Bill Nye's Chestnuts Old and New

She can use him o'er and o'er.

Bring along the lonely oyster,
With the winter style of gloom,
And the supper for the pastor,
With its victims for the tomb.

Cast the pudding for the pastor,
With its double iron door;
It will gather in the pastor
For the bright and shining shore.

Put away the little picnic
Till the coming of the spring;
Useless now the swaying hammock
And the idle picnic swing.

Put away the pickled spider
And the cold pressed picnic fly,
And the decorated trousers
With their wealth of custard pie.

ODE TO THE CUCUMBER.=

O, a cucumber grew by the deep rolling sea,
And it tumbled about in reckless glee
Till the summer waned and the grass turned brown.
And the farmer plucked it and took it to town.

Wrinkled and warty and bilious and blue,
It lay in the market the autumn through;
Till a woman with freckles on her cheek
Led in her husband, so mild and meek.

He purchased the fruit, at her request,
And hid it forever under his vest,
For it doubled him up like a kangaroo,
And now he sleeps 'neath the violets blue.

APOSTROPHE ADDRESSED TO O. WILDE.=

Soft eyed seraphic kuss
With limber legs and lily on the side,
We greet you from the raw
And uncouth West.

The cowboy yearns to yank thee
To his brawny breast and squeeze
Thy palpitating gizzard
Through thy vest.

Come to the mountain fastness,
Oscar, with thy low neck shirt
And high neck pants;
Fly to the coyote's home,
Thou son of Albion,
James Crow bard and champion aesthete
From o'er the summer sea.

Sit on the fuzzy cactus, king of poesy,
And song,
Ride the fierce broncho o'er the dusty plain,
And le' the zephyr sigh among thy buttery locks.
Welcome thou genius of dyspeptic song,
Thou bilious lunatic from far-off lands.
Come to the home of genius,
By the snowy hills.
And wrestle with the alcoholic inspiration
Of our cordial home.
We yearn
To put the bloom upon thy alabaster nose,
And plant the jim-jams
In thy clustering hair.
Hail, mighty snoozer from across the main!
We greet thee
With our free, untutored ways and wild
Peculiar style of deadly beverage.
Come to the broad, free West and mingle
With our high-toned mob.

Come to the glorious Occident
And dally with the pack-mule's whisk-broom tail;
Study his odd yet soft demeanor,
And peculiar mien.

Tickle his gambrel with a sunflower bud
And scoot across the blue horizon
To the tooness of the sweet and succulent beyond.

We'll gladly
Gather up thy shattered remnants
With a broom and ship thee to thy beauteous home.
Forget us not,
Thou bilious pelican from o'er the sea.

Thou blue-nosed clam
With pimply, bulging brow, but
Come and we will welcome thee
With ancient omelet and fragrant sausage
Of forgotten years.