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A Satire Anthology
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Год написания книги
2017
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Over thee stretches an ægis of wholly superfluous virtue;
That thou art utterly good; hast no single vice to redeem thee;
’Tis not alone that thou art provincial in all things, and petty;
And that the dulness of death is gay, compared to thy dulness —
’Tis not alone for these things that my curse is to rest upon thee,
But for a sin that crowns thee with perfect and eminent badness,
Sets thee alone in thy shame, the unworthiest town on the sea-coast;
This: That thou dinest at noon, and then in a manner barbarian,
Soupless, and wineless, and coffeeless, untimely and wholly indecent,
As is the custom, I learn, in Philadelphia proper.
I rose, and I fled from thy supper. I said, “I will get me a dinner!”
Vainly I wandered thy streets. Thy eating-places ungodly
Knew not the holiness of dinner. In all that evening I dined not;
But in a strange, low lair, infested of native mechanics,
Bolted a fried beefsteak for the physical need of my stomach.
And for them that have fried that steak, in Aïdes’ lowest back-kitchen,
May they eternally broil, by way of a warning to others.
During my wanderings, I met and hailed with delight one Italian,
A man with a name from “Pasquale” – the chap sung by Tagliapietra;
He knew what it was to dine; he comprehended my yearnings;
But the spell was also on him, the somnolent spell Philadelphian,
And his hostelry would not be open till Saturday next; and I cursed him.
Now this is not too much to ask – God knows! – that a mortal should want a
Pint of Bordeaux to his dinner, and a small cigarette for a climax;
But these things being denied him, where, then, is your civilization?
O Coney Island! of old I have reviled and blasphemed thee,
For that thou dousest thy glim at an hour that is unmetropolitan;
That thy frequenters’ feet turn townwards ere striketh eleven,
When the returning cars are filled with young men and maidens,
Most of the maidens asleep on the young men’s cindery shoulders —
Yea, but I spake as a fool, insensate, disgruntled, ungrateful:
Thee will I worship henceforth in appreciative humility;
Luxurious and splendid and urban, glorious and gaslit and gracious,
Gathering from every land thy gay and ephemeral tenantry,
From the Greek who hails thee “Thalatta!” to the rustic who murmurs “My golly!”
From the Bowery youth who requests his sweetheart to “Look at them billers!”
To the Gaul whom thy laughing waves almost persuade to immersion.
O Coney Island, thou art the weary citizen’s heaven —
A heaven to dine, not die in, joyful and restful and clamful.
Better one hour of thee than an age of Atlantic City!
H. C. Bunner.
THE FONT IN THE FOREST
THERE’S a prim little pond
At the back of Beyond,
And its waters are over your ears;
It’s a sort of a tarn
Behind Robin Hood’s barn,
Where the fish live a million years.
And the mortals who drink
At its pebbly brink
Are immediately changed into mullets,
Whose heads grow immense
At their bodies’ expense,
And whose eyes become bulbous as bullets.
But they willingly stay
Who have once found the way,
And they crave neither credit nor blame;
For to wiggle their tails,
And to practise their scales,
Is enough in the Fountain of Fame.
Herman Knickerbocker Vielé.
THE ORIGIN OF SIN
HE talked about the origin
Of sin;
But present sin, I must confess,
He never tried to render less;
But used to add, so people talk,
His share unto the general stock —
But grieved about the origin
Of sin.
He mourned about the origin
Of sin;
But never struggled very long
To rout contemporaneous wrong,
And never lost his sleep, they say,
About the evils of to-day —
But wept about the origin
Of sin.
He sighed about the origin
Of sin;
But showed no fear you could detect
About its ultimate effect;
He deemed it best to use no force,
But let it run its natural course —
But moaned about the origin
Of sin.
Samuel Walter Foss.
A PHILOSOPHER
That thou art utterly good; hast no single vice to redeem thee;
’Tis not alone that thou art provincial in all things, and petty;
And that the dulness of death is gay, compared to thy dulness —
’Tis not alone for these things that my curse is to rest upon thee,
But for a sin that crowns thee with perfect and eminent badness,
Sets thee alone in thy shame, the unworthiest town on the sea-coast;
This: That thou dinest at noon, and then in a manner barbarian,
Soupless, and wineless, and coffeeless, untimely and wholly indecent,
As is the custom, I learn, in Philadelphia proper.
I rose, and I fled from thy supper. I said, “I will get me a dinner!”
Vainly I wandered thy streets. Thy eating-places ungodly
Knew not the holiness of dinner. In all that evening I dined not;
But in a strange, low lair, infested of native mechanics,
Bolted a fried beefsteak for the physical need of my stomach.
And for them that have fried that steak, in Aïdes’ lowest back-kitchen,
May they eternally broil, by way of a warning to others.
During my wanderings, I met and hailed with delight one Italian,
A man with a name from “Pasquale” – the chap sung by Tagliapietra;
He knew what it was to dine; he comprehended my yearnings;
But the spell was also on him, the somnolent spell Philadelphian,
And his hostelry would not be open till Saturday next; and I cursed him.
Now this is not too much to ask – God knows! – that a mortal should want a
Pint of Bordeaux to his dinner, and a small cigarette for a climax;
But these things being denied him, where, then, is your civilization?
O Coney Island! of old I have reviled and blasphemed thee,
For that thou dousest thy glim at an hour that is unmetropolitan;
That thy frequenters’ feet turn townwards ere striketh eleven,
When the returning cars are filled with young men and maidens,
Most of the maidens asleep on the young men’s cindery shoulders —
Yea, but I spake as a fool, insensate, disgruntled, ungrateful:
Thee will I worship henceforth in appreciative humility;
Luxurious and splendid and urban, glorious and gaslit and gracious,
Gathering from every land thy gay and ephemeral tenantry,
From the Greek who hails thee “Thalatta!” to the rustic who murmurs “My golly!”
From the Bowery youth who requests his sweetheart to “Look at them billers!”
To the Gaul whom thy laughing waves almost persuade to immersion.
O Coney Island, thou art the weary citizen’s heaven —
A heaven to dine, not die in, joyful and restful and clamful.
Better one hour of thee than an age of Atlantic City!
H. C. Bunner.
THE FONT IN THE FOREST
THERE’S a prim little pond
At the back of Beyond,
And its waters are over your ears;
It’s a sort of a tarn
Behind Robin Hood’s barn,
Where the fish live a million years.
And the mortals who drink
At its pebbly brink
Are immediately changed into mullets,
Whose heads grow immense
At their bodies’ expense,
And whose eyes become bulbous as bullets.
But they willingly stay
Who have once found the way,
And they crave neither credit nor blame;
For to wiggle their tails,
And to practise their scales,
Is enough in the Fountain of Fame.
Herman Knickerbocker Vielé.
THE ORIGIN OF SIN
HE talked about the origin
Of sin;
But present sin, I must confess,
He never tried to render less;
But used to add, so people talk,
His share unto the general stock —
But grieved about the origin
Of sin.
He mourned about the origin
Of sin;
But never struggled very long
To rout contemporaneous wrong,
And never lost his sleep, they say,
About the evils of to-day —
But wept about the origin
Of sin.
He sighed about the origin
Of sin;
But showed no fear you could detect
About its ultimate effect;
He deemed it best to use no force,
But let it run its natural course —
But moaned about the origin
Of sin.
Samuel Walter Foss.
A PHILOSOPHER
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