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Complete Poetical Works
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And for everything changed I must thank YOU,
Who have "struck it" on Poverty Flat!
How dared you get rich—you great stupid!—
Like papa, and some men that I know,
Instead of just trusting to Cupid
And to me for your money? Ah, Joe!
Just to think you sent never a word, dear,
Till you wrote to papa for consent!
Now I know why they had me transferred here,
And "the health of papa"—what THAT meant!
Now I know why they call this "The Lily;"
Why the man who shot Sandy McGee
You made mayor! 'Twas because—oh, you silly!—
He once "went down the middle" with me!
I've been fooled to the top of my bent here,
So come, and ask pardon—you know
That you've still got to get MY consent, dear!
And just think what that echo said—Joe!
V. PARODIES
BEFORE THE CURTAIN
Behind the footlights hangs the rusty baize,
A trifle shabby in the upturned blaze
Of flaring gas and curious eyes that gaze.
The stage, methinks, perhaps is none too wide,
And hardly fit for royal Richard's stride,
Or Falstaff's bulk, or Denmark's youthful pride.
Ah, well! no passion walks its humble boards;
O'er it no king nor valiant Hector lords:
The simplest skill is all its space affords.
The song and jest, the dance and trifling play,
The local hit at follies of the day,
The trick to pass an idle hour away,—
For these no trumpets that announce the Moor,
No blast that makes the hero's welcome sure,—
A single fiddle in the overture!
TO THE PLIOCENE SKULL[2 - See notes at end.]
(A GEOLOGICAL ADDRESS)
"Speak, O man, less recent! Fragmentary fossil!
Primal pioneer of pliocene formation,
Hid in lowest drifts below the earliest stratum
Of volcanic tufa!
"Older than the beasts, the oldest Palaeotherium;
Older than the trees, the oldest Cryptogami;
Older than the hills, those infantile eruptions
Of earth's epidermis!
"Eo—Mio—Plio—whatsoe'er the 'cene' was
That those vacant sockets filled with awe and wonder,—
Whether shores Devonian or Silurian beaches,—
Tell us thy strange story!
"Or has the professor slightly antedated
By some thousand years thy advent on this planet,
Giving thee an air that's somewhat better fitted
For cold-blooded creatures?
"Wert thou true spectator of that mighty forest
When above thy head the stately Sigillaria
Reared its columned trunks in that remote and distant
Carboniferous epoch?
"Tell us of that scene,—the dim and watery woodland,
Songless, silent, hushed, with never bird or insect,
Veiled with spreading fronds and screened with tall club mosses,
Lycopodiacea,—
"When beside thee walked the solemn Plesiosaurus,
And around thee crept the festive Ichthyosaurus,
While from time to time above thee flew and circled
Cheerful Pterodactyls.
"Tell us of thy food,—those half-marine refections,
Crinoids on the shell and Brachipods au naturel,—
Cuttlefish to which the pieuvre of Victor Hugo
Seems a periwinkle.
"Speak, thou awful vestige of the earth's creation,
Solitary fragment of remains organic!
Tell the wondrous secret of thy past existence,—
Speak! thou oldest primate!"
Even as I gazed, a thrill of the maxilla,
And a lateral movement of the condyloid process,
With post-pliocene sounds of healthy mastication,
Ground the teeth together.
And from that imperfect dental exhibition,
Stained with express juices of the weed nicotian,
Came these hollow accents, blent with softer murmurs
Who have "struck it" on Poverty Flat!
How dared you get rich—you great stupid!—
Like papa, and some men that I know,
Instead of just trusting to Cupid
And to me for your money? Ah, Joe!
Just to think you sent never a word, dear,
Till you wrote to papa for consent!
Now I know why they had me transferred here,
And "the health of papa"—what THAT meant!
Now I know why they call this "The Lily;"
Why the man who shot Sandy McGee
You made mayor! 'Twas because—oh, you silly!—
He once "went down the middle" with me!
I've been fooled to the top of my bent here,
So come, and ask pardon—you know
That you've still got to get MY consent, dear!
And just think what that echo said—Joe!
V. PARODIES
BEFORE THE CURTAIN
Behind the footlights hangs the rusty baize,
A trifle shabby in the upturned blaze
Of flaring gas and curious eyes that gaze.
The stage, methinks, perhaps is none too wide,
And hardly fit for royal Richard's stride,
Or Falstaff's bulk, or Denmark's youthful pride.
Ah, well! no passion walks its humble boards;
O'er it no king nor valiant Hector lords:
The simplest skill is all its space affords.
The song and jest, the dance and trifling play,
The local hit at follies of the day,
The trick to pass an idle hour away,—
For these no trumpets that announce the Moor,
No blast that makes the hero's welcome sure,—
A single fiddle in the overture!
TO THE PLIOCENE SKULL[2 - See notes at end.]
(A GEOLOGICAL ADDRESS)
"Speak, O man, less recent! Fragmentary fossil!
Primal pioneer of pliocene formation,
Hid in lowest drifts below the earliest stratum
Of volcanic tufa!
"Older than the beasts, the oldest Palaeotherium;
Older than the trees, the oldest Cryptogami;
Older than the hills, those infantile eruptions
Of earth's epidermis!
"Eo—Mio—Plio—whatsoe'er the 'cene' was
That those vacant sockets filled with awe and wonder,—
Whether shores Devonian or Silurian beaches,—
Tell us thy strange story!
"Or has the professor slightly antedated
By some thousand years thy advent on this planet,
Giving thee an air that's somewhat better fitted
For cold-blooded creatures?
"Wert thou true spectator of that mighty forest
When above thy head the stately Sigillaria
Reared its columned trunks in that remote and distant
Carboniferous epoch?
"Tell us of that scene,—the dim and watery woodland,
Songless, silent, hushed, with never bird or insect,
Veiled with spreading fronds and screened with tall club mosses,
Lycopodiacea,—
"When beside thee walked the solemn Plesiosaurus,
And around thee crept the festive Ichthyosaurus,
While from time to time above thee flew and circled
Cheerful Pterodactyls.
"Tell us of thy food,—those half-marine refections,
Crinoids on the shell and Brachipods au naturel,—
Cuttlefish to which the pieuvre of Victor Hugo
Seems a periwinkle.
"Speak, thou awful vestige of the earth's creation,
Solitary fragment of remains organic!
Tell the wondrous secret of thy past existence,—
Speak! thou oldest primate!"
Even as I gazed, a thrill of the maxilla,
And a lateral movement of the condyloid process,
With post-pliocene sounds of healthy mastication,
Ground the teeth together.
And from that imperfect dental exhibition,
Stained with express juices of the weed nicotian,
Came these hollow accents, blent with softer murmurs
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Последний отзыв
Удивительная книга. Как никогда актуальна сегодня. Язык и стиль автора настолько тонок, лёгок и изыскан, что легко поведёт читателя в мир героев, кото...
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