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CALIF. LIBRARY. LOS ANf.W ,F,9
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YAWPS
AND OTHER THINGS
BY
WILLIAM J. LAMPTON
Merely a Yawpist yawping his simple yawp of things that are and not what they may seein."
PHILADELPHIA HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY
Copyright, 1900, by
HiKBY ALTKMU8 COMPACT.
'"PHIS book of Yawps is dedica ted to the memory of the late Charles A. Dana, an editor who knew a good thing when he saw it, — and printed it.
21308SR
CONTENTS.
PACK.
Preface 9
Some Incongruvial Remarks 1 1
By Way of Introduction 15
1900 19
George Washington's Address, 1900 23
January Eighth, 1889 26
Thomas B. Reed in Rome 28
Owed to the Ground Hog 31
He 33
Pro Bono Publico 36
TheTowpath Mule 38
Oh, Sorosis ! 42
Kentucky to the Front 44
The War-ship Kentucky's Appeal 45
The Prince of Wales has a Cold 48
A Hint of Spring 50
An Easter Egg 52
The Day of Hats 54
Parks and Spring 56
Funston of Kansas 59
5
6 CONTENTS.
PAGE.
A Good Woman 62
The "Brother to the Ox " 64
The Love of Woman 68
Memorial Day, 1900 70
The Prose of Poetry 73
The Sweet Girl Graduate 75
Lo, The Summer Girl 80
The Shirt Waist 84
The Humidity 87
The Electric Fan 91
An Enigma 95
The Shirt-waist Man 96
Larchmont's Shirt-waist Hop 99
The Automobile 101
Maud Miller 104
Ready — if Needed 105
Hymen's Speech 107
Concerning- a Day no
In Washington 112
A Blaze of Glory 115
The Speedway, New York 117
For Future Reference 1 20
A Fantasy 123
A Lay of the Ancients 125
CONTENTS. 7
PAGE.
Chicago Phonetics 127
In Chrysanthemumiam 129
To The W. C. T. U. Convention 131
Another County Heard From 134
Some Texas Peculiarities 136
Consul-General Lee's Remarks 138
The Passing of the Summer Girl 140
Milk and Music 142
The One Man Power 145
The Excelsioric Umpire 147
The Third Party Drives Up 149
Labor Day, 1900 •••... 152
A Sage of Chicago Remarks 156
Response of the American People 159
School Begins 162
Commodore Cannon 165
The New York Police on Parade 167
The Language of Progress 171
Count Waldersee's Command 173
The Discovery of America 176
Thanksgiving 179
To the LVrii Congress 183
Merry Christmas 187
The Superfluous Speak 190
PREFACE.
WHAT shall an author say in the preface to his first book? Possibly he would better commend his soul to its Maker and let come what might come. In this instance, he feels a shade easier in his mind, because many of these verses have already appeared in the columns of The New York Sun, a no mean critic itself, so that the worst is over. However, there is something more mysterious, more mystifying, more awesome, about a book than can possibly exist in the news paper, and even now the Author makes his appear ance with a consciousness that is embarrassingly uncomfortable, the result, though it be, of his as-
o
sured knowledge that he is not the first author to have written a book, and that his book is not the greatest and best ever submitted to a discriminat ing public.
But the Author of these "Yawps," as he has called them, does claim for them a peculiarity of form and expression not common to conventional
9
io PREFACE
versification, which may do for them in a book what it has already done for them in the news papers. If a place for the Yawpist is made somewhere in the line that leads to Poet, the object of the book will have been accomplished, because only the good opinion of many readers can effect such a result — and many readers is the earnest prayer of every author, to which every publisher fervently responds — "Amen."
THE AUTHOR. NEW YORK CITY.
SOME INCONGRUVIAL
REMARKS.
I SHALL not undertake in a brief prefatory word like this to offer a formal presentation of my principal. Those who do not know him will do well to make his acquaintance.
Although an original, Mr. Lampton is not a first offender. There have been others. Yet in the new era of news in rhyme and versified wis dom, he came with the pioneers ; with Stanton and Hale, and the rest ; the successors of Prentice and Hatcher and Albert Roberts. Theirs was a nimble and a current wit. His is not less so — though he has amplified and modernized their art, bringing it, as the saying hath it, to "date." It may not be the art of Michel Angelo or of Alfred Tennyson ; but Hood and Hook and Praed prac ticed it and Kipling had to learn it. Sometimes I have thought these men could do more even than they attempted. Hood actually did when he tried ; Kipling is young yet ; though Lampton, if he aims not high, misses never the mark ; and
ii SOME INCONGRUVIAL REMARKS.
that is a great matter. There are always smiles and often buttercups and daisies and sometimes tears in his lines. Very few poets can say as much for their more ambitious effusions.
How far he may be heralded hereafter as the founder of a school of poetry the fate of this book will tell. Since he has himself referred to the sweat of his typewriter, the added labors of his Mergenthaler must not be forgotten ; for your machine-made poetry, steel-clad from start to finish, requires a more extensive plant than was known to Shakespeare himself; and it may be doubted whether if Ben Jonson were brought to life and required to furnish such verses to order after this pattern, he would not rub his eyes and ask to be led back to the cloisters. " From gay to grave, from lively to severe " is but a part of it ; nor indeed the greater part ; even when cop per-bottomed it must be spontaneous ; when case- mated, inspired ; melodious, too, yet permeated by the rugged wisdom of the time, the common sense and parle, of the streets ; catching the fore lock of that dizzy blonde, the rude humor of the town, as she threads her way betwixt the country- house and the curb-stone, the breakfast table and the lunch-counter ; all things to all men, accord ing to the injunction of St. Paul. The daily
SOME INCONGRUVIAL REMARKS. 13
journal has driven literature to the wall. Hence forth the poets must bloom in the morning paper or not at all. Mr. Lampton makes his hay whilst the sun shines, and, though these collected lays and rays be but moonbeams, canned moonbeams, so to say, yet like the sun that shines for all, they have not lost their illuminating power and will be hailed with right good will by thousands who will recognize them in their new dress as old friends.
1
LOUISVILLE, September 15, 1900.
BY WAY OF INTRO DUCTION.
No POET, I
Who sings about a sapphire sky,
Or silver sanded streams,
Or dim delicious dreams,
Or birds,
Or lowing herds,
Or flowers fair
Upon the fragrant air,
Or hearts that throb,
Or souls that sob,
Or forty dozen other things
Of which the poetry poet sings
Out of his soulful sufferings,
But merely a Yawpist
Yawping his simple yawp
Of things that are
And not what they may seem
To those poetic fancies that
Seldom tumble
To where the real thing is at.
15
T6 YAWPS
A YAWPIST then
Am I ; and men
And things, beneath the touch
Of yawpery,
Appear as such
In rhyme or rhythm,
Or having neither with 'em,
And yet not less
In natural fitting dress,
Because the yawp
Is nature's own expression.
It says just what
Pale poesy does not
And in exactly the way
That you would say
It yourself, if you had
Thought of it
Soon enough.
See?
It rhythms
When it rhythms,
And it rhymes
Sometimes,
But whether it does
Or not,
It gets there
Just the same,
AND OTHER THINGS. 17
Which is where the yawp
Has got
The bulge on a lot
Of contemporaneous
And other modern and ancient
Literature.
The poet may rear up and kick
And say it makes him sick,
But gee whiz,
Is there a more powerful production
Than the simple yawp is ?
2— Yawpt.
1900.
Hail, 1900,
Let the bells ring out,
And let the shout
Of millions, undismayed,
And not afraid
Of the future by what
The past has not,
Been to them, or has been,
Join in the merry din
Of welcome to you. Let
The world forget
Its trials, and in the new time here,
Feel only that good cheer
Which comes to all
If they will call
It with the spirit of the strong
Which moves mankind along
The paths that rise
Above the earth's low reaches to the skies.
The past is dead :
We go ahead
20 YAWPS
To newer, better things ;
The poet sings
A new song, and his strains
Allure us to nobler gains ;
To higher thought,
Wrought
Out of what we were.
Therefore, 1900, be
It resolved, that we —
However, we've sworn off on resolutions.
Listen to us, now, New Year ;
Hear
Us as we shout
And let our spirits out :
You see that flag there ?
None so fair
In all the world, and none so fit
To wave in any part of it.
And watch her wave, and spread
Until the starry Red,
White and Blue is all men's Flag,
And every other rag
Of Empire bows to it ; the free
Man's Flag that was and is and will be;
And watch our trade
Fill up the road the Flag has made,
And keep it full ;
AND OTHER THINGS. 21
We need no pull
But that
To show the world where we are at ;
And watch us grow
At home in all the things that go
To make a State
Imperial — meaning great
And good and true ;
That's the Red, White and Blue.
And every one beneath it,
Great and small,
Will answer to the call
The greater makes upon him, and you'll see
The kind of men all men should be.
Out of its tears and its sorrows
Into its glad to-morrows ;
Out of its wars and its strife
Into its peaceful life ;
Out of its gloom and its shadows
Into its ever-green meadows ;
Out of its clouds and its gray
Into its better way.
Oh, say,
1900, you ought to stay over
A year or two and see
The kind of a country and people
Our country and people will be.
22 YAWPS
You can't? No? Do you have to go? What a pity ! Yet We shall not forget The start you will give us. And we cannot fail. So hail, 1900! All hail ! All hail 1
AND OTHER THINGS. 23
GEORGE WASHINGTON'S ADDRESS TO HIS COUN TRY IN i 900.
Say, Eagle,
Ain't we great ?
Ain't we really immense ?
Ain't we the greatest
That ever happened ?
From your lofty perch on
The palladium of our liberties
Sweep your piercing eye around
The wide horizon and see for yourself.
There is nothing like us
On earth.
And we are getting more different
Every minute.
By Jiminy Christmas,
I had no idea when I started in
With this country
Where we were coming out.
Why, you havn't more than
24 YAWPS
Got out of your shell,
And now your wings
Spread from the clustered Antilles
To the splendors of the Orient ;
And when you scream,
The echoes hurtle round the world,
And principalities and powers
And decaying dynasties
Take to the tall timber.
And the Flag ;
The glittering and glorious
Star-Spangled Banner,
Which Europe thought was merely
A dishrag,
When I first swung it to the breeze,
Is now the
Blooming bunting of a boundless bailiwick.
And the Fourth of July ?
Well, say, Eagle,
It's going to be the
Birthday of half a world,
Of which I am Father of the best part,
And stepfather of the balance.
You can roost on the ridge pole
Of the Greater Republic
And scream a lung out,
But it won't be so much as a murmur
AND OTHER THINGS. 25
To the way I feel,
This very minute ;
And handicapped as I must be
Under the circumstances,
I'm with you in spirit, Old Baldy,
And every time you flap your wings
And scream,
I burst a button off.
That's the kind of an expansionist I am,
And if you will put
A Star-Spangled girdle
Round the world,
I'll tie a knot in it
That will stay tied,
And don't you forget it.
Go on with your spread, Oh Eagle,
And Star-Spangled Banner fly high ;
I'm with you forever, and wish you
A perpetual Fourth of July.
YAWPS
JANUARY EIGHTH, 1889
There were lots of celebrations
In the West and in the East ; There were viands and libations
For the largest and the least ; There were speeches, speeches, speeches ;
The torrent would not dam, When it turned upon the hero
Who punched old Pakenham.
They gloried in the glory
Of a glorious past, and told, In hyperbolic story,
Of the wondrous deeds of old; They pointed to the future,
And saw on Vict'ry's brow A limb of lustrous laurel,
They cannot see there now.
At the time of all this blowing,
'Way down in Tennessee A grim, gray ghost was showing
Some signs of energy;
AND OTHER THINGS. 27
He sighed deep in his bosom, And now and then would cuss,
The meanwhile turning over In his sarcophagus.
He sat up, and intently,
With hand up to his ear, He nodded, not quite gently,
At most that he could hear. He listened to the buncombe,
And thought of recent facts, Whereby his party 'd got it
Where chickens get the axe.
He knew the wretched story,
Which had disturbed him there : A triumph, transitory,
Disaster and despair. Then hearing still the speaking,
He shook his bony head, And groaned: "By the Eternal,
I'm glad that I am dead!"
a8 YAWPS
THOMAS B. REED IN ROME
Behold me as I stand,
Where Rome has stood
For twice a thousand years
And more !
Behold us both :
Me and Rome !
And then, dear friends,
Please give your eyes a rest.
Rome has her history,
And I have mine ;
But Rome, although she sat
Upon her seven hills
And ruled the world,
Never sat in the Speaker's chair
Of the Fifty-first Congress
And bossed that
Megatherian aggregation
As I did,
And that is where I've got
The bulge on Rome !
AND OTHER THINGS. 29
Here in old Caesar's district
I sit me down, and with my feet
Upon his ancient mantlepiece
I feel at home.
Me and Caesar !
Twin stars that twinkle through all time !
Two iron heels that trod as one
Upon the people's necks,
And then we got it in our own !
By gosh ! dear friends, I don't like that
A little bit,
And Caesar didn't either,
Although he didn't have a
Word to say after it was over,
For obvious reasons !
But Brutus wasn't a patching
To Springer of Illinois,
Or Rogers of Arkansas ;
And Caesar has something
To be thankful for !
I'm with you Rome,
From the Passamaquoddy's
Tumbling tide of saw logs
To where the tawny Tiber flows,
And we should organize
A Reed and Roman Trust,
And swipe the universe !
30 YAWPS
Are there objections ?
I hear none.
The ayes seem to have it ;
The ayes have it !
Then let her go, Gallagher !
But I shall never think
That in that elder day
To be a Roman
Was greater than to be Speaker
Of the grand old Fifty-first,
And don't you forget it !
That's what !
AND OTHER THINGS. 31
OWED TO THE GROUND HOG.
Oh Ground Hog,
In your hours of ease,
Uncertain,
Coy and hard to please,
Why give us nasty days like these?
Why,
If your shadow in the sun
Is something
That will make you run,
Are you obliged to have it done?
But, Ground Hog,
Please remember that
This year the sun
Was nowhere at
The shadow point,
And you're a flat
Prevaricator ;
One who lies
Without the hope of purse
YAWPS
Or prize;
A fraud upon the cold, gray skies,
Upon whose sunlessness
You place
A promise to the human race,
That for, at least,
A six weeks' space
We'll have good weather.
Now if you
Could find much worse
In skies of blue,
Why are you not
To that kind true?
Git, Ground Hog,
Git,
Lest you inspire
Mankind to rise
In wrath,
And fire
You as a
Meteor-illogical liar ! !
AND OTHER THINGS. 33
PIE.
"The consumption of pie is on the increase." — From The Sun's Report of the New York Pie Market.
Oh Pie,
Oh unassuming, shy
And simple solace to our woes,
This shows
That you have come to stay.
And, say !
Don't ever, ever, ever go away.
What odds if some
Assert that you are bum,
A breeder of dyspepsia, and
One-half the ills of all the land.
They lie
Oh Pie,
For you're a peach —
Sometimes ; and speech
Falls flat in telling what
You are as mince, served piping hot, or
Sometimes cold.
3— yawps.
34 YAWPS
And would Thanksgiving be
Thanksgiving half, if we
Had not you there,
So fat and filling, and so fair ?
If there were nothing else but you,
There would be thanks enough in that for two!
And think of you in apple form,
And lemon, too,
White capp'd with fluff;
And cocoanut, and sweet cream puff;
And huckleberry, deeply, beautifully blue,
The time-tried color of the true;
And pumpkin, or sweet potato, with a sauce
Of spice and sherry that is boss ;
And custard, dream of poet's pen,
Materialized from cow and hen ;
And myriad other kinds.
Why,
Pie,
Of all the great bonanza finds
Of culinary searching, you
Are first and foremost. Who
Will dare deny
The potency and permanence
The plenitude and pleasantness,
The popularity of pie?
Oh mystery and magic, we
AND OTHER THINGS. 35
Delight to stick our face in thee
And take it out again to see
The horseshoe of our teeth
Set like a semi-cycle
Into your midst; and then
To do it several dozen times again !
Meanwhile to feel
The ecstasy no spirit can reveal
Save thine; to steal
The rapture and the rhapsody
Enfolded by thy pale periphery.
Oh pie,
Oh pure, propitious, prophylactic pie,
You're IT.
A large, luxuriant, luscious bit.
Here's your good health,
And ours;
And by the powers
You're bound to be
The proud precursor
Of a National pie-eat-y.
36 YAWPS
PRO BONO PUBLICO.
Said Judge Lent, of White Plains, New York, to a lot of unkempt foreigners applying for naturalization papers: "You foreigners must wash your hands and faces before coming V>efore me. Water costs nothing and soap is cheap. I regard cleanliness as one of the most important qualifications of American citizenship, and will grant applications for citizenship with great pleasure if the applicant is clean and neat in appearance."
From foreign lands beyond the seas, We've got a lot of refugees From kings and thrones and things like these, And they can share our liberties,
But make 'em wash.
In time they may become as great As any in affairs of state And other walks, and may create A name and power and vast estate, But make 'em wash.
Our liberties are free as air, And every man can have his share With just as little thought or care Or cost to him as shall be fair,
But make 'em wash.
AND OTHER THINGS.
Our soil is sacred, but its place Is not upon the hands and face Or bodies of an alien race Come hither to enjoy our grace,
So make 'em wash.
Man's morals are in great degree Contingent on his decency Of person, and the chance is he, Unclean in one, in all will be,
So make 'em wash.
Some say that dirt is no disgrace : Go to, it is. No dirty race Has ever yet attained a place That could be said to set the pace, So make 'em wash.
Our liberties are free as air, Our Uncle Sam is just and fair, Our water is beyond compare, Our soap is famous everywhere. So make 'em wash, Make 'em wash ; Goldern 'em, make 'em wash.
38 YAWPS
THE TOWPATH MULE.
Trenton, N. J., April 26. — The first of the electric motors to be intro duced upon the Delaware and Raritan Canal for the propulsion of canal- boats arrived here to-day. It is said that this canal will be the first in the world to use the motors for towing.
Good-by, old Mule,
Old Towpath Mule, good-by !
And good gray mule,
Or black or brown,
Take off your crown,
Worn all these years,
And lay it down.
Meanwhile our tears,
Commingling with your own,
Are splashed upon the throne
From which you ruled
The path, and tooled
The gay canalboat
As it hied
Its slow, serene and pleasant way
By wood and water-side,
Past fertile fields
Whose harvest yields
AND OTHER THINGS. 39
Gave loads to you
And plenty to
The patient farmers who
Lived easily and quite content.
The gait you went
Was fast enough for them, and they
Asked for no quicker way
Than yours. They knew
Your footsteps passing through,
And greeted you
In passing, as a friend
Arriving at a journey's end,
By sluggish, sleepy towns you hauled
Your boat ; while bawled
Your loud commander on the deck,
As though 'twere up to you to wreck
The craft you were attached to,
And which you
Were bound to by such ties
As would not break.
Oh Mule, oh Towpath Mule !
A different school
Of Progress now obtains,
And lightning strains
And tugs, where erstwhile you
Hauled cargoes through,
And with your iron-clad soles
40 YAWPS
Were wont to kick
The towpath full of holes.
Alack the day !
Alack the greed !
That make men need
A quicker way
Than that sure one of yours by which
You ploughed the waters
Of each dammed ditch,
And made them fertile in the tolls
They brought
Out of the harvest you had wrought.
Ah, Towpath Mule !
It breaks our heart to think
That you are now a broken link,
So soon to be the last
Between the present and the past.
Farewell, late monarch of the path,
It is the lightning hath
Unsceptered you, not man,
His puny plan
You could forestall,
But Heaven's call
Was different.
You are dethroned, uncrowned,
Irrevocably downed;
But by the gods your memory lives
AND OTHER THINGS.
And shall
As long as any old canal Holds water ; so be patient still Beneath the lightning's blow, The New-Time's will.
42 YAWPS
OH, SOROSIS!
Note. — Sorosis has notified The Sun not to send any more reporters around, because it (she) does not want to see them and will not tell them anything.
Sorosis,
Sister of silence,
Sybil and Sphinx, all hail !
Serene in thy superb
Superiority which misses
Sublimity only by a
Scratch, thou sittest in the
Shades of the infinite and well known
Silence of thy
Sex, while the
Sun and the entire
Solar system are
Slugged in the
Slats by the
Severity of the sentence thou
Superimposeth. And why
Sorosis,
Shrinkest thou so?
AND OTHER THINGS. 43
Surely the sweet solaces of thy
Sanctified seclusion are not
Sacred secrets for a
Selfish and select few, when the
Sempiternal sorrows of both the
Softer and sterner sex are fairly
Shrieking- for
Such satisfying- sympathy as
Sorosis alone can supply to
Smitten souls. And why
Swattest thou in the
Solar plexus the
Simple screed of the
Scrivener who sings the song of thy
Sinless sweetness
So that an eager world may
Slosh around in thy symphonies?
Sorosis! Oh,
Sorosis! why
So shy?
Swing wide thy gates once more ;
Sweep outward from thy
Sanctum, Sis, so as to
Soothe and sanctify, and, perhaps to
Swipe the scepter of mankind.
See?
44 YAWPS
KENTUCKY TO THE FRONT.
FRANKFORT, Ky., April 7, 1898. — Governor Bradley this morning made public a long list of prominent citizens who have offered their services for enlistment.
Up from the bosky Bluegrass dells, Up from the Bourbon- flowing wells, Up from the Peavine's tree-girt soil, Up from the Red-brush where they toil, Up from the Pennyrile's cave-pierced ground Comes a wild and woolly, welcome sound Of rattling spurs and clanking swords, Of mounted men in hustling hordes ; A thousand horsemen, ten times o'er, And ten times ten that many more ; Each eager, with a wild delight, To meet the Spaniards in a fight. Each sword is flashing from its sheath, And eyes are sparkling underneath; Strong arms are raised, and hearts as true As beat beneath the gray and blue, And fierce the clarion voices shout: "We're fixed to fight this business out. Bring on the men the armies need, We'll be the Colonels. Let war proceed ! "
AND OTHER THINGS. 45
THE WAR-SHIP KEN TUC K Y'S A P P EA L.
Hark ye,
Ye naval experts !
Let me speak, though yet so young.
I would not that you frame me as
You frame my sister ships ;
For there is that
In my great name demanding change.
Launch me,
When I am launched,
In water that is salt,
For water that is fresh
Kentucky disesteems.
Let all the decks
Which cover me
Be cold,
For those are they
Kentucky loves ;
No turrets place about my form
Armed with those rilled guns,
46 YAWPS
But let hip-pockets take their place,
With Colt's revolvers stuck therein ;
Keep sea grass from my hull
When I'm afloat,
For Blue Grass
Is Kentucky's pride,
And that she floats in
To her chin.
No donkey engines run on me,
For I am used to thoroughbreds,
And when they run
Kentucky's glad,
When I am flagged
Give me three stacks
Of Red and White and Blue,
And let me fly them at the fore
And victory is mine.
These are Kentucky's colors.
And by them
United will she stand.
Now, hark ye, experts !
This or nought :
When you do christen me
" Kentucky," sirs, let
No champagne be used,
Nor other deadly drug,
Nor fatuous and vapid stuff;
AND OTHER THINGS. 47
But christen me
With juice of corn
In ancient, unctuous, amber gold ;
Old Bourbon Whiskey, sirs,
So mellow in its age,
So fragrant in perfume,
So smooth in liquid grace
That patriots would weep
To lose a drop
In any but this sacred cause.
Thus will the name you give me fit;
And for that name
I'll make a record on the seas
Not less than now it is
Upon the land !
48 YAWPS
THE PRINCE OF WALES HAS A COLD.
COPENHAGEN, April 14. — The Prince of Wales is suffering from a cold and slight catarrh of the larynx.
Good bordig, Pridce,
We're dard sorry to leard
Of your iddispositiod.
There's dothig,
Id our opidiod, so disagreeable
As a code id the head.
Whad are you doig for id ?
We've god a rebedy
Thad is the besd
Od earth,
Bar dud.
We dever heard of id's
Failig to kdock the stuffig
Oud of a code,
Do batter how bad id was,
Ad if you will try id,
AND OTHER THINGS. 49
We'll guaradtee a cure
Or do pay.
Jusd taig a liddle
Bolasses ad odiods
Ad bix theb id —
However,
You bust be bored
Full of holes
By kide frieds
With code rebedies
By this tibe,
Ad we'll berely
Exsted our sybathies.
So log, ode chap,
Good bordig —
Bud hadd't you better try —
However,
Good bordig.
4— Yawps.
50 YAWPS
A HINT OF SPRING.
There's a lazy time a-comin' And it's comin' purty soon ;
It'll git a start in April
And'll keep it up through June.
The sun'll come a-streakin'
Crosst the valleys and the hills,
With its warmin' light a-drivin' Out the shivers and the chills.
It'll loaf around the gardens And'll roost among the trees,
A-coaxin' and persuadin'
With a mighty power to please;
Till the earth will be in color, With the roses all in bloom
And the trees in leaf, and Nater Injoyin' of the boom.
It'll ketch a feller workin'
In the house er out of doors,
AND OTHER THINGS. 51
And 11 start the tired feelin' Oozin' out of all his pores.
It'll make his eyelids heavy, It'll set his brain on dreams
Of the cool and shady places By the quiet runnin' streams.
Then's the time to go a fishin',
For the lazy time is best, 'Cause a fish ain't hardly human,
And it never wants to rest.
By the ripplin' of the waters,
Makin' music all the day, He can stretch out where its shady
And jest fish his life away.
It's the sunshine time, the fishin' time,
The lazy time that's best, When a feller don't want nothin'
But to soak his soul in rest.
52 YAWPS
AN EASTER EGG
I am an Egg,
An Easter Egg.
Behold how beautiful
My outside is,
In glittering gold,
In silver sheen
And burnished bronze ;
In Tyrian purple
And in vermeil dyes ;
In rainbow hues
Set solidly,
Or woven intricately
In curious, chaotic chromes ;
In blended tints and shades
And in all manner
Of prismatic wonders.
I please the eye,
And satisfy the sense
Of harmony in all the airs,
That light may play
AND OTHER THINGS.
Upon the chords of taste ;
I fill the tired
Esthetic soul
With that chromatic rest
Which quiet sunsets
Bring in June
To bathe a twilight world
In crimson peace ;
Or yet again,
I stir the limner's brush
To nobler victories
In realms of light.
That's how I am outside
My shell ;
Within,
I may be a bad egg,
Through and through ;
A doubly whited sepulchre,
In that, all colors blended
Are but white.
That's me,
A gaudy glory to the eye
At every Easter show,
But-
There are others !
54 YAWPS
THE DAY OF HATS.
Oh, Easter Morn,
Oh, Day Easterious !
Ten million bonnets rise
Upon the sight
And fill the time
With frenzied light
From myriad prism'd ribbons,
And with flowers
As odorless as rainbows are,
And with ten times
The rainbow's hues,
In blended shades and tints,
And fluffier in their feathered plumes
Than nodding palms
Upon a thousand tropic plains.
And gowns galore !
Such gowns, gadzooks,
As, if the angels wore,
High Heaven would be
So different a place.
AND OTHER THINGS.
Polychromatic Infinity!
All feminine
In loveliness, save this,
A man at intervals
In Easter pants !
Stone gray, perhaps,
Or mauve,
Or yet anon,
Of lavender,
Or some poetic tint
Too sweet for other use
Than Easter pants.
Oh, Easter Morn !
Oh, Day Easterious !
In silken glimmer,
Satin sheen,
And lace illumed,
In pure white light
You are in very truth
The Prism of the Spring.
56 YAWPS
PARKS AND SPRING
One sees
The trees
Are greening in the parks ;
And larks
(There are no larks
But there's no time
To hunt a better rhyme)
And other birds,
In flocks and herds,
Are filling all the days
And ways
With merry lays,
Both song and egg.
The lively squirrels
Shake out their tails,
Like fuzzy sails,
And fly
Treeward to the sky ;
Or linger 'long the grass
To grab a peanut as you pass ;
AND OTHER THINGS. 57
And little girls,
As dainty as the flowers,
And boisterous boys,
Whose youthful powers
Seem gone entirely to noise,
Run everywhere
And fill themselves with air,
As fresh and good
As blows in any forest wood.
And cops,
In bright blue togs,
By skips and hops
Chase unchained dogs ;
Or on a horse,
Go o'er the course
To catch a runaway and save
A wagon-load of ladies
From an untimely grave.
The roadways are alive
With those who drive ;
And thousands walk
And talk
Along the paths that run
Through pleasing shade and cheering sun.
The grass is velvet,
Soft and green.
And low between
The leafy, loving trees
58 YAWPS
Are blooming bushes
Bending in the breeze.
The benches fill
With Jack and Jill,
With Mike and Maggie,
Sambo, Sal,
Katrina, Owgoost —
And the Mall
Is crowded to the lids
With niggling nurses and the kids
They have in charge.
The fountains,
Squirtless in the wintertime,
Now rise
In strings of silver
Toward the skies ;
Upon the lake
The skiff and barge,
With argosies of gay
And gladsome youth,
Have sway,
And from the boats
Lacrustine laughter floats.
Above it all the soft sky swings
Its light, aerial, azure wings,
And everybody and everything
Unite in a general
Hurrah for spring.
AND OTHER THINGS. 59
FUNS TON OF KANSAS.
Gee whiz,
What a fighter Funston is !
Funston of Kansas ; he
Who, over yonder across the sea,
Out Philippine way,
Three times a day,
Grabs a ^un
o
And starts the rebs on a run ; And he'll fiVht
o
At night;
Or morning or evening or noon,
Or December or June,
Or any old time ; he
Lives on fighting. See ?
Eats it, sleeps with it, drinks it,
Thinks it,
But never talks it ; just does it!
Whoop —
And he's got a scoop
On the foe.
60 YAWPS
He doesn't know
What it is not to go
After a reb when one's in sight,
Day or night.
And he'll swim a river
Without a shiver,
Through a volley of shot
That will make the water hot !
He's always in front, where
The circumambient air
Is chuck full of lead,
But he keeps his head,
And in a minute or two
He's beating a hullabaloo
On the rebs' coat-tails.
He never fails,
And he doesn't know
What it is to go slow.
Of all the fighters, trained or raw,
Funston's the fightin'est they ever saw
Out in the Philippines, and
He's keeping right at it, hand over hand.
Kansas has her weaknesses ; she may
Want to make currency out of hay,
And may think a gold dollar or two
Is a regular 16 to i hoodoo,
And she may grow whiskers on Populists' chins,
AND OTHER THINGS. 61
But Funston covers a multitude of sins.
Funston of Kansas, him
That's a dandy Jim
In all kinds of scraps
With the Malay yaps ;
Funston of Kansas, let the cheers
Of the present and all of the future years
Be given for him ; let his name
Be high in the soldiers' Temple of Fame;
Funston of Kansas ; he is great,
The glory and pride of the Sunflower State.
62 YAWPS
A GOOD WOMAN
Busy at her work all day, Never asks a cent of pay, Thinks it ought to be that way :
Thank the Lord for Susan !
Singin', when she wants to sing, Like the robins in the spring ; Scoldin' some, like everything :
Thank the Lord for Susan !
Always ready, day or night ; Always willin' — she's a sight, When it comes to doin' right :
Thank the Lord for Susan !
Me and seven childern's what She looks after, well or not, And she's "Mother" to the lot:
Thank the Lord for Susan !
Goes to church on Sundays, too, 'Long with all she's got to do;
AND OTHER THINGS. 63
It's her that's goin' to pull me through : Thank the Lord for Susan !
In her hair is streaks of gray, And the crows' feet's come to stay; But I like her best that way:
Thank the Lord for Susan !
Made of consecrated clay, She gits better every day :
Thank the Lord for Susan !
64 YAWPS
THE "BROTHER TO THE OX."
[Suggested by Markham's Famous Poem of "The Man With the Hoe."]
Say, Brother to the Ox, stand up,
And tell the Poet who Thus calls you names to go to Aitch,
And do it p d q.
Your leaning on the hoe is rot;
You haven't got a hoe ; You've got a cultivator which
Has steam to make it go.
The emptiness of ages that
He tells you he can see Spread on your face is honest sweat
And soil of high degree.
You're dead to rapture and despair,
You neither hope nor grieve, He sadly says, and what he says
Nobody will believe.
AND OTHER THINGS. 65
For when your wide and waving fields
Are rich with wheat and corn, No happier man than you are then
Has ever yet been born.
And what a rapture when you swap
A balky horse and get A crackajack of pedigree
On which it's safe to bet !
And when you take up politics,
Although you make a muss Sometimes, you never cease to hope
You'll slay the Octopus.
Who loosened and let down your jaw?
Lord knows. Whoe'er he is, You've tackled him in splendid style
And long ago smashed his.
"Whose was the hand," the Poet cries, That slanted back your brow?
And you can tell him, if it was, It isn't that way now.
Whose breath blew out the light within
Your brain? he also asks, As though he had a contract to
Perform a thousand tasks.
5— Kua^i.
66 YAWPS
It was an old-time tallow-dip,
To blow out which was right, And in the place of it you've got
A new electric light.
Say, Brother to the Ox, you're great;
And hoes and ploughs and things, Like those in last year's bird's-nest style,
Of which the Poet sings
Are not your kind. You're up to snuff;
You've got the latest fads ; And when it comes to showing down,
By Zucks! you've got the scads.
You wear good clothes; you've got a house
Built on the modern plan, And when your wife and daughters drive,
They go behind a span.
In reference to your brotherhood.
Whatever may be said, Your herd-book shows conclusively
The Ox is thoroughbred.
You read the papers day by day,
And take the magazines; You wear a dress-suit with the ease
You wear your working jeans.
AND OTHER THINGS. 67
And when the Poet writes a verse
That shows you as a lout You buy a copy of his book
To help the Poet out.
Say, Brother to the Ox, you're fine;
You do just as you please, And like a slugger swat the si —
Lence of the centuries.
Oh, masters, lords and rulers in All lands and bonds and stocks,
You bet you are not in it with Tliis Brother to the Ox.
63 YAWPS
THE LOVE OF WOMAN.
Does woman have a head
To love with,
Or
To think with ?
Is she compelled to calculate
A why and wherefore
For her love,
And demonstrate it
By a rule,
As one sets figures thus and so
To reach results ?
Why has she heart,
If it is not
To lead her soul
Through gentler ways than reason's are?
A heart-throb is to her
As measureless as Heaven,
And why should she
Let finite thought
Essay to put a limit on
AND OTHER THINGS. 69
The infinite?
Her head she thinks with;
'Tis with her heart that she forgets ;
And in forgetfulness there is
That love that makes
A woman what she is :
God's dearest gift to all the world !
YAWPS
MEMORIAL DAY, 1900.
Now comes
The roll of drums
That tell the story of
The glory of
The patriot dead
Whose blood was shed
On land and sea
To make our country free
And give its liberty
To weak and helpless others
Held in bond as we,
In other times, were.
It was not theirs to live to see
The glorious fruits of victory.
But every grave
Of every brave
And generous son
Whose work is done.
Is dearer now to us
Than was his life to him,
AND OTHER THINGS. 7r
And where he sleeps
There love its vigil keeps.
In the Northland where the snow is,
In the Southland where the sun is,
On the green Atlantic meadows,
By the murmurous Pacific,
In the arid land of Indians,
On the banks of Mississippi,
By the waters of Lake Erie,
Underneath the Cuban palm trees.
By the roads of Porto Rico,
In the swamps and by the rivers
Of the far-off Orient Islands,
Are our glory spots,
The silent stars
That shine upward
To light the path
Where patriot sons
Shall tread
Beneath those other stars
That glitter in the Flag.
Upon the soldiers'
Everlasting camping ground
We strew the flowers of summer time,
Our messengers of light
And warmth and love,
Remembering,
72 YAWPS
To those who, after "Taps,"
Have sunk to rest
To wait the reveille
That wakes a world.
We bring
The fragrant roses of the North,
The fair magnolias of the South,
The sweet forget-me-nots
Of all this land of ours
Made free and fertile
By the blood of those
Who loved it so
They gave their lives for it.
We give them tears,
And though our eyes be wet
There is that in our hearts
That makes tears glad
For heroes, dead in noble sacrifice,
Are greater gain
Than any loss.
To-day swing out the Starry Flag,
Let no more tears be shed,
The loving living glory in
The glory of the dead.
Swing out the Flag !
And roll the drums,
A Nation with its homage
Comes.
AND OTHER THINGS. 73
THE PROSE OF POETRY
His poem had been writ
And brought him gold.
Filled full of lofty thought,
Of noble purpose and
Of brilliant wit,
Of sentiment and soul ;
Of music, unattuned,
It turned the mystic key
That fits the lock of wealth.
It was a picture
Wrought in words ;
A star plucked from
The sky of mind ;
A white rose from
The garden of the heart.
And yet it was not these
To him.
Between its splendid lines
He found a suit of clothes ;
Its periods rounded out to him
74 YAWPS
A plate of soup,
A roast of beef,
A piece of pie.
Its rhythmic flowing feet
Wore shoes for him ;
Its soul
Went to his stomach,
And its sentiment
Gave him a bed on which to sleep
And dream the poet's dream;
Its measure and its melody,
Its waking and its wretchedness.
AND OTHER THINGS. 75
THE SWEET GIRL GRADUATE.
See there she stands
In gown of white —
All white and fluffy,
Perhaps a little puffy —
And in her hands
A roll
Of manuscript; a scroll,
Tied with a pale pink ribbon,
Or ethereal blue.
Mayhap a rose
Is at her dainty waist ;
Mayhap a sash
Of some cool tint
Encircles it
And spreads into a bow
With streamers falling to her hem.
Her hair lies soft
Upon her classic head
And touches with caressing curls
7 6 YAWPS
Her fair,
Smooth brow,
Unwrinkled now
With care.
A ribbon-knot adorns it,
Or a bloom
As sweet as she is.
Her face, alight
With promise and with hope,
Is radiant as a star,
And through her cheeks
The young blood courses ruddily.
The future glistens in her eyes,
And out beyond
The narrow confines
Of her Past and Now,
She sees a dream,
All golden glorious,
Coming true.
Her heart beats high,
And every nerve is tense;
While in her brain
Are whirling thoughts
That will not rest,
She feels the breaking of the ties
That held what was and what will be,
And little tears come to her eyes
AND OTHER THINGS. 77
To let themselves be chased away
By smiles.
The bud of womanhood
Is bursting in her soul
To blossom afterwhiles,
And every parting fibre brings
To her a thrill
Of pleasure and of pain,
The place grows still ;
Her trembling fingers hold
Her manuscript, and in a voice,
Half certainty, half doubt,
Half tears, half smiles,
She reads:
"Standing with reluctant feet, Where the brooks and rivers meet, We have met this rare June day To bid farewell, ere we go away.
"How sad it is for us who're here, Friends and pupils and teachers dear, To say good-by, perhaps, forever, And be engulfed in life's wide river.
"To-day we're children ; only girls, W earing our pretty frocks and golden
curls,
But when to-morrow's sun we see, Dear classmates, we shall women be.
78 YAWPS
"Oh think of that, dear girls. How deep The feeling- is should make us weep; For grave responsibilities must come To all of us, and more to some.
"We look back now upon the years We've passed in school, and though
our tears
Did sometimes flow, all that is past, And we have reached the goal at last.
"This bright Commencement Day
we're here
To gratefully thank our teachers dear And tell them how much we appreciate Their noble efforts, early and late.
"No more we'll hear the chapel bell, No more our little fibbies tell, No more will we late lunches eat, No more we'll flirt upon the street.
"All that is past, we know 'twas wrong, But like a discord in a song, It is forgotten in the sweeter part That always touches the truest heart.
"To you, dear classmates, let me say One little word upon this Day; Though many, many I could tell, But I will only say Farewell.
AND OTHER THINGS. 79
"A word that hath been, and must be, Sad and yet joyful to you and to me ; Sad that we must part ; and yet Joyful in that we will not forget.
"And now to all, Farewell again, The saddest word of tongue or pen ; Farewell, dear friends, we part in love; May we meet forever in the land above."
These are her burning thoughts,
This the way
She points to
On Commencement Day,
A sweet, poetic pathway
Leading through
A field of roses and —
Of rue.
My word.
Isn't the sweet girl graduate
A bird?
8o YAWPS
LO, THE SUMMER GIRL.
Lo, there she stands
Upon the mystic, misty line
That lies half-way
Between the frost and (lowers ;
Her pink cheeks redden in the sun
And with a greeting, smile and nod,
She comes to earth upon a bluebird's wing
And tip-toes into June
On rosebuds blushing sweet
Beneath her dainty tread.
Gowned in a garniture of filmy white
Or fluffy pinks and blues
And every varying tint and shade
Of blossom-time,
She skims above the green earth's breast
Just high enough to reach men's hearts ;
She makes the world her own,
And man her slave,
And as a Queen she reigns
Upon her hammock throne,
AND OTHER THINGS. 81
Or sits in state upon a hotel porch
Surrounded by her court;
The ribbons of her sailor hat
Are rainbow-tinted fetters
Binding close the glad, unhappy subjects
Of her sway ;
Her tinsel parasol
Is sceptred in her hands
And from its shade she rules
A retinue of swains ;
Down by the sea
She walks the silver strand,
Where emerald waves break into foamy white
And lay their broken bodies at her feet ;
She murmurs nothings to a hundred ears
And gives her smiles to honeyed tongues
That tell of manly hearts in thrall to her ;
The lazy, lambent moon
Lies crescent in the sky
For her to hang her witcheries on,
And all the little stars,
With twinkling eyes that sparkle in the blue,
Laugh silently to see
This sorceress of the summer-time
Work moonshine into mystic spells ;
The sunshine drops its dazzle
In her hair, her eyes, her smile;
6 — I'au'ps.
82 YAWPS
The flowers fold their fragrance round her
As she moves ;
The roses lay their leaves upon her cheeks,
The lilies on her hands,
And everything in sight is hers.
She leaves the land
To meet the cool caresses of the sea,
And Neptune sets a short-robed Queen
Upon his billowy throne ;
The saucy waves come up to kiss her cheeks
And slip away, as laughingly she dares
Them do their worst ;
Sunburned she stands upon the shore
And, gazing outward o'er the blue, she weeps
For other worlds to claim as hers.
Up from the sea
To where the mountains touch the sky
And bathe their dark green brows
In silver clouds,
She takes her way,
All-conquering as she comes ;
The waving trees
Bend down their sheltering boughs
To touch her passing underneath ;
The gray crags soften
When she rests on them ;
The murmurous hum of forest life
AND OTHER THINGS. 83
Grows still to hear her speak,
And what she says to any him
Who worships her
In those primeval shrines
Is hidden in the hearts of flowers
Where bees may come to gather it
And lock it in their hives.
She rules the mountains
As she rules the shore,
A flirting phantom,
Frivolous and fair ;
A dream of fluffy pink and white
That ne'er comes true ;
A bright intangibility ;
A fantasy of music, moonlight, love and flowers,
A Summer Girl.
84 YAWPS
THE SHIRT WAIST.
Behold me,
I am the Shirt Waist,
The universal slip
That woman wears
And revels in
With wild, abandoned joy,
As unrestrained
As I am.
Had Eve but had
A shirt waist on,
When she passed outward through
The garden gate,
Her hardship would have seemed
A holiday ;
Had Cleopatra had me on
When she swept down the Nile
'Neath silken sails,
She would have cast
Her sunshades far
Out on the rolling tide ;
AND OTHER THINGS. 85
And Venus, she of Medici,
If decked in me,
Would surely
A new woman be.
Without me,
Woman's wear is but a name
For fetters and for bonds.
I have all season's for my own,
But in the summer time
I burst into ten thousand hues
That make the rainbow pale
And beg the sun to shine
No more upon the rain.
I weave
The purple shadows of the eve
Into my web ;
The rose-tint and the cherry-ripe,
The apple-bloom,
The violet and the golden-rod,
The chrome chrysanthemum,
The dazzling dahlia and the tulip show,
The painted pansy
In a thousand dyes,
The vari-verdancy of grasses in the fields,
The crimson, gold and scarlet of
The frost-kissed forest leaves,
The multi-colored breadth of earth
86 YAWPS
And sea and sky and air,
And lambent moon and silver sun,
And topaz stars
Are not arrayed like most of me,
When Summer comes to let
My gorgeous glories loose
And spread them o'er the world.
I fit all sizes,
And I gather in
The female form divine,
From Greenland's icy mountains
To India's coral strand,
And no one says me nay.
The fickle Goddess Fashion
Flits
To parts unknown
When I appear,
For I have come to stay.
I, the Shirt Waist ;
I, the one fixed fashion
Of the fair.
AND OTHER THINGS. 87
THE HUMIDITY.
Say Humidity,
You pestiferous permeator
Of an otherwise fairly respectable
Circumambient atmosphere,
What excuse for being
Have you got anyway ?
Why don't you
Go in out of the wet ?
Did you ever have to hit
Anybody with a club
For insisting on you
To remain over
And load the air
Full of yourself
Every time the
Barometrical area
Humped itself a bit ?
Get out, Humidity,
You are the very worst
In the whole category
88 YAWPS
Of meteorological ills,
And you haven't got
A friend
On earth.
You're a blamed sight meaner
Than any mean temperature
In these parts
For while that
Bangs around from
50 below to 1 50 above,
More or less,
You can't get above,
A hundred
Without being drowned out,
And you simply
Can't go to zero
At all.'
But confound you,
You can mix yourself up
With the atmosphere,
And then what you are
Is a plenty.
Oh, it's more than a plenty,
You gosh-darned
Draggly,
Discouraging,
Detestable dampness ;
AND OTHER THINGS. 89
You moist,
Moppy,
Muggy,
Miserable mixture
Of seven kinds of sweat
All warranted not to dry
Inside of a week ;
Oh you — you —
You make everybody tired.
You are the father
And mother
And grandparents
And mother-in-law
Of that tired feeling
All the world
Has to take medicine for.
Why, Humidity,
You dampener of all ardour,
Too much of you
In good liquor
Will even spoil that.
Oh say,
Can't you dry up once ?
What this suffering sphere needs
Is a reliable article
Of dessicated humidity,
And it's up to you
go YAWPS
To furnish it.
Do you precipitate
Our allusion?
AND OTHER THINGS. 91
THE ELECTRIC FAN
Oh, yes,
I've got a cold,
A summer cold,
The meanest of its race,
The black sheep
Of the flock of lesser ills.
How did I i^et it ?
o
Please ask me something hard ;
I got it
Sitting underneath a fan.
Not fan of palm,
Or feathered finery,
Or handiwork of Jap,
Swayed lazily
By some fair lady's hand,
But fan of brass,
Sent whirlingly through space
At lightning speed
92 YAWPS
By lightning spark ;
The popular electric fan,
The tempter
Of an overheated man,
The terror
Of the summer time.
Unto its cool caresses; I,
Unthinking, gave myself,
And sinking at its base
Into an easy chair,
I let the music
Of its soothing whirr
Lull me to sleep.
Methought I floated on the wings
Of angels fresh from Shadyland
That fanned me as they flew
And turned the perspiration
On my burning brow
To pearls of pleasantness ;
I dreamed of babbling brooks
That told of spring ;
Of purling rills
That sang of shade ;
Of sweet, sequestered woods,
Unscorched by sun ;
Of fair, green fields,
AND OTHER THINGS. 93
Dew-kissed from morn to night;
Of rose bloom
And of rhapsodies —
And then the vision changed
And I beheld
A hideous horror,
Brazen winged,
That flew forever,
Whirling round
And round and round,
Unceasingly around,
And beat upon its cage of wire;
The meanwhile
Whirring wickedly
And blowing out its icy breath
Upon my neck
And down my back
Into the very marrow of my soul.
Chilled through
And stiffened to the bone,
My clothes, as cold and clammy
As the hand of death,
Stuck to my shivering skin,
I, with a sneeze
And wheeze and snort,
Awoke.
YAWPS
Oh, yes,
I've got a code,
A dab bad code,
Ad I know how I god id.
AND OTHER THINGS. 95
AN ENIGMA.
And the man stood before me talking :
"Verily, verily," were his words,
"I have been by the smooth road,
The great road
Where the wheels are whirling hither and yon ;
Where the flowers bloom not,
Yet there are many bloomers ;
Where there are no trees,
Yet limbs are everywhere ;
Where no cattle come,
Yet calves are many ;
Lean calves and fat,
Pretty calves and homely,
Old calves and young ;
And stranger than the other strange things
Was this :
That no calf of all those calves
Had more than one leg !"
Then the man ceased speaking,
And I communed with myself, saying :
" Verily, the wheels this man thought he saw
Are in his own head."
And I plumed myself upon my superior wisdom.
YAWPS
THE SHIR T-W A I S T MAN.
Behold me,
Coatless and cool ;
I am the Shirt Waist Man
And if I don't
Take the rag off the bush,
I take the coat
Off my back
And fling it
In the face of conventionality.
What do I care
If Fashion
Piles the perspiration
Chin deep
On the backs
Of coated men ?
It doesn't monkey with me,
For I yank off my coat
And Fashion
Chases itself out of my
Neighborhood,
AND OTHER THINGS. 97
And leaves me
Cool
As a cucumber.
Of course,
My shirt waist
Isn't cut according
To the pattern
Of the lady shirt waist,
And it lacks
Fluff and puff
And furbelow,
And has a
Superfluity of narrative,
Perhaps,
But it gets there
Just the same,
And I am comfortable,
While those,
Coated with conventionality,
Sweat and swear
And kick holes
In the Weather Bureau
And lose their tempers
In an overflow of temperature.
The Shirt Waist Man
Isn't a recognized institution
Just yet,
'/— Yawps.
YAWPS
But he's the coming man,
And the hot weather
Brings him out
As it does the tassels
On a field of corn,
And soon the streets
Will blossom with him,
Not altogether
A thing of beauty,
But verily a joy
To himself
During the heated term.
That's me,
The Shirt Waist Man,
And as long
As I keep cool
Conventionality
May go to thunder.
AND OTHER THINGS. 99
LARCHMONT'S SHIRT WAIST HOP.
At a recent shirt-waist hop at fashionable Larchmont on Long Island Sound, two hundred representative garments were present.
Larchmont had a shirt-waist hop
And all the men were there, The grave brunette, the giddy blonde,
The bravest and the fair.
There were blue shirt waists
And red shirt waists
And pink shirt waists and green,
There were white shirt waists
And black shirt waists
And fat shirts waists and lean.
There were dark shirt waists
And light shirt waists
And gray shirt waists and blue,
There were smooth shirt waists
And ruffled shirt waists
And false shirt waists and true.
ioo YAWPS
There were mauve shirt waists
And yellow shirt waists
And right shirt waists and wrong,
There were pretty shirt waists
And ugly shirt waists
And short shirt waists and long.
There were plaited shirt waists
And netted shirt waists
And paid-for shirt waists and not,
There were high shirt waists
And low shirt waists
And cool shirt waists and hot.
There were nice shirt waists And cheap shirt waists, They were all shirt waists in style ; There were plain shirt waists There were quiet shirt waists And some you could hear a mile.
There was every kind of a shirt waist there, With a man to match it inside,
And the girls were so jealous Of the shirt-waisted fellows That they sat on the floor and cried :
Or somebody has lied.
AND OTHER THINGS. 101
T H H AUTOMOBILE.
I am the Automobile
And I run
My never tiring course
Along the roadways
Of the world,
And leave no hoofprints
In the sands of time.
I am the horse's Juggernaut,
Likewise the mule's,
And over their recumbent necks
My whirling wheels
Pass to an era
Not for them.
They mark a step in progress
Through six thousand years ;
I leap the bounds
Of all the past
And whizz into the future with
A swish that marks me here
This instant, and the next
A thousand years ahead.
I stand, a pioneer,
Upon the lofty ridge
Between the new and old,
YAWPS
And backward down the Kismet path
I hear the slow surceasing tread
Of hoof-beats moving to the field
Of desuetude.
I look before and see
A million multiples of me
Subserving man
In all his moving needs,
A ministrant of motion that
Is measureless as are
Its master's wants.
By night and day I stand and wait,
And at the master's beck
I go.
I have no tired eyelids for
The hand of Sleep
To lay its fingers on ;
No hunger gnaws my vitals out;
No muscles, overstrained and sore,
Plead silently to me for rest.
In my new lexicon
There's no such word as rest ;
And tireless as may be
The energies of man,
My service meets them everywhere,
As tireless as they,
And makes cessation cowardice,
AND OTHER THINGS. 103
I am the movement
Of the time to come ;
And in me motion finds
Its rhythm and its poesy,
Its "get there"
And its best activity,
I am The Thing ;
The It of passage and
The master servant of the master man.
Through the splendors of the future,
In every land and clime,
I will lead the grand procession
Up the corridors of time.
In the niche of transportation
In the Pantheon of Fame,
God among the gods of motion,
I shall set my seal and name.
i°4 YAWPS
MAUD MILLER.
Maud Miller in the summer's heat, Raked the meadows thick with wheat.
The Judge rode slowly down the lane, Soothing his horse's chestnut mane.
"With wheat at a dollar per," said he, "This maid is about the size for me."
Then he smiled at her and she blushed at him, And over the meadow fence he clim.
"Will you marry me, sweet maid," he said, And she told him yes, and they were wed.
Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For old designer and wheatfield drudge.
Lord pity them both and pity us all, For Maud didn't own the wheat at all.
And the Judge remarked when he learned the
cheat : "Don't talk to me about dollar wheat!"
AND OTHER THINGS.
READ Y— I F N E E D E D !
Up on the coasts and hills of Maine, Where the spruce gum is a source of gain, Where the ice crops in the rivers grow, And the pine woods' splendors hide in snow ; Every man is ready !
Down in the solemn Everglades, In the orange orchards' pleasant shades, By the rivers, still and dark and deep, Where the lazy alligators sleep ; Every man is ready!
Off in the Texas cotton fields, Where the earth her snowy fibre yields, Where the plains stretch out and far away FYom the dawn to the going down of day ; Every man is ready !
There in the big, strong Keystone State, Whose brawn and muscle have made her great, Wrhere the sturdy miner and mill hand give To Labor the heart that makes it live ; Every man is ready !
ro6 YAWPS
Out in the blizzardous, cold Northwest, Where the zero weather will stand the test, Where the tops of the mountains scrape the skies, And the wheat fields yield their golden prize ; Every man is ready !
Out on the California strand, Where the sun shines soft on a Promised Land, Where the roses bloom and the hillsides laugh, \\ ith the fruit whose blood the gods may quaff; Every man is ready!
Still on, to the Puget country where The mountains loom through the misty air, Where the great primeval forests stand As sentinels who guard the land ; Every man is ready!
Up in the fields where the daisies bloom, Down in the city's dingiest room, Out on the plains, or in the hills, Deep in the mines, or in the mills, From everywhere they're rising, then, Ten thousand regiments of men ;
And every man is ready.
AND OTHER THINGS. 107
HYMEN'S S P E H C H.
Behold me,
Hymen, the Hustler,
And Hitcher of Hearts.
Ever since Easter
I've been working overtime
And we're not half way in sight
Of June, when the real rush
Of roses and rapture
Is turned on full,
Still I'm not going to strike
For shorter hours.
My advance agent
And business solicitor,
Cupid,
Has been a busy little god
All winter,
And I've got to hustle
To keep up with his orders.
I'm the boss coupler
Of two souls with but a single thought,
io8 YAWPS
And the way I can hook up
Two hearts that beat as one
Is a sight to behold.
I'm the best friend
And the most profitable partner
Of the florist,
The caterer,
The preacher,
The milliner,
The dressmaker,
The furniture dealer,
The real estate agent
And the instalment-plan man ;
But do I get any of the rake-off?
Nary a nickel.
I ought to kick, I suppose,
But I don't.
My clients are all
So perfectly happy,
So ineffably blissful,
So supremely ecstatic,
And so infinitely pleased
That I take it out in that,
And forget the gross, material profits
Which others get out of the business
Of hymenizing.
I've had a rush like this
AND OTHER THINGS. 109
Every Spring since I began operations,
But I never get tired
And the more I have to do
The better I like it.
Plenty of kicks are coming,
Of course,
But that's not my affair.
I give no guarantees,
And if people don't find goods
To be as represented,
It's no mix of mine
However, this is my busy day,
And there are forty-seven calls for me
This very minute.
Anything I can do for you?
No?
Sorry.
So long ;
See you later.
i jo YAWPS
CONCERNING A DAY.
If you're asking what the row is, What the never-ceasing noise is, What the bursting boundless boom is, What the blunderbussian bang is, What the Hushing fiery fizz is, What the whooping, whanging whiz is, What the swinging, sweeping sizz is, What the silence-splitting sound is, What the too terrific toot is, W^hat the boisterous, breezy blare is, What the brassy, big-horn blast is, What the much meandering march is, What the flawless, flying flag is, Why the spruce gum of Katahdin Spruces finer than a fiddle, Why the cold New England Yankee Booms the everlasting Doodle, Why the blooming wooden nutmeg Whoops itself to something greater, Why the knightly Knickerbocker Knicks his bocks and bocks his knicker, Why the mint of old Virginia
AND OTHER THINGS. ITI
Coins a patriotic julep, Why the Georgia watermelon Bursts in red enthusiasm. Why the tents that tickle Tampa Swell with pride and tooting troopers, Why the old Kentucky Bourbon Turns its yeller into gladness, Why the Texas cotton raiser Raises other things than cotton, Why from Maine to California, On to Oregon or Klondike, From the Philippines to Cuba, Taking in the Sandwich Islands And some other territory, There is boom and bang and boister, There is fizz and fire and fervor, There is Yankee Doodle-Dixie — Uncle Sam will tell you briefly That he's out to do some Fourthing. Just a bit of Fourthing, mind you, On his jolly July birthday ; That he's out to have a pleasant Little Uncle Sam-sam frolic ! That is all. Now if there's any- Body thinks that he can stop it, Say for instance, let him try it, Let him try it, right this minute !
Whoop-la ! !
YAWPS
IN WASHINGTON.
They say that in this city,
Our fair, pale Marguerite, And Kate and Jane and others
Wear anklets near their feet ; They say our lovely damsels,
Who never can grow old, Adorn their graceful ankles
With silver bands, or gold
They say there are inscriptions
Within those circling bands, So shy and coy that only
A maiden understands ; They say these anklets carry
A wealth of jewels rare, Which flash in starry sparkles,
Mid dainty underwear.
They say : but what is gossip ?
An exercise of spite, In which some men are skilful,
And women take delight.
AND OTHER THINGS. "3
It's gossip, merely gossip,
Which bruits the news abroad, That Washington's fair damsels
Are in this way gewgawed, For I have often watched them
Pursue their pretty ways By primrose paths of dalliance,
On rainy, sloppy days.
I've seen their dainty steppings
On crossings where the slush Had just about attained the
Consistency of mush ; I've seen them lift their laces
To let a stocking gleam, As gleams a fleeting fancy
In some poetic dream.
I've seen the lovely limning
Of pictures done in silk, Enframed by gauzy laces
As soft and white as milk ; I've caught the misty glories
Of visions, quickly gone, As pink and blue auroras
Come tripping to the dawn.
8— Yawps.
H4 YAWPS
How many of these visions
I've seen, I do not care To publish in the papers,
But, hear me as I swear : The rumor is unfounded,
Cold malice did inspire The statement, and I tell you
That "They Say" is a liar.
AND OTHER THINGS. 115
A BLAZE OF GLORY.
CHICAGO, July 3, 1894. — Mrs. Katharine O'Leary, owner of the cow that kicked the lamp that fired the barn that set the blaze that burned Chicago, died here to-day.
Dead is Mrs. O'Leary,
Dead in Chicago now ; Finished her earthly labors,
Gone to meet her cow :
Cow that is ever famous,
More than heart could desire ;
Famous because she started The Great Chicago Fire :
Fire that swept the city;
City of brick and frame Went up in a blaze of glory,
That brought unfading fame :
Fame for being the biggest
Fire that ever blazed In any earthly city,
And left the world amazed:
n6 YAWPS
Amazed that from her ashes
Chicago could arise, And grow with magic swiftness
To such enormous size :
Size that is simply wondrous ;
Distended everywhere, With the wind, which is de facto,
Coagulated air:
Air that is filled with thickness,
That makes the sun as red As the blood in her slaughter houses,
Where the wine of her life is shed:
Shed that her wealth and glory
Might decorate the brow Of the one and only city
Kicked to fame by a cow :
Cow of Mrs. O'Leary;
A lamp, a kick, and a shed, A wonderful combination
Numbered now with the dead.
Dead is Mrs. O'Leary,
Gone to the by and by ; Go build her a tomb of granite
A hundred stories high !
AiND OTHER THINGS. "7
THE SPEEDWAY, NEW YORK.
Wide
By the waterside,
The yellow-brown
And rock-ribbed way leads from the town.
Between
The green
Of the hills it lies
Under the sapphire skies,
A golden link that ties
The stony street,
White in the heat,
To the cool roads that wend
Their shady way to the end
Of the land
Stand.
You,
Where the bridges do,
Arches of steel and arches of stone.
Thrown
Outward and over the way ;
n8 YAWPS
And stay
To look at the Speedway, bright
In living color and changing light.
Surely the sight
Gladdens the eye,
And sends the blood high.
Sweeping through and through,
Be it plain red or blue.
See there, a horse
On the course,
And near him another, each
Striving and stretching to reach
The hill at the goal, and to win
The glory of coming in
In the lead — and here, there,
Everywhere,
Two, three, four, a dozen come
With a whizz and a hum
Of whirring wheels,
And your very soul feels
The rush of the horses, and you hear
Cheer after cheer,
Till your forget
All else and let
Your own tumultuous spirit out
In a wild shout
Of triumph for the winner: him, best or worst —
No matter which — that got there first.
AND OTHER THINGS.
In the centre of the way The fliers stray, While on each side Of the lon^ and wide
o
Stretch of yellow-brown,
Hundreds of others move up and down ;
In every manner of grave and gay
Equipage along the way,
A rainbow of horses and wheels and wraps
And run-a-bouts, carriages, wagons and traps.
These in the wide :
On the walks beside
Are thousands on foot to see
The whirl of the horses, and be
Out in the open where
The good sun shines, and the air
Swings along fresh and free
As sweet as the breath of the sea.
Men, women and children, they,
Who love the zest of the day,
Linger along by the way,
Glad to be where
They find light and air
And so much that is fair :
Where, wide
By the waterside
The yellow-brown
And rock-ribbed way leads from the town.
119
120 YAWPS
FOR FUTURE REFERENCE.
Say, Aguinaldo,
You little measly
Malay moke,
What's the matter with you ?
Don't you know enough
To know
That when you don't see
Freedom,
Inalienable rights,
The American Eagle,
The Fourth of July,
The Star-Spangled Banner,
And the Palladium of your Liberties,
All you've got to do is to ask for them ?
Arc you a natural born chump
Or did you catch it from the Spaniards ?
You ain't bigger
Than a piece of soap
After a day's washing,
But, by gravy, you
AND OTHER THINGS.
Seem to think
You're a bigger man
Than'Uncle Sam.
You ought to be shrunk.
Young fellow ;
And if you don't
Demalayize yourself
At an early date,
And catch on
To your golden glorious opportunities,
Something s going to happen to you
Like a Himalaya
Sitting down kerswot
On a gnat.
If you ain't
A yellow dog
You'll take in your sign
And scatter
Some Red, White and Blue
Disinfectant
Over yourself.
What you need, Aggie,
Is civilizing.
And goldarn
Your yaller percoon skin,
We'll civilize you
Dead or alive.
122 YAWPS
You'd better
Fall into the
Procession of Progress
And go marching on to glory,
Before you fall
Into a hole in the ground.
Understand?
That's us —
U. S.
See?
AND OTHER THINGS. 123
A FANTASY.
Inspired by a slice of (New York) University Club mince pie.
Sit down around the mystic mix,
And lay the heaviest odds That nowhere else can mortals fix
A mince pie for the gods.
In other minces there are ills Whose presence perils ease,
But everything in this mince fills The hungry harmonies.
The crusts, that hold the myst'ry close, Melt in the mouth, and they,
Above the earthy and the gross, In raptures fade away.
The meat that's in the mince is meat The gods themselves must grow ;
While grape and citron, rich and sweet, Are from Pomona's show.
124 YAWPS
Above the full round mystery
Such nectarous odors rise That, when its gates are opened, we
Step into Paradise.
And one may dream who may have fed
Upon this perfect pie, But all the dream paths he may tread
Lead upward to the sky.
Sit down around the mystic mix
And lay the heaviest odds That nowhere else can mortals fix
A mince pie for the gods.
AND OTHER THINGS. 125
A LAYOF THEANCIENTS.
Copied from the notebook of a youthful reader of the classics.
I dreamed I wandered 'mongst the shades
Of those gone long ago to Hades,
And I would fain repeat the name
And deeds of those well known to fame.
Chief orator in all those scenes
I warrant was great Demosthenes,
Who made his speeches to the throng,
Without a stutter, all day long,
While wiser far than all his mates,
I'm just as sure was wise Socrates,
Who taught here, fearless of the lip
He got when living with Xantippe,
And living still within his means
Was economic Diogenes,
Who, having found an honest man,
Had swapped his lantern for a fan.
I wandered to the ballroom floor,
And there I saw fair Terpsichore,
Who danced amidst a hundred maids,
None sweeter than the sweet Pleiades;
126 YAWPS
And none to me were quite so nice,
Among them all, as Eurydice.
In that department where abides
The court of justice, Aristides
Was seated on a front bench high,
And spoke to me as I passed by.
And busy still upon his deeds
Of science was great Archimedes.
Beyond the limits of the schools,
Among the athletes was Hercules,
The strong man of the show, you bet,
And one a fellow can't forget ;
Alongside, dressed in steel-trimmed frills,
I saw the warrior bold, Achilles,
And near him weeping, in a robe
Of sombre shape, sat sad Niobe,
A lady who has wept so much,
It makes one cry to think of such.
Now wandering on, my sight reveals
The famous sculptor Praxiteles ;
With chisel drawn, he's making terms,
I ween, to sculpt another Hermes.
And thus I wandered in my dream
And met at every turn a stream
Of famous and illustrious shades
Inhabiting the realm of Hades,
Who seemed to be quite satisfied
And showed me round the place with pride.
AND OTHER THINGS. 127
CHICAGO PHONETICS.
The Senate of the University of Chicago has vetoed the action of the Administrative Board of the University Press in deciding to adopt for u^e in the university publications the National Educational Association's list of twelve words in the abbreviated phonetic spelling. — Chicago News I (em.
O Doctors, lernd in menny things,
No doubt it's just az wel That yu ar met by others who
Reject yore \va tu spel ; Perhaps tha no no more than yu ;
Perhaps not quite az much, But tha ar more conservativ
And rather keep in tuch
With what iz old, than what iz nu,
Because they no that what Iz nu and hithertu untride
Ma posibly be not The proper thing- ; and so tha stand
Stif-nekt agenst yore plan Tu drop the old and make the nu
Conspikuus in the van.
'28 YAWPS
That it iz sumwhat ruf on yu,
We must admit, but then Yu've got tu go a littel slo—
The conquests ov the pen Ar never quick az ar the soard's
And time alone can tel The triumf ov yore efforts tu
Adopt nu waze to spel.
But yu wil get thair, never fear ;
It's bound tu kum, for we Ar forjing onward tu the frunt
With wundrus energy. And when we cough, we'll cof, gadzooks ;
And if we're tough, we're tuf ; And when we're through, we're thru; and then
Enough will be enuf ;
And phthisic will be tizzik then,
And so wil debt be det, And sigh wil fal awa tu si,
And al the rest, yu bet Wil take a tumbel tu themselves,
And speling by yore act Will in good time bekum tu be
A grand fonetic fact.
AND OTHER THINGS. 129
IN CHRYSANTHEMUMIAM.
Say, there,
You rosybuds
And lilypods,
And sweet peas,
And daffy downdillies,
And daisies,
And geraniums,
And all you other
Miss Nancies of the flowering world,
Will you please go sprinkle yourselves,
And turn your weeping eyes on Me —
Me,
The effulgent and iridescent full-back
Of the Floral Field ?
The only blooming
Football player
In the whole botanical business ?
There's nothing
Of the modest little violet style
In my ornate
— Ya
130 YAWPS
And flocculent physiognomy,
And when it comes
To throwing bouquets,
I rather fancy
I'm a whole plate
Of cold slaw
Myself!
Don't I seem
To strike you that way?
I am also
A shredded sunburst of glory,
And when I rise and shine
There is but one light
By which the footsteps
Of the fleet and fading Flora
Are guided:
That's Me,
The Chrysanthemum !
See?
AND OTHER THINGS. i3i
TO THE W. C. T. U. CON VENTION.
(In Seattle.)
Hail, Women !
Hail and welcome !
We are glad
To have you
In the wide and wondrous West,
Where water in ten million
Silver streams
Flows down a million hills
Made green and glorious
By such wholesome drink ;
And half the year
The kindly clouds
Pour their libations down
To make the other half
All sunshine, flowers,
And genial glow
Of generous earth.
We greet you, Women,
From all otherwheres —
132 YAWPS
The frigid North.
The languorous South,
The cultured East,
The multifarious Middle West ,
Wherever you may have your homes
There better things prevail,
And though the toddy
Trembles to its fall,
And cheering cocktails
Dodge into a dismal
Desuetude,
And sparkling fizz
Grows stale and flat
And profitless,
And Bacchus
Bids his beer adieu,
Your courage does not fail
Nor does your purpose
Go awry.
The woeful, wicked Taste
That worships wine
And in the red
Of crimson chalices
Looks on the sunrise of its soul ;
That browses dreamily
Upon the green and tender mint;
That sees the stars
AND OTHER THINGS. I33
Of love and poesy
In every sparkle of the yellow stream
Which flows from France,
Is not your kind,
And happily is not.
Here's to you, then,
Just as you are,
And let us drink your health
And ours as well,
And that of all mankind,
In water, clear and cold
And pure as are the motives
Of your deeds.
Hail, Women !
Hail and welcome !
Although we do not pledge
Your health in rare old wines
We look towards you in a light
That everlasting shines
And glorifies you, as no wine
Could glorify ; and now
Here's hail and welcome once again,
And, pardon us, "Here's how!"
134 YAWPS
ANOTHER COUNTY H HARD FROM.
I am ready to fight if necessary. — Gen. Joe Wheeler of Alabama.
Then up rose General Wheeler
Of Alabama, who Led all the Southern horsemen
The great rebellion through, And, rising, said : ''I'm with you,
You wearers of the blue.
" In other days my color
Was gray, and what I did I think was quite convincing
That I was not a kid ; Now, by that selfsame token,
I'm loaded for the Cid.
"What's past is past forever,
And in this better day We have a closer Union,
Including blue and gray ; A Union without section,
Forever come to stay.
AND OTHER THINGS. 135
"I'm ready for the Spanish If they should come ashore,
And with ten thousand horsemen I'd like to lead once more,
This time a troop of Yankees, A rebel at the fore
" In blue, thank God ! and floating- Above the serried host,
Old Glory in the glory
Of which we love to boast :
'One Flag, one God, one Country,' Our everlasting toast."
136 YAWPS
SOME TEXAS PECU LIARITIES.
Though Texas is a lordly State
And loaded full of biz, It's not a millionth time as big
As Texans think it is ; But just the same, no one would care To make this truthful statement there.
Just why he wouldn't there's no need
Of saying in this space ; Enough to say, that truth, though good,
Is sometimes out of place ; And, notwithstanding speech is free, The wise man muzzles liberty.
But Texas is a wonder State ;
It grows horned toads and things, And cattle which have horns so long
They cut them into strings ; And spiders with such scads of hair, They make a football fiend look bare.
AND OTHER THINGS. 137
There counties grow to such extent
That almost any State Could hide within their vastness and
Stay there and vegetate ; And there the plains spread out so wide They haven't any other side.
Her rivers are tremendous things,
At least so Texans state, Yet they must irrigate them, so
Their boats can navigate ; And fish must leave the rivers' path And go to sea to get a bath.
A man once said that if he had
(At least so I've heard tell) A residence in Texas and
Another one in h — , He wouldn't live in Texas; yet, He never said it there, you bet.
138 YAWPS
CONSUL-GENERAL LEE'S REMARKS.
The Spaniards call Fitzhugh Lee a Yankee. — Havana Despatch.
"They say that I'm a Yankee:
I have heard it many times, I have seen it in their papers,
It is in their songs and rhymes ; I'm the Yankee Consul-General,
I'm the Yankee who's come down To steal the brightest jewel
From the old Castilian crown.
"They say that I'm a Yankee :
If I'd heard it in my youth, I might perhaps have questioned
Its everlasting truth ; But now, I glory in it:
It's the landmark of my birth, And I'd rather be a Yankee
Than anything on earth.
AND OTHER THINGS. 139
"They say that I'm a Yankee,
And I'm glad to say I am ; A Yankee of the Yankees,
And the man ain't worth a — well, Who wouldn't be a Yankee
When the Banner is unfurled That has made the Yankee Nation
The greatest of the world ?
"They say that I'm a Yankee.
Virginians, can it be That history will mention
The Yankee, Fitzhugh Lee? I hope so ; and, Virginians,
Let all of us give thanks That now dear ol' Virginny
Is loaded full of Yanks."
YAWPS
THE PASSING OF THE SUMMER GIRL.
Sit still, you throbbing heart !
Sit still.
Won't you ?
While yet the Summer Girl
Sweeps swiftly out of sight !
Not that she's not
Out of sight,
Every day in the year,
But-
That's another story!
Oh, Summer Girl,
Oh, fluttering vision
Of the surfy shore !
Oh, symphony
In silken shapeliness!
Oh, Skirted Swimmer
Of the sounding seas!
Oh, sweet resistless
Naiad Queen of Neptune-land !
Oh, Empress of the Tallyho !
AND OTHER THINGS. 141
Oh, Goddess of the
White-winged yacht!
Oh, Sorceress of the hillside inn !
Oh, rare, pale
Lily of the lakelet vale !
Oh, Mystic Mountain Maid,
Sunkissed in tan
And roseate as the dawn!
Oh, Hammocked Houri
Of the halcyon days!
Oh, goshelmity !
Oh, Summer Girl,
Why are you thus
To be September squelched
And leave the heart that thumps
To throb on in its
Throbfulness,
With nothing, save
The memory of a
Glinting gleam of glory,
To lean up against,
Until next summer's sweet supply
Comes into market?
Oh, dim, delicious dream !
Oh, darn the luck !
Oh, Summer Girl,
Au revoir!
Oh, mamma!
142 YAWPS
MILK AND MUSIC.
Prof. McConnell told the Eastern Counties' Dairy Farmers at their annual dinner a few days ago, that "music suitable in quality anil administered at the right moment is a never-failing means of increasing the supply of cream." — 7*he Sun.
We hail thee, Prof.
Nor do we scoff At what you rise to tell us ;
Because we feel
That gods reveal Strange things to those who're zealous.
We love to think
The milk-white drink, The cow gives of her treasures,
Is changed somehow,
Despite the cow, By lovely Lydian measures.
The statement, which
You make, is rich In knowledge that enthuses ;
Your fame can't fade
Since you have made Milkmaids of all the Muses.
AND OTHER THINGS. *43
You've made of Pan,
The goat-leg man Whose musical endeavor
Was piping hot
In wood or grot, A Pan of milk forever.
These things are plain
And much we gain By your profound researches,
But something more
From out your store We want by gift or purchase.
We know that what
You know is not What may not be relied on,
And you no doubt
Have heard about The tune the old cow died on ?
We do not care
To know the air, As millions have before us ;
Nor do we, sir,
Ask if it were A solo or a chorus.
144 YAWPS
But, tell us now,
Did not that cow Succumb with sigh and sputter
Because some maid
Just played and played To make her give pure butter ?
AND OTHER THINGS. 145
THE ONE MAN POWER.
He stands where the tumbling waves can't reach His snow white shoes on the snow white beach.
He stands where the tumbling waves can't reach His sun red feet on a sun white beach.
He walks in the promenade at eve,
And the maidens weep lest he should leave.
He looks at the dance and turns away, Because it makes him too tired to stay.
When he goes to his various meals he hurls His declinations at a dozen girls.
When he swings in a hammock half asleep, The girls hang round him three feet deep.
He moves about in a kingly way,
And who can blame him if he should say:
"I am the only pebble on the beach!"
He stands where the mountain rears its top
To the bowl of heaven, whence the new stars drop.
146 YAWPS
He moves 'midst the moss-grown rocks and rills And gives no heed to the ladies' wills.
He leads the German through figures fine, And all his followers are feminine.
He owns the earth in whole and part, And each day breaks some maiden's heart.
He's monarch of all he surveys, and proud To stand on the summits and cry aloud : " There are no others!"
AND OTHER THINGS. 147
THE EXCELSIORIC UMP I R E.
The crowd was gathering thick and fast As from the outside inside passed A man who stood up, strong and proud, And in a brave voice shouted loud, "Play ball!"
His brow was sad ; his eye beneath Flashed like a falchion from its sheath, And like a silver clarion rung The accents of that well-known tongue ; "One strike!"
In many an eye he saw the light That warned him how to shape the fight ; Beyond, the spectral bleachers shone, And from his lips escaped a groan ; "One ball!"
148 YAWPS
"Let up on that!" one bleacher said; Another yelled, "We'll punch your head!" And forty yelled, "Go soak your hide!" And loud that clarion voice replied, "Two balls!"
"O, stay," a small boy guyed, "and rest Your weary head upon this breast." A tear stood in his bright blue eye, As now he answered with a sigh, "Two strikes!"
"Beware the pine tree's withered branch; Beware the awful avalanche!" These were the grand stand's words, and he Braced up and shouted lustily,
"Three strikes and out!"
" "the bleachers yell.
«« W— 11!"
§ If t t B@r J § W * * * * slam
tttlllMI — *»-?? d-n!
!!!!!!!!!!
There at the home plate, cold and gray, Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay ; And from the sky, serene and far, A voice fell like a falling star: "Next!"
AND OTHER THINGS. 149
THE THIRD PARTY DRIVES UP.
I am the Third Party!
Git on to my style
Will you?
And my trimmin's ?
By Gravy,
I don't wear no socks,
And my galluses is
Fastened with a lynchpin.
But I'm cuttin'
A wide swath
Right down the middle of the road,
And they can't head
Me off,
Nohow !
Mebbie I am a sort of
A Farmers'-Alliance-Citizens'-
Alliance-Knights-of-Labor-
National-Industrial-Anti-
Monopoly-Single-Tax-
'5° YAWPS
Prohibition-Woman-Suffrage-
Greenback-Free-Silver-
Potato-Currency-Socialistic-
Grand-Old-People's party ;
But what if I am?
What are they goin'
To do about it ?
That's what !
By Zucks ! I have come
To stay.
And no razor-back Democrat,
Nor slab-sided Republican,
Nor ring-nose Mugwump
Kin root me out!
I'm a forty acre field,
That you kin raise anything on
From a mortgage
To a bale of hay.
With a wagon load
Of dressin' throwed in,
And I don't give a durn
Who knows it !
I kin grub up a stump,
In two shakes of a lamb's tail,
And the old political
Stumps has got to come,
Ef I bust a britchin'
AND OTHER THINGS. 151
Doin' of it !
You hear me !
Mebbe my clo's don t fit,
And my cow-leather brogans
Hain't got no shine
On to 'em,
But that won't stop
Ther kickin'!
And brains ain't
In that eend
Neither !
All the American Eagle
Has o-ot to do in this business
o
Is to set quiet on the fence And watch my Thrashin' machine go, When that off mule Gits done scratchin' His back up agin the fence ! Hand me that whip ! Gimme them lines ! Now ! ! Wo-haw ! Jeewillikins ! Gosh-all-hemlock !
i52 YAWP?
LABOR DAY, 1900
I am Labor,
And not only is this clay mine,
But all days.
The world began by Labor,
And God,
Its Mighty Maker,
Is the Infinite Laborer,
The same
Yesterday, to-day and forever.
As by Labor
He made all things,
So by Labor
Do His creatures live ;
And rest
Is death.
Man is the master of the world,
And I, the master of the man.
I bend my neck to his yoke
And I bear his burdens ;
I am his hewer of wood
AND OTHER THINGS. 153
And his drawer of water ;
He commands
And I obey.
But not with slave's obedience.
I am the greater
Submitting to the less.
Man chains the elements
And drives them
By their will,
Not his.
I serve
When I may be so willed;
But when I rule,
I am a master and a tyrant then
That overthrows all order,
Crushes men,
Starves helpless little ones,
Wrecks homes,
And ruthlessly tears down
All I have builded up.
Unreasoning
I run my course,
And wearied with myself
And by myself,
I yield again.
I am a passion
And a punishment ;
iS4 YAWPS
A fire
That licks its own self up ;
A flood
That sweeps itself into the sea ;
An element unchained,
Man drives by its own will,
Not his,
When by its will
He has it chained again.
I have no master save myself,
Yet am so good a slave
I am content
With such bad mastery.
This day is mine,
And honors shown to me to-day
Are not less mine
On other days.
I overcome all things
Except myself,
And crown all things.
I am the solace
And the substance of the world ;
Man finds forgetfulness in me,
And by me come the things
That never are forgot ;
Earth's progress
And its plentitude.
AND OTHER THINGS. 155
Its purpose
And its happiness,
Its glory
And its majesty.
While Labor is
So is the world,
And when I cease to be
The end must come
To Maker and to made.
156 YAWPS
A S AG E OF CHICAGO REM ARKS.
We have struck the nude in Art
In Chicago; And it gives the folks a start
In Chicago ;
But you bet your life we'll show Everybody that we know What's the style on Baldhead row,
In Chicago.
There's some less Art than Pork,
In Chicago; We do not ape New York,
In Chicago;
But we get there just the same, For in Art we're known to fame, And the classic is our game,
In Chicago.
AND OTHER THINGS. 15?
It is said that we are crude
In Chicago; That we're not up to the nude,
In Chicago;
Well, they've simply slipped a cog, They are off their dialogue, They should see a well-scraped hog,
In Chicago.
And the hog we think can shine
In Chicago, With the human form divine,
In Chicago.
Yet we're willing quite to hear What to do, so's not to queer The Apollo Belvedere
In Chicago.
And if Venus wants to come
To Chicago, And to feel herself at home
In Chicago,
We have only this to say: She can come right here and stay, And we'll learn to dress her way,
In Chicago.
158 YAWPS
We are worshippers of Art
In Chicago, We will always do our part
In Chicago;
And, as we want the best, Why, the nude goes with the rest, As our hogs go, when they're dressed,
In Chicago.
AND OTHER THINGS.
RESPONSE OF THE AMERI CAN PEOPLE.
Shall we drift as we are drifting, into the vortex ? — General Patrick Collins of Boston, September, 1900.
Never, General,
Never, never,
If we drift
And drift forever.
True,
We may drift,
As we are drifting,
And perhaps it isn't so worse to drift,
Seeing that while we drift
We don't have to
Keep a full head of steam on,
And steam costs money ;
But ere we reach the vortex, General,
Ere we take the final shoot,
We will stop our drifting, General,
And jump off and grab a root.
Then, O questioner
160 YAWPS
Of the ages,
Puzzler of the primal sages,
We will make the Ship of State
Fast to the bank,
And, carefully
Approaching the vortex,
We will nab it
By the scuff of the neck
And the seat of the pants,
And yank it
Clean out of its hole.
Yank it out bodily, General,
And having it
Where we can get at it right,
We will, as the Assyrian of old
That came down like a wolf on the fold,
Proceed to render it
Utterly and permanently
Unfit for business
By plugging it up so tight
You couldn't drive
An X-ray through it
With a forty horse power
Steam hammer.
To know us in our hours of ease
Uncertain, coy and hard to please,
You'd scarce suspect it, would you, Pat,
AND OTHER THINGS. 161
We'd do a vortex up like that ?
And yet
We would ;
Indeed we would.
And when we had it thoroughly plugged,
Making it a devortexed vortex,
So to speak,
We'd shove it back
Into its hole again ;
And over the spot where the vortex
Formerly brandished its tail
And pawed and cavorted
And gyrated and snorted,
The Ship of State will sail
With never a jar you could feel
From the tip of her mast to her keel,
Resplendent in her glory,
Fit theme of song and story.
Sail on
Oh Ship of State,
Sail on ;
And, General,
When you're not busy,
Please trot out another vortex ;
We've got plugs a-plenty.
1 1— Yawps,
162 YAWPS
SCHOOL B EGI NS.
Wow!
Ten million " Wows "
Or more,
Rise o'er the land
From mouths
Which since the end of June
Have known but smiles
And joyous shouts
And howls and yells
To wake the dead.
Oh youngsters,
You are up against it, sure ;
You know the gall
Of government
Without the consent of the governed,
And we tender you
Our earnest sympathy.
September is a slob,
That's what it is,
Or it would never loose the key
AND OTHER THINGS. 163
To lock the fetters on your limbs
And give your brains
A chance to boom
When all outdoors
Is full of sunshine
And of fun.
What's brains to you
When all you want is room and time
To let your bodies have full sway ?
The grown-up folks may feel the need
Of books and brains
Because
They're all played out,
But you
Are not that kind ;
Your work and world and wisdom
Call for different stuff.
If it were so
That two times two were hopscotch,
And two into eight went fishing,
Or d-o-g spelled " ball,"
Or Geography were a description of the
Earth's swimming holes,
Or Grammar were the study of the parts
Of a kite,
How much more gladly would you seek
True wisdom
1 64 YAWPS
In the school-house walls.
Or if the young idea were taught to shoot
With a shotgun,
o
How silently you'd " Wow "
When sad September
Shoved you into school.
The grown folks ought to go to school
Because they do not like to play.
And you, who do,
Should be let run
Until you, too, have grown beyond
The playing age
To find the need,
As they have,
Of what is taught in school —
Ain't that so ?
AND OTHER THINGS. 165
COMMODORE CANNON.
Otherwise Representative Cannon, of Illinois, one time member of the House Committee on Naval Affairs.
Once on a time Joe Cannon went From Washington to Norfolk,
To see a battle-ship just then Much talked about by war-folk.
He went by water, on a boat, And all the way kept talking
Of everything- about a ship From mizzentop to calking.
In fact the crowd, who heard him talk,
And listened as he ran on, Thought him an expert, and they called
Him Commodore Cannon.
And it was wonderful to hear
The language he paraded, To show the lumbering landsmen he
Knew so much more than they did.
1 66 YAWPS
He talked of bowsprits on the poop,
Of top-sails on the starboard, Of jib-booms on the rudder post,
And yard-arms on the larboard.
Indeed, there wasn't anything
He didn't seem to know of, And in accordance with himself,
It followed he would blow of.
Arrived betimes upon the scene
He went aboard the cruiser, And told the Admiral on deck,
Just how he ought to use her.
At last he saw a hatchway, and
For something like a minute, He stood beside its open mouth
And peered profoundly in it
And then he tried, but quite in vain,
His wild surprise to swallow, And straightening up he cried aghast :
"Good Lord, this ship is hollow."
And this is why the naval crowd,
And likewise all the war-folk, Are calling him the Commodore,
Since he came back from Norfolk.
AND OTHER THINGS. 167
THE NEW YORK POLICE ON PARADE.
Hail blue-clad Guardian of the Peace,
Fit figure for Praxiteles,
Or any ancient sculptor who
Had nerve enough to tackle you.
You're a bird,
A hot bird
With a cold night stick,
And vice and crime and everything
At your approach takes sudden wing.
Oh Cop ! If one of you is great,
What are you in the aggregate?
Five thousand strong,
A dazzling throng,
As you march along;
You're simply grand,
The very finest in this land,
Or any other,
B'gosh!
No knights of old
1 68 YAWPS
Or warriors bold
Were half as warm
As you are in your uniform.
We point at you with pride, we do,
From Ballywack to Ballyhoo,
And as we gaze on you we know
We're safe from every kind of foe;
The man who sells us demon rum,
When Sunday with its rest has come,
The cuss who wins our confidence,
The lulling fiend who dopes our sense,
The burglar who breaks in to steal,
The butch' who sells us early veal,
The cow that gives down Croton milk,
The shark whose business is to bilk,
The gentleman who runs a game,
The glad-hand chap who knows our name,
The modest cabman charging what
Is pretty sure to swipe the pot,
And forty dozen others who
Turn pale and tall at sight of you.
Oh Cop!
You've got the drop
On crime;
And vice will climb
A tree
Rather than go up against thee,
AND OTHER THINGS. 169
Behold, Oh, G. O. P. !
(Guardian Of the Peace, in other words)
The thousands and IDS of looos
Who come forth in gala attire
To feast their hungry eyes
Upon your manly beauty on exhibition ;
List to the melodious measures of music
Tooting their martial strains
In your honor ;
See the flags flying,
The pennants and the banners ;
Hear the loud hosanners
Of congregated, cheering citizens,
And swell up with pride,
But don't bust wide open
In your triumphant elation.
We can stand the town being wide open,
And rather like it,
But a wide open policeman
Is too different.
Throw out your chests,
Hold up your chins,
Pull down your vests,
Stick out your shins
In one two order ; left, left, left ;
What would we be were we bereft
Of you, Oh sleepless watcher that
i;o YAWPS
Most always knows where you are at,
And also knows
A lot of other things than those,
And never says a word.
You are a bird all right,
But not a parrot by a d. s.
Gee whiz!
What a fearful and wonderful thing
A policeman is.
However, Cop,
We must stop,
But as for you :
Go ahn,
Go ahn, now;
See?
AND OTHER THINGS. 171
THE LANGUAGE OF PROGRESS.
On the other hand, we may be sure that the United States will enter the struggle with that pertinacious energy which is one of the standing evidences of the community of blood, origin, and temper with ourselves. — London Times.
Ay, there, ye Englishmen who know
The temper of our kind, It is not meant that we who go
Should fail or fall behind ; There is that in the common blood Which cannot be misunderstood,
And shows to them not blind.
We stand for progress ; in the light Of modern things we make
No cruel, conquest-seeking fight, But fearlessly we take
The cause of Cuba as our own,
And setting it against a throne, Ask justice — that alone.
T 72 YAWPS
In other times the tyrant might
Nay, did, assert that he Held by divinity the right
To let no man be free Except himself; and his command Was God and law to all his land
And outward to his sea.
But these are new times ; in the years
Now come, a gospel-song Has sung away the law, and tears
Are shed no more, and wrong Has given place to justice, and A fetterless and firm-set hand
Moves all the world along.
And hearken, Englishmen, the song That sets the right above the wrong Is writ in English, good and strong, In simple English, strong and good, That cannot be misunderstood.
AND OTHER THINGS. 173
COUNT WALDERSEE'S COMMAND.
Uncle Swm to Kaiser William.
Your Majesty, herewith accept
My cordial unity With you, in placing in command
Your own Count YValdersee ;
A soldier, brave as ever led
The soldiers of his land ; A General, fit in every way
To take supreme command.
The Allies, in a common cause
And led by Waldersee, Will pile the ground with China's slain,
And march to victory.
Uncle Sam to His Own People. Say, Friends and Fellow Citizens,
I've just sent word to Bill That Waldersee as Allied Boss
Will suit us fit to kill.
174 YAWPS
I've given him a lively graft,
A kind of pipey dream, About the Count and how well fixed
He is to be supreme.
He'll have command of all our troops,
But all the others, too ; And all the Allies must obey
And do as he says do.
But don't let that bother you, my friends, He's not so darned supreme
In running things out there to suit Himself, as it would seem.
Of course the Kaiser thinks he is,
And maybe he does, too, But that's no sign, as you will see,
When I explain to you.
The fact is, gents, we rule the roost,
I mean Americans, And though Count Waldie is on deck
He doesn't shape his plans.
Because, by Zucks ! he's got a wife,
A lady, too, of birth ; And was there ever married man
Who wholly owned the earth ?
AND OTHER THINGS. 175
I guess not ; and that wife of his
Was born in Yankee land, And though he wears the epaulets
She's in supreme command.
In other words, while it might seem
The Germans are on top, The really truly fact is that
The Yankees have the drop.
Which shows you, fellow citizens,
That as a diplomat, And soldier, too, your Uncle Sam
Knows just where he is at.
1 76 YAWPS
THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.
Upon the tropic sea
The soft October night lay silently
And one by one the little stars
Shot silver bars
Across the glassy greenness of the deep,
Lying in long, low, lazy rolls asleep ;
Around the limitless expanse
Of sea and sky
The twinkling lights and shadows fly
And dance,
And hide again till every spark
Is hidden in the dark.
Like sceptres floating in the air,
Wings idly flapping, and their spare
Arms stretched to find
What they had left the world behind
To search for, stood
Three ships that made the solitude
AND OTHER THINGS. 177
More lonely; they
Had lost their way
Amid those sapphire seas
And every gentle breeze
Was as a fierce, insatiate gale
To sweep them far beyond the pale
Of earthly knowledge, and
To wreck them in some unknown land.
Men paced the decks affrighted ; they
Had trembled when the light of day
Went out, and night
Came with its gruesome light
To bring them ghosts
From dead men's coasts,
And shores on which had trod
Only the foot of God.
And terror seized them ; sore afraid,
They cursed sometimes
And sometimes prayed,
But never stayed
Their onward course.
A force,
Greater than all their power,
Hour after hour
Held each one to his quest,
Onward, still onward to the West !
Columbus, he
12— Yawpt-
i 78 YAWPS
The Monarch of the Sea
On this October night
In the dim light
Of his cabin sat still
As Fate, then with that masterful will
Of his, he rose and in a loud,
Commanding voice, to the crowd
Of superstitious sailors on the deck
He said : "By Zucks
If some of you fellows
Don't discover America
P d q
I'll do it myself!
See?"
And the next day
It was
Discovered !
Hurrah for Chris !
AND OTHER THINGS. i?9
THANKSGIVING.
Thanks !
Not such as swept along
By the full tide of power,
The conqueror leads
To crimson glory and undying fame,
But earnest, unaffected,
Plain, old-fashioned
Thanks,
Warranted heart wide
And all gratitude,
Thanks for that common possession
Most folks forget to think of
When they go grunting around,
Grumbling and complaining
And kicking at
The Good Lord,
To-wit :
Life!
Just ordinary living life,
i8o YAWPS
With a blue sky above us,
And a glad, green earth
Under our feet ;
With friends enough left over
To send cheerily back to us
The greetings we give to them
With each new day.
Isn't that a whole lot
To be thankful for ?
What if we don't own the earth
And keep a back yard full of stars,
And ride to business in our own
Private car,
And eat pie
Twenty-one times a week,
With turkey and celery and oysters
On the side ;
Or never have an ache or pain,
Or never know what sorrow is,
Or never walk in the shadow,
Or never carry a heavy heart,
Or never kiss cold lips,
Or never shed a scalding tear,
Or never know what disappointment is,
Or never feel the chill of poverty,
Or never have a friend betray,
Or never get a thousand million things
AND OTHER THINGS. 181
We think we ought to have !
Who are we that we
Should refuse to return
Thanks to a Beneficent Being,
Because we don't have
Everything we want,
And a thousand things
That a thousand people
Just as good as we are, don't have ?
We ought to be thankful
We are not that kind !
And if we were that kind,
We ought to be thankful that
Time is still allowed us
In which we may reform
And depart from the error of our ways.
And life is only one
Of the many things we ought to be
Thankful for !
Why, friends and fellow travelers
Toward the Final Accomplishment,
A list of the things we may be
Thankful for
Reaches from the cradle to the grave
And unrolls itself on the
Green fields of eternal glory.
Therefore, on this
1 82 YAWPS
Thanksgiving Day,
Let us all give thanks heartily,
And if we can't do it heartily,
Let us do it as heartily as we can,
Let us thank the Good Lord
For what we are,
And be twice as thankful
For what we are not,
For all of us sincerely hope
That we are not as bad as we might be,
And we would not thank anybody
Who would say we were.
So now around the cheerful board,
Let all of us in full accord
Give grateful thanks unto the Lord —
A very kind and gracious Lord,
Who gives us more than our reward.
AND OTHER THINGS. 183
TO THE LVTH CONGRESS
Oh, Congress, in your
Hours of ease,
Do something,
If you please, to please
And show us that
Our confidence
In you, which always
Is immense,
Is not misplaced.
Those trivial things,
Finance and laws
For revenue, need scarcely
Cause
You great concern.
The question, which
Will make the country
Great and rich,
Is to your action
Wholly new,
And unconsidered
184 YAWPS
Hitherto.
It deals in futures ;
Shall we take
And hold for good
The wondrous stake
That we have won,
By blood and pain,
From withered, wizened,
Wretched Spain ?
Shall we, who stand
For newer things,
For all that God-sent
Freedom brings,
For equal rights,
For human weal,
For nobler aims,
For laws that heal
The wounds of tyrants,
And for what
In all essentials
Spain was not —
Say, Legislators,
Say, shall we
Shirk this
Responsibility,
And helpless leave
The millions who
AND OTHER THINGS. 185
Have come to us,
And look to you
For that which they
Can hope to have
No other way?
Are we to falter
In the trust
Imposed upon us?
Shall the lust
And greed of tyrants
Be not stayed
By sacrifices
We have made ?
These are the questions:
Shall we take
And hold for good
The wondrous stake ?
And holding it
Add to our land
A glory that shall
Make it grand,
As other nations
Are not? We
Give to the people
Liberty.
This is our duty
To the world ;
YAWPS
For this our Flag Was first unfurled. Now shall it float, The Freedom's Flag, Or hang, a limp, Dishonored rag ?
AND OTHER THINGS. 187
MERRY CHRISTMAS.
And Christmas!
What a day it is,
With earth and air full of the fizz
And sparkle of champagne;
And yet a better thing than that,
For all may take it,
Free as air,
When Christmas cheer is everywhere,
Not quite as much to some,
Perhaps,
As unto others ; not all of us
May have the "snaps"
Of this good world of ours ;
And yet, he is unworthy who will let
The shadows fall on him
Or his,
When Christmas time is what it is,
And loses much of happiness,
Because it happens he has less
Than others have. Gadzooks! Perhaps
1 88 YAWPS
They'd like the chance to swap their "snaps"
For his ; and glad could they arrange
With this same coveter to change.
But even they should not repine;
The rich may let their treasure shine
So that although their lot be sad,
They may be able to make glad
Those less unhappy; those — but why
Bring in the semblance of a sigh
To mar the Christmas song ?
At Christmas there is nothing wrong;
An ache, a debt, a heavy heart
Must be considered as a part
Of Christmas time ; a spot to make
The light a brighter radiance take.
There is enough for all ; God gives
To every human thing that lives,
Some chance at gladness ; something to
Transfer in His own way the blue
That's in your lives into your sky
Till every heavy cloud rolls by ;
And Christmas is the time. Come all
Look up, look up ; there is no pall
Of gray
And blackness hung to-day
Above the Merry Christmas way,
For in your hearts must roses bloom
AND OTHER THINGS. 189
In Christmas color and perfume. Divide your blessings and your cares, Give half of yours ; take half of theirs ; Forget the rest. What odds if, what You think you want, you haven't got! There may be others ; can it be In this you have no company? Ah, no, a million others would Be something other if they could. But let that go ; there's plenty yet To make you happy and forget. Brace up, stand up, look up, and cheer For Christmas — one time of the year When merry bells shall gayly ring And all the world shall laugh and sing.
YAWPS
THE SUPERFLUOUS SPEAK.
There are 25,002 more women than men in Greater New York. — Census, 1900.
Well,
We don't care ;
Men are horrid things anyway.
And the more of us
The better.
How good it is
To know that we
Are always heart-whole.
Fancy free.
No galling chain
Of wedded bliss
Can bring us such
Delight as this.
We are perfectly independent,
And what's ours
Is ours.
And just to think ;
It isn't until we are out of school,
AND OTHER THINGS. 191
Or our older sisters
Are married off,
Or somebody with money
Comes along,
But forever and ever and ever.
Oh, joy beyond expressing,
Oh, bliss, serene,
Of wandering in meadows
Of everlasting green.
Ours is a protracted season
Of perpetual peace,
With never a sock to darn,
Never a shirt to mend,
Never a man to sit up for
Till 3 A. M.
Never a cent to beg for,
Never a husband to thank,
Never a cook to plead with,
Never a baby to spank.
Isn't it perfectly grand ?
Spinsters by right of birth,
We are the only real
Birds of Freedom,
And we rise and scream
In a manner that makes
The Eagle's feathers curl,
And lifts the Starry Banner of the Free,
192 YAWPS
Clean off the end of the flag-pole.
We are the stuff
That new women are made of,
And although we do not vote,
Or wear whiskers,
£c.,
We yield our necks
To the yoke of no tyrant man,
And we acknowledge no superiors
No lords of creation.
As run the rivers to the sea
Through placid fields that lie
Along their cool and quiet banks
Beneath a restful sky ;
As peaceful as the patient stars
That light the sleeping skies,
Our lives, as undisturbed as they,
Move on to Paradise,
Where, according to
The Good Book,
There is no marrying
Or giving in marriage,
And then whose turn will it be
To give somebody
The everlasting ha ha ?
So there.
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