The ghost of the Zhack flitted by in a trance,
And the Squidjum hid under a tub
As he heard the loud hooves of the Hooken advance
With a rub-a-dub—dub-a-dub—dub!
And the Crankadox cried, as he lay down and died,
"My fate there is none to bewail,"
While the Queen of the Wunks drifted over the tide
With a long piece of crape to her tail.
JUNE
Queenly month of indolent repose!
I drink thy breath in sips of rare perfume,
As in thy downy lap of clover-bloom
I nestle like a drowsy child and doze
The lazy hours away. The zephyr throws
The shifting shuttle of the Summer's loom
And weaves a damask-work of gleam and gloom
Before thy listless feet. The lily blows
A bugle-call of fragrance o'er the glade;
And, wheeling into ranks, with plume and spear,
Thy harvest-armies gather on parade;
While, faint and far away, yet pure and clear,
A voice calls out of alien lands of shade:—
All hail the Peerless Goddess of the Year!
WASH LOWRY'S REMINISCENCE
And you're the poet of this concern?
I've seed your name in print
A dozen times, but I'll be dern
I'd 'a' never 'a' took the hint
O' the size you are—fer I'd pictured you
A kind of a tallish man—
Dark-complected and sallor too,
And on the consumpted plan.
'Stid o' that you're little and small,
With a milk-and-water face—
'Thout no snap in your eyes at all,
Er nothin' to suit the case!
Kind o'look like a—I don't know—
One o' these fair-ground chaps
That runs a thingamajig to blow,
Er a candy-stand perhaps.
'Ll I've allus thought that poetry
Was a sort of a—some disease—
Fer I knowed a poet once, and he
Was techy and hard to please,
And moody-like, and kindo' sad
And didn't seem to mix
With other folks—like his health was bad,
Er his liver out o' fix.
Used to teach fer a livelihood—
There's folks in Pipe Crick yit
Remembers him—and he was good
At cipherin' I'll admit—
And posted up in G'ography
But when it comes to tact,
And gittin' along with the school, you see,
He fizzled, and that's a fact!
Boarded with us fer fourteen months
And in all that time I'll say
We never catched him a-sleepin' once
Er idle a single day.
But shucks! It made him worse and worse
A-writin' rhymes and stuff,
And the school committee used to furse
'At the school warn't good enough.
He warn't as strict as he ought to been,
And never was known to whip,
Or even to keep a scholard in
At work at his penmanship;
'Stid o' that he'd learn 'em notes,
And have 'em every day,
Spilin' hymns and a-splittin' th'oats
With his "Do-sol-fa-me-ra!"