And such beginnings touch their end.”
Marcus turned to a still more curious specimen of task poetry, in the same book. It was a couplet, formed of three lines of the fragments of words, so that those of the middle one read with either of the other two. Here it is:
cur- f- w- d- dis- and p-
A -sed -iend -rought -eath -ease -ain.
bles- fr- b- br- and ag-
The couplet is to be read thus:
“A cursed fiend wrought death, disease and pain;
A blessed friend brought breath and ease again.”
“Come, all hands, I move that we have a game of ‘thread-paper poetry’—we haven’t played it for a long time,” said Kate.
“What sort of a game is that?” inquired Jessie, who had but just come in from the kitchen, and sat down to sew.