Shapes of Clay

AN EXAMPLE.

  They were two deaf mutes, and they loved and they
    Resolved to be groom and bride;
  And they listened to nothing that any could say,
    Nor ever a word replied.
  From wedlock when warned by the married men,
    Maintain an invincible mind:
  Be deaf and dumb until wedded—and then
    Be deaf and dumb and blind.

REVENGE.

  A spitcat sate on a garden gate
    And a snapdog fared beneath;
  Careless and free was his mien, and he
    Held a fiddle-string in his teeth.
  She marked his march, she wrought an arch
    Of her back and blew up her tail;
  And her eyes were green as ever were seen,
    And she uttered a woful wail.
  The spitcat's plaint was as follows: 'It ain't
    That I am to music a foe;
  For fiddle-strings bide in my own inside,
    And I twang them soft and low.
  'But that dog has trifled with art and rifled
    A kitten of mine, ah me!
  That catgut slim was marauded from him:
    'Tis the string that men call E.'
  Then she sounded high, in the key of Y,
    A note that cracked the tombs;
  And the missiles through the firmament flew
    From adjacent sleeping-rooms.
  As her gruesome yell from the gate-post fell
    She followed it down to earth;
  And that snapdog wears a placard that bears
    The inscription: 'Blind from birth.'

THE GENESIS OF EMBARRASSMENT.

  When Adam first saw Eve he said:
  'O lovely creature, share my bed.'
  Before consenting, she her gaze
  Fixed on the greensward to appraise,
  As well as vision could avouch,
  The value of the proffered couch.
  And seeing that the grass was green
  And neatly clipped with a machine—
  Observing that the flow'rs were rare
  Varieties, and some were fair,
  The posts of precious woods, besprent
  With fragrant balsams, diffluent,
  And all things suited to her worth,
  She raised her angel eyes from earth
  To his and, blushing to confess,
  Murmured: 'I love you, Adam—yes.'
  Since then her daughters, it is said,
  Look always down when asked to wed.

IN CONTUMACIAM.

    Och! Father McGlynn,
    Ye appear to be in
  Fer a bit of a bout wid the Pope;
    An' there's divil a doubt
    But he's knockin' ye out
  While ye're hangin' onto the rope.
    An' soon ye'll lave home
    To thravel to Rome,
  For its bound to Canossa ye are.
    Persistin' to shtay
    When ye're ordered away—
  Bedad! that is goin' too far!