Читать книгу The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII - Marshall Pinckney Wilder - Страница 12

I can not sing the old songs,

        Though well I know the tune,

Familiar as a cradle song

        With sleep-compelling croon;

Yet though I'm filled with music

        As choirs of summer birds,

"I can not sing the old songs"—

        I do not know the words.

I start on "Hail Columbia,"

        And get to "heav'n-born band,"

And there I strike an up-grade

        With neither steam nor sand;

"Star Spangled Banner" downs me

        Right in my wildest screaming,

I start all right, but dumbly come

        To voiceless wreck at "streaming."

So, when I sing the old songs,

        Don't murmur or complain

If "Ti, diddy ah da, tum dum,"

        Should fill the sweetest strain.

I love "Tolly um dum di do,"

        And the "trilla-la yeep da"-birds,

But "I can not sing the old songs"—

        I do not know the words.