Читать книгу A Parody Anthology - Wells Carolyn - Страница 9

THE hale John Sprat – oft called for shortness, Jack —

Had married – had, in fact, a wife – and she

Did worship him with wifely reverence.

He, who had loved her when she was a girl,

Compass'd her, too, with sweet observances;

E'en at the dinner table did it shine.

For he – liking no fat himself – he never did,

With jealous care piled up her plate with lean,

Not knowing that all lean was hateful to her.

And day by day she thought to tell him o 't,

And watched the fat go out with envious eye,

But could not speak for bashful delicacy.

At last it chanced that on a winter day,

The beef – a prize joint! – little was but fat;

So fat, that John had all his work cut out,

To snip out lean fragments for his wife,

Leaving, in very sooth, none for himself;

Which seeing, she spoke courage to her soul,

Took up her fork, and, pointing to the joint

Where 'twas the fattest, piteously she said;

“Oh, husband! full of love and tenderness!

What is the cause that you so jealously

Pick out the lean for me. I like it not!

Nay, loathe it – 'tis on the fat that I would feast;

O me, I fear you do not like my taste!"

Then he, dropping his horny-handled carving knife,

Sprinkling therewith the gravy o'er her gown,

Answer'd, amazed: “What! you like fat, my wife!

And never told me. Oh, this is not kind!

Think what your reticence has wrought for us;

How all the fat sent down unto the maid —

Who likes not fat – for such maids never do —

Has been put in the waste-tub, sold for grease,

And pocketed as servant's perquisite!

Oh, wife! this news is good; for since, perforce,

A joint must be not fat nor lean, but both;

Our different tastes will serve our purpose well;

For, while you eat the fat – the lean to me

Falls as my cherished portion. Lo! 'tis good!"

So henceforth – he that tells the tale relates —

In John Sprat's household waste was quite unknown;

For he the lean did eat, and she the fat,

And thus the dinner-platter was all cleared.

SINGEE a songee sick a pence,

Pockee muchee lye;

Dozen two time blackee bird

Cookee in e pie.

When him cutee topside

Birdee bobbery sing;

Himee tinkee nicey dish

Setee foree King!

Kingee in a talkee loom

Countee muchee money;

Queeny in e kitchee,

Chew-chee breadee honey.

Servant galo shakee,

Hangee washee clothes;

Cho-chop comee blackie bird,

Nipee off her nose!

AND this reft house is that the which he built,

Lamented Jack! and here his malt he piled.

Cautious in vain! these rats that squeak so wild,

Squeak not unconscious of their father's guilt.

Did he not see her gleaming through the glade!

Belike 'twas she, the maiden all forlorn.

What though she milked no cow with crumpled horn,

Yet, aye she haunts the dale where erst she strayed:

And aye before her stalks her amorous knight!

Still on his thighs their wonted brogues are worn,

And through those brogues, still tattered and betorn,

His hindward charms gleam an unearthly white.

TRILOBITE, Graptolite, Nautilus pie;

Seas were calcareous, oceans were dry.

Eocene, miocene, pliocene Tuff,

Lias and Trias and that is enough.

BYE Baby Bunting,

Father's gone star-hunting;

Mother's at the telescope

Casting baby's horoscope.

Bye Baby Buntoid,

Father's found an asteroid;

Mother takes by calculation

The angle of its inclination.

LITTLE bo-peepals

Has lost her sepals,

And can't tell where to find them;

In the involucre

By hook or by crook or

She'll make up her mind not to mind them.

OH, sing a song of phosphates,

Fibrine in a line,

Four-and-twenty follicles

In the van of time.

When the phosphorescence

Evoluted brain,

Superstition ended,

Men began to reign.

UPON a time I had a Heart,

And it was bright and gay;

And I gave it to a Lady fair

To have and keep alway.

She soothed it and she smoothed it

And she stabbed it till it bled;

She brightened it and lightened it

And she weighed it down with lead.

She flattered it and battered it

And she filled it full of gall;

Yet had I Twenty Hundred Hearts,

Still should she have them all.

BEHOLD the mansion reared by Daedal Jack!

See the malt stored in many a plethoric sack,

In the proud cirque of Ivan's Bivouac!

Mark how the rat's felonious fangs invade

The golden stores in John's pavilion laid!

Anon, with velvet foot and Tarquin strides,

Subtle Grimalkin to his quarry glides;

Grimalkin grim, that slew the fierce rodent,

Whose tooth insidious Johann's sackcloth rent!

Lo! Now the deep-mouthed canine foe's assault!

That vexed the avenger of the stolen malt,

Stored in the hallowed precincts of that hall,

That rose complete at Jack's creative call.

Here stalks the impetuous cow with the crumpled horn,

Whereon the exacerbating hound was torn

Who bayed the feline slaughter-beast that slew

The rat predaceous, whose keen fangs ran through

The textile fibres that involved the grain

That lay in Hans' inviolate domain.

Here walks forlorn the damsel crowned with rue,

Lactiferous spoils from vaccine dugs who drew

Of that corniculate beast whose tortuous horn

Tossed to the clouds, in fierce vindictive scorn,

The baying hound whose braggart bark and stir

Arched the lithe spine and reared the indignant fur

Of puss, that, with verminicidal claw,

Struck the weird rat, in whose insatiate maw

Lay reeking malt, that erst in Juan's courts we saw.

Robed in senescent garb, that seems, in sooth,

Too long a prey to Chronos' iron tooth,

Behold the man whose amorous lips incline

Full with young Eros' osculative sign,

To the lorn maiden whose lactalbic hands

Drew albulactic wealth from lacteal glands

Of that immortal bovine, by whose horn

Distort, to realms ethereal was borne

The beast catulean, vexer of that sly

Ulysses quadrupedal, who made die

The old mordaceous rat that dared devour

Antecedaneous ale in John's domestic bower.

Lo! Here, with hirsute honors doffed, succinct

Of saponaceous locks, the priest who linked

In Hymen's golden bands the man unthrift

Whose means exiguous stared from many a rift,

E'en as he kissed the virgin all forlorn

Who milked the cow with implicated horn,

Who in fierce wrath the canine torturer skied,

That dared to vex the insidious muricide,

Who let auroral effluence through the pelt

Of that sly rat that robbed the palace that Jack built.

The loud cantankerous Shanghai comes at last,

Whose shouts aroused the shorn ecclesiast,

Who sealed the vows of Hymen's sacrament

To him who, robed in garments indigent,

Exosculates the damsel lachrymose,

The emulgator of the horned brute morose

That on gyrated horn, to heaven's high vault

Hurled up, with many a tortuous somersault,

The low bone-cruncher, whose hot wrath pursued

The scratching sneak, that waged eternal feud

With long-tailed burglar, who his lips would smack

On farinaceous wealth, that filled the halls of Jack.

Vast limbed and broad the farmer comes at length,

Whose cereal care supplied the vital strength

Of chanticleer, whose matutinal cry

Roused the quiescent form and ope'd the eye

Of razor-loving cleric, who in bands

Connubial linked the intermixed hands

Of him, whose rent apparel gaped apart,

And the lorn maiden with lugubrious heart,

Her who extraught the exuberant lactic flow

Of nutriment from that cornigerent cow,

Eumenidal executor of fate,

That to sidereal altitudes elate

Cerberus, who erst with fang lethiferous

Left lacerate Grimalkin latebrose —

That killed the rat

That ate the malt

That lay in the house that Jack built.

MARY, – what melodies mingle

To murmur her musical name!

It makes all one's finger-tips tingle

Like fagots, the food of the flame;

About her an ancient tradition

A romance delightfully deep

Has woven in juxtaposition

With one little sheep, —

One dear little lamb that would follow

Her footsteps, unwearily fain.

Down dale, over hill, over hollow,

To school and to hamlet again;

A gentle companion, whose beauty

Consisted in snow-driven fleece,

And whose most imperative duty

Was keeping the peace.

His eyes were as beads made of glassware,

His lips were coquettishly curled,

His capers made many a lass swear

His caper-sauce baffled the world;

His tail had a wag when it relished

A sip of the milk in the pail, —

And this fact has largely embellished

The wag of this tale.

One calm summer day when the sun was

A great golden globe in the sky,

One mild summer morn when the fun was

Unspeakably clear in his eye,

He tagged after exquisite Mary,

And over the threshold of school

He tripped in a temper contrary,

And splintered the rule.

A great consternation was kindled

Among all the scholars, and some

Confessed their affection had dwindled

For lamby, and looked rather glum;

But Mary's schoolmistress quick beckoned

The children away from the jam,

And said, sotto voce, she reckoned

That Mame loved the lamb.

Then all up the spine of the rafter

There ran a most risible shock,

And sorrow was sweetened with laughter

At this little lamb of the flock;

And out spoke the schoolmistress Yankee,

With rather a New Hampshire whine,

“Dear pupils, sing Moody and Sankey,

Hymn 'Ninety and Nine.'"

Now after this music had finished,

And silence again was restored,

The ardor of lamby diminished,

His quips for a moment were floored

Then cried he, “Bah-ed children, you blundered

When singing that psalmistry, quite.

I'm labelled by Mary, 'Old Hundred,'

And I'm labelled right."

Then vanished the lambkin in glory,

A halo of books round his head:

What furthermore happened the story,

Alackaday! cannot be said.

And Mary, the musical maid, is

To-day but a shadow in time;

Her epitaph, too, I'm afraid is

Writ only in rhyme.

She's sung by the cook at her ladle

That stirs up the capering sauce;

She's sung by the nurse at the cradle

When ba-ba is restless and cross;

And lamby, whose virtues were legion,

Dwells ever in songs that we sing,

He makes a nice dish in this region

To eat in the spring!