ANTHEM FOR A HAS-BEEN.

My Auto ’tis of Thee

Short cut to poverty

Of Thee I chant.

I blew a pile of dough

On you three years ago

Now you refuse to go

Or won’t or can’t.

Through town and country side

I drove thee full of pride

No charm you lacked.

I loved your gaudy hue

Your tires so round and new

Now I feel mighty blue

The way you act.

To thee old rattle box

Came many bumps and knocks

For thee I grieve.

Badly thy top is torn

Frayed are thy seats and worn

The croup affects thy horn

I do believe.

Thy perfume swells the breeze

While good folks choke and sneeze

As we pass by.

I paid for thee a price

Would buy a mansion twice

Now every one yells “Ice”

I wonder why.

Thy motor has the grip

Thy spark plug has the pip

And woe is thine.

I too have suffered chills

Fatigue and kindred ills

Trying to pay the bills

Since thou wert mine.

Gone is my bank roll now

No more ’twould choke a cow

As once before.

Yet if I had the yen

So help me John “Amen”

I’d buy a car again

And speed some more.


The lightning bug is brilliant,

But he hasn’t any mind;

It wanders through creation

With its headlight on behind.


Tobacco is a dirty weed—

I like it.

It satisfies no moral need—

I like it.

It makes you fat, it makes you lean,

It takes the hair right off your bean,

It’s the worst darn stuff I’ve ever seen—

I like it.


Little Willie in the best of pink sashes,

Fell in the fire and got burned to ashes.

Bye and bye the room grew chilly,

But nobody wanted to poke up Willie.


Here lies the body of Mary Ann Lowder.

She burst while drinking a seidlitz powder,

Called from this world, to her heavenly rest,

She should have waited till it effervesced.