TWO PORTRAITS
Wild hair flying, in a matted maze,
Hand firm as iron,
eyes all ablaze;
Bystanders timidly, breathlessly gaze,
As o'er the keno
board boldly he plays.
—That's Texas
Bill.
Wild hair flying, in a matted maze,
Hand firm as iron,
eyes all ablaze;
Bystanders timidly, breathlessly gaze,
As o'er the
keyboard boldly he plays.
—That's
Paderewski.
A CONTRIBUTION
There came unto ye editor
A poet, pale
and wan,
And at the table sate him down,
A roll
within his hand.
Ye editor accepted it,
And
thanked his lucky fates;
Ye poet had to yield it up
To a king full on eights.
THE OLD FARM
Just now when the whitening blossoms flare
On the apple trees and the growing grass
Creeps forth,
and a balm is in the air;
With my lighted pipe and
well-filled glass
Of the old farm I am
dreaming,
And softly smiling,
seeming
To see the bright sun
beaming
Upon the old home farm.
And
when I think how we milked the cows,
And hauled the hay
from the meadows low;
And walked the furrows behind the
plows,
And chopped the cotton to make it
grow
I'd much rather be here
dreaming
And smiling, only seeming
To see the hot sun gleaming
Upon the old
home farm.
VANITY
A Poet sang so wondrous sweet
That
toiling thousands paused and listened long;
So lofty, strong and
noble were his themes,
It seemed that strength supernal
swayed his song.
He, god-like, chided poor, weak, weeping
man,
And bade him dry his foolish, shameful
tears;
Taught that each soul on its proud self should lean,
And from that rampart scorn all earth-born fears.
The
Poet grovelled on a fresh heaped mound,
Raised o'er the
clay of one he'd fondly loved;
And cursed the world, and drenched
the sod with tears
And all the flimsy mockery of his
precepts proved.
THE LULLABY BOY
The lullaby boy to the same old tune
Who
abandons his drum and toys
For the purpose of dying in early
June
Is the kind the public enjoys.
But,
just for a change, please sing us a song,
Of the sore-toed
boy that's fly,
And freckled and mean, and ugly, and bad,
And positively will not die.
CHANSON DE BOHÊME
Lives of great men all remind us
Rose
is red and violet's blue;
Johnny's got his gun behind us
'Cause the lamb loved Mary too.
—Robert Burns' "Hocht Time in the aud Town."
I'd
rather write this, as bad as it is
Than be Will
Shakespeare's shade;
I'd rather be known as an F. F. V.
Than in Mount Vernon laid.
I'd rather count ties from
Denver to Troy
Than to head Booth's old
programme;
I'd rather be special for the New York
World
Than to lie with
Abraham.
For there's stuff in the can, there's Dolly and
Fan,
And a hundred things to choose;
There's a
kiss in the ring, and every old thing
That a real live man
can use.
I'd rather fight flies in a boarding house
Than fill Napoleon's grave,
And snuggle up warm in my
three slat bed
Than be André the brave.
I'd
rather distribute a coat of red
On the town with a wad of
dough
Just now, than to have my cognomen
Spelled
"Michael Angelo."
For a small live man, if he's prompt on
hand
When the good things pass around,
While the
world's on tap has a better snap
Than a big man under
ground.
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