coast, it was, of wood and fen,
And monkeys gabbled there, instead of men.
Once, as the blessed sun his head upraised,
On what a wondrous spectacle he gazed!
A mile away upon the starboard beam
Fell into ocean a deep sluggish stream,
Yet not a drop of water passed its mouth—
Thy way, Kentucky, glory of the South!
Words, words alone it “uttered to the day,”
As if from Kansas it had gone astray.
Yea, disemboguing grandly on the beach,
Flowed thickly, viscidly, the parts of speech!
Some, by their dead, incalculable weight
Held to the bottom’ of that turbid strait,
Slid seaward fathoms deep, nor saw the light
That shone above their everlasting night!
Some, such their levity, remained atop.
Frolicked and flashed—did everything but stop.
Others, too grave to float, too light to sink,
Forever rolled and tumbled on the brink—
Spread north and south along the cumbered strand,
And babbled ever between sea and land.
Ah! ’twas a famous spectacle indeed,
This wordy welter!—verbs that disagreed
With nominatives; prepositions all
Too weak to hold the objective case in thrall;
Adverbs and adjectives disparted quite
From parent-words and in a woeful plight
Of orphanage; conjunctions, interjections
With truly anarchistic predilections;
And pronouns which—a gutter-blooded swarm!—
Denied their antecedents in their form!
Greatly I marveled whence this language came—
No “well of English” like it could I name,
Nor think how such a stream, however free
Its flow, could wear a channel to the sea!
As Hudson bears his never-failing fleet
Of dead dogs, verdant, poddy and unsweet,
To pile themselves upon the Jersey shore,
Or in Sargasso’s Sea rest evermore,
So poured this torrent through its delta’s breaches,
And all these parts of speech were parts of speeches!—
All gushing from that word-way like a flood
Of swearing tomcats militant in mud!
They leapt, they smelled, they clamored, like a line
Of pagans faring to a sacred shrine!
“No more my heart the dismal din sustained”
(See Homer—Pope’s translation) for it strained
My senses—this uncouth, in fragrant, hoarse
“Fine flow of language” from its Northern source.
Cold drops of terror from my body broke!—
I ’bouted ship, and from my dream awoke.
The Jack of Clubs
Jerome, you are a mighty famous man—
District Attorney, I believe they call you.
Some shout your praise as loudly as they can,
And some, apparently, just live to maul you.
But whether good or ill repute befall you,
Your critics can’t deny that, as a rule,
You take it standing—though the wits among
Them say you stand, as does the singing mule,
The better to perform your feats of lung.
And, truly from the dawning to the gloaming,
When in good voice, you’re usually Jeroming.
O, well, we must have music—’tis a need,
Like Ibsen, Shaw or the “Edenic diet”;
Though sometimes silence is desired—indeed,
There’s much that may be said in praise of quiet,
And possibly you might do worse than try it.
’Twere better, anyhow, than fool advice
To the police to club their fellow men,
Too sore already. Sir, it is not nice
To free your snouty virtues from the pen—
Unless, as once in Gadara, they’ll scamper
Down a steep place to where ’tis greatly damper.
Jerome, the best of us are those who care
To hide from view the monsters that inhabit
Our hearts, and when too closely questioned swear
We’ve nothing fiercer than a sheep or rabbit.
Seeing an opportunity, you grab it
And lifting up the curtain, show the whole
Menagerie of thoughts and feelings which
Infest the secret places of your soul
Like newts and water-puppies in a ditch.
O, great reformer! hide from observation
The unpleasing spectacle of Reformation.
A Naval Method
Captain Purvis, for aught we know,
Never slew a Filipino;
Played exceeding well at polo,
But invited not the bolo.
Though his form was big and burly,
And his fist was hard and knurly,
And his cocktail hour came early,
Yet he was devoid of thirst
For the blood of the accurst.
Inconsiderate Tagallo
(Seas of gore, however shallow,
He regarded very lightly,
As inutile and unsightly);
So he did not much frequent
That insurrectionary gent.
Captain Purvis went a-scouting
(Truth to tell, he took an outing)—
Found a Filipino sleeping,
Bound and took him into keeping.
Calling Sergeant-Major Gump,
They conveyed him to a pump,
Laid him on his back beneath,
With his tongue between his teeth.
Said the captain: “We’ll not thump him,
But he is a spy—we’ll pump him.
That’s our duty; information,
Secrets useful to the nation,
We’ll wring from him. Tell me, sir,
Tell me truly, why a cur
Wags its tail—and, furthermore.
When a door Is not a door.”
But that person obstinacious
Answered, with a look ungracious,
That he’d see them (he was witty)
Both in Helfurst—that’s a city
In Silesia, I suppose,
Where no proper person goes.
So they pumped him full of water—
Son of Temperance, or Daughter,
Ne’er was half so full as that,
Nor any poison-fevered rat
Trying with a fervor frantic
To abolish the Atlantic.
Yes, that Filipino bloated
Till his snowry liver floated
Like a lily on a pond.
And his soul to the Beyond
Drifted on the strong, full tide,
“By word of mouth,” from his inside.
Captain Purvis being duly
Tried, the President said: “Truly,
He’s a water-warrior; he
Would more fitly serve at sea.”
So the Navy broke his fall—
Rearest-Admiral of all!
By his ironclad desk he’s sitting,
Sometimes writing, sometimes knitting,
For he’s Chief (and that’s enough)
Of the Bureau of Plum Duff.
Another Aspirant
George Dewey, dear, I did not think that you—
So very married and so happy, too—
Would go philandering with another girl
And give your gay mustache a fetching curl
And set your cap—I should say your cocked hat—
At Miss Columbia the like o’ that.
Pray what can you expect to get by throwing
Sheep’s eyes at one so very, very knowing?
See how she served McKinley! All his life
He wooed her for his morganatic wife,
Swore that he loved her better than his soul
(I’m half inclined to think, upon the whole,
She better did deserve his love) then vowed
He’d marry her alive, or even aloud!
What did she? Ere his breath he could recover
She heartlessly accepted that poor lover!
There’s William Bryan of the silver tongue,
Old in ambition, in discretion young—
He courts her with the song, the dance, the lute,
But knows how suitors feel who do not suit.
And Teddy Roosevelt, plucking from its sheath
The weapon that he wears behind his teeth,
Endeavors in his simple, soldier fashion,
But all in vain, to touch her heart by slashin’.
Beware, my web-foot friend, beware her wiles:
Fly from her sighs and disregard her smiles.
She’s no fool mermaid with a comb and glass,
But
