Читать книгу Frontier Humor in Verse, Prose and Picture - Палмер Кокс - Страница 3

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I Sing the woe and overthrow

Of one debased and sly,

Who entered soft a baker’s shop,

And stole a currant pie.

And not a soul about the place,

And no one passing by,

Chanced to detect him in the act,

Or dreamed that he was nigh.

The moon alone with lustre shone,

And viewed him from the sky,

And broadly smiled, as musing on

The sequel by and by.

Ah Tie began, while fast he ran,

To gobble down the pie,

Determined that, if caught at last,

No proof should meet the eye.

For not the fox, for cunning famed,

The crow, or weasel, sly,

Could with that erring man compare—

The heathen thief, Ah Tie.

But, blessings on the pastry man!

Oh! blessings, rich and high,

Upon the cook who cooked a rag

Within that currant pie!

Dim was the light, and large the bite

The thief to bolt did try,

And in his haste, along with paste,

He gulped the wiper dry.

So thus it proves that slight affairs

Do oft, as none deny,

For good or evil, unawares,

Be waiting with reply.

The influence of every plot,

Or action bold or sly,

Or good or bad, mistake or not,

Will speak, we may rely.

He strove in vain, with cough and strain.

And finger swallowed nigh,

Or in, or out, to force the clout,

Or turn the thing awry.

But tight as wadding in a gun,

Or cork in jug of rye,

The choking gag, but half-way down,

Fast in his throat did lie.

A TIGHT PLACE.

Not finger point, or second joint,

Or heaving cough, or pry,

Did seem to change its posture strange,

Or work a passage by.

The Lord was there, as everywhere—

His ways who can descry?

He turned to use the rag that missed

The cook’s incautious eye.

The race was short, as it must be

When lungs get no supply

Of ever needful oxygen,

The blood to purify.

It matters not how large or small

The man, or beast, or fly,

A little air must be their share,

Or else to life “good bye.”

Slow grew his pace, and black his face,

And blood-shot rolled his eye;

And from his nerveless fingers fell

The fragments of the pie.

The broken crust rolled in the dust,

While scattered currants fly;

But ah, the fatal part had gone

Upon its mission high.

Then down he dropped, a strangled man,

Without a witness nigh—

And Death, the grim old boatman, ran

His noiseless shallop by.