VII—THE LAST CASE OF GIN
To Loren Palmer
The Tullywub is singing by the Willywinkle's grotto
His passionate devotion, though he knows he hadn't
ought to,
And she wipes away a teardrop with a little furtive
fin;
She is fluttered, but she's frightened by his outburst
of emotion
In their somewhat formal corner of a rather proper
ocean—
And I can understand 'em, for I've got a crate of gin.
Interpretative theses on the psychochemic state
Induced in the batrachia by fear or love or hate
I find are rather easy since I've opened up the crate,
And I'm gonna be a scientist by morning.
A Willywinkle's seldom a sprightly thing or elfish,
But morally she's rigid as the most exclusive shell-
fish;
She cans her rash admirer, but she cans him with a
sigh!
An analytic novel might be reared upon the basis
Of a very earnest study of the looks upon their
faces
And their brave renunciation when they sobbed and
said good-by.
I claim that the transmission of their fortitude and
pain
To succeeding generations will improve the moral
strain
Of the species here considered and their loss result
in gain;
And I wish I had some Angostura Bitters!
I have a strong impression of the immanence of
morals
In this quite extensive cosmos, from castor beans
to corals,
And Science and Religion, I will tell the world, are
one;
I should prove it, gentle reader, had we leisure time
before us,
I should prove it or expire in the act of hurling
Taurus—
I wonder where the dickens has that silly corkscrew
gone?
I find, as I grow older, the pert Subliminal
Keeps butting in to chatter with egoistic gall:
Romance I meditated; this isn't that at all—
But anyhow I have some limes and siphons!