant leather
Went whacketty-whack with his groans of pain;
And the lay-brothers said, with a wag of the head,
“Ambrose has been at the bottle again.”
 
 
And such, in sooth, was the sober truth;
For the single fault of this saintly soul
Was a desert thirst for the cup accurst, —
A quenchless love for the Flowing Bowl.
 
 
When he woke at morn with a head forlorn
And a taste like a last-year swallow’s nest,
He would kneel and pray, then rise and flay
His sinful body like all possessed.
 
 
Frequently tempted, he fell from grace,
And as often he found the devil to pay;
But by diligent scourging and diligent purging
He managed to keep Old Nick at bay.
 
 
This was the plight of our anchorite, —
An endless penance condemned to dree, —
When it chanced one day there came his way
A Mystical Book with a golden Key.
 
 
This Mystical Book was a guide to health,
That none might follow and go astray;
While a turn of the Key unlocked the wealth
That all unknown in the Scriptures lay.
 
 
Disease is sin, the Book defined;
Sickness is error to which men cling;
Pain is merely a state of mind,
And matter a non-existent thing.
 
 
If a tooth should ache, or a leg should break,
You simply “affirm” and it’s sound again.
Cut and contusion are only delusion,
And indigestion a fancied pain.
 
 
For pain is naught if you “hold a thought,”
Fevers fly at your simple say;
You have but to affirm, and every germ
Will fold up its tent and steal away.
 
 
From matin gong to even-song
Ambrose pondered this mystic lore,
Till what had seemed fiction took on a conviction
That words had never possessed before.
 
 
“If pain,” quoth he, “is a state of mind,
If a rough hair shirt to silk is kin, —
If these things are error, pray where’s the terror
In scourging and purging oneself of sin?
 
 
“It certainly seemeth good to me,
By and large, in part and in whole.
I’ll put it in practice and find if it fact is,
Or only a mystical rigmarole.”
 
 
The very next night our anchorite
Of the Flowing Bowl drank long and deep.
He argued this wise: “New Thought applies
No fitter to lamb than it does to sheep.”
 
 
When he woke at morn with a head forlorn
And a taste akin to a parrot’s cage,
He knelt and prayed, then up and flayed
His sinful flesh in a righteous rage.
 
 
Whacketty-whack on breast and back,
Whacketty-whack, before, behind;
But he held the thought as he laid it on,
“Pain is merely a state of mind.”
 
 
Whacketty-whack on breast and back,
Whacketty-whack on calf and shin;
And the lay-brothers said, with a wag of the head,
“Ain’t he the glutton for discipline!”
 
 
Now every night our anchorite
Was exceedingly tight when he went to bed.
The scourge that once pained him no longer restrained him,
Nor even the fear of an aching head.
 
 
For he woke at morn with a pate as clear
As the silvery chime of the matin bell;
And without any jogging he fell to his flogging,
And larruped himself in his lonely cell.
 
 
But the leather had lost its power to sting;
To pangs of the flesh he was now immune;
His rough hair shirt no longer hurt,
Nor the pebbles he wore in his wooden shoon.
 
 
When conscience was troubled he cheerfully doubled
His matinal dose of discipline; —
A deuce of a scourging, sufficient for purging
The Devil himself of original sin.
 
 
Whacketty-whack on breast and back,
Whacketty-whack from morn to noon;
Whacketty-whacketty-whacketty-whack! —
Till the abbey rang with the dismal tune.
 
 
Deacon and prior, lay-brother and friar
Exclaimed at these whoppings spectacular;
And even the Abbot remarked that the habit
Of scourging oneself might be carried too far.
 
 
“My son,” said he, “I am pleased to see
Such penance as never was known before;
But you raise such a racket in dusting your jacket,
The noise is becoming a bit of a bore.
 
 
“How would it do if you whaled yourself
From eight to ten or from one to three?
Or if ‘More’ is your motto, pray hire a grotto;
I know of one you can have rent free.”
 
 
Ambrose the anchorite bowed his head,
And girded his loins and went away.
He rented a cavern not far from a tavern,
And tippled by night and scourged by day.
 
 
The more the penance the more the sin,
The more he whopped him the more he drank;
Till his hair fell out and his cheeks fell in,
And his corpulent figure grew long and lank.
 
 
At Whitsuntide he up and died,
While flaying himself for his final spree.
And who shall say whether ’twas liquor or leather
That hurried him into eternity?
 
 
They made him a saint, as well they might,
And gave him a beautiful aureole.
And – somehow or other, this circle of light
Suggests the rim of the Flowing Bowl.
 

TO A TALL SPRUCE

 
Pride of the forest primeval,
Peer of the glorious pine,
Doomed to an end that is evil,
Fearful the fate that is thine!
 
 
Peer of the glorious pine,
Now the landlooker has found you,
Fearful the fate that is thine —
Fate of the spruces around you.
 
 
Now the landlooker has found you,
Stripped of your beautiful plume —
Fate of the spruces around you —
Swiftly you’ll draw to your doom.
 
 
Stripped of your beautiful plume,
Bzzng! into logs they will whip you.
Swiftly you’ll draw to your doom;
To the pulp mill they will ship you.
 
 
Bzzng! into logs they will whip you,
Lumbermen greedy for gold.
To the pulp mill they will ship you.
Hearken, there’s worse to be told!
 
 
Lumbermen greedy for gold
Over your ruins will caper.
Hearken, there’s worse to be told:
You will be made into paper!
 
 
Over your ruins will caper
Murderous shavers and hooks.
You will be made into paper!
You will be made into books!
 
 
Murderous shavers and hooks
Swiftly your pride will diminish.
You will be made into books!
Horrible, horrible finish!
 
 
Swiftly your pride will diminish.
You will become a romance!
Horrible, horrible finish!
Fate has no sadder mischance.
 
 
You will become a romance,
Filled with “Gadzooks!” and “Have at you!”
Fate has no sadder mischance;
It would wring tears from a statue.
 
 
Filled with “Gadzooks!” and “Have at you!”
You may become a “Lazarre” —
(It would wring tears from a statue) —
“Graustark,” “Stovepipe of Navarre.”
 
 
You may become a “Lazarre”;
Fate has still worse it can turn on —
“Graustark,” “Stovepipe of Navarre,”
Even a “Dorothy Vernon”!
 
 
Fate has still worse it can turn on —
Lower you cannot descend;
Even a “Dorothy Vernon”! —
That is the limit – the end.
 
 
Lower you cannot descend.
Doomed to an end that is evil,
That is the limit – the end!
Pride of the forest primeval.
 

IN THE LAMPLIGHT

 
The dinner done, the lamp is lit,
And in its mellow glow we sit
And talk of matters, grave and gay,
That went to make another day.
Comes Little One, a book in hand,
With this request, nay, this command —
(For who’d gainsay the little sprite) —
“Please – will you read to me to-night?”
 
 
Read to you, Little One? Why, yes.
What shall it be to-night? You guess
You’d like to hear about the Bears —
Their bowls of porridge, beds and chairs?
Well, that you shall… There! that tale’s done!
And now – you’d like another one?
To-morrow evening, Curly Head.
It’s “hass-pass seven.” Off to bed!
 
 
So each night another story:
Wicked dwarfs and giants gory;
Dragons fierce and princes daring,
Forth to fame and fortune faring;
Wandering tots, with leaves for bed;
Houses made of gingerbread;
Witches bad and fairies good,
And all the wonders of the wood.
 
 
“I like the witches best,” says she
Who nightly nestles on my knee;
And why by them she sets such store,
Psychologists may puzzle o’er.
Her likes are mine, and I agree
With all that she confides to me.
And thus we travel, hand in hand,
The storied roads of Fairyland.
 
 
Ah, Little One, when years have fled,
And left their silver on my head,
And when the dimming eyes of age
With difficulty scan the page,
Perhaps I’ll turn the tables then;
Perhaps I’ll put the question, when
I borrow of your better sight —
“Please – will you read to me to-night?”
 

THE BREAKFAST FOOD FAMILY

 
John Spratt will eat no fat,
Nor will he touch the lean;
He scorns to eat of any meat,
He lives upon Foodine.
 
 
But Mrs. Spratt will none of that,
Foodine she cannot eat;
Her special wish is for a dish
Of Expurgated Wheat.
 
 
To William Spratt that food is flat
On which his mater dotes.
His favorite feed – his special need —
Is Eata Heapa Oats.
 
 
But sister Lil can’t see how Will
Can touch such tasteless food.
As breakfast fare it can’t compare,
She says, with Shredded Wood.
 
 
Now, none of these Leander please,
He feeds upon Bath Mitts.
While sister Jane improves her brain
With Cero-Grapo-Grits.
 
 
Lycurgus votes for Father’s Oats;
Proggine appeals to May;
The junior John subsists upon
Uneeda Bayla Hay.
 
 
Corrected Wheat for little Pete;
Flaked Pine for Dot; while “Bub”
The infant Spratt is waxing fat
On Battle Creek Near-Grub.