Tobogganing On Parnassus
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Franklin P. Adams >> Tobogganing On Parnassus
Speaking of Hunting
When a button rolls under the bureau
The search is a woeful affair;
And the humorous weekly describes it but meekly
In saying the hunter will swear.
But what is that limited anger?
The impotent rage of a cub!
I only grow what you could really call hot
When the soap slips under the tub.
I've sought through a time-table's mazes,
And sworn at the men who devise
That scare and delusion of hopeless confusion,
That intricate bundle of lies.
But never a hunt that was harder,
Be you or professor or dub,
Than that ill-fated jest--I refer to the quest--
When the soap falls back of the tub
My paste pot escapes almost daily;
My scissors I never can find;
And I am the rotter who loses a blotter
More often than if he were blind.
But sooner a myriad searches
Than go to the worry and troub.
That one little cake saponaceous can make
When the soap slips under the tub--
Blank! Blank!
When the soap slips under the tub.
The Flat-Hunter's Way
We don't get any too much light;
It's pretty noisy, too, at that;
The folks next door stay up all night;
There's but one closet in the flat;
The rent we pay is far from low;
Our flat is small and in the rear;
But we have looked around, and so
We think we'll stay another year.
Our dining-room is pretty dark;
Our kitchen's hot and very small;
The "view" we get of Central Park
We really do not get at all.
The ceiling cracks and crumbles down
Upon me while I'm working here--
But, after combing all the town,
We think we'll stay another year.
We are not "handy" to the sub;
Our hall-boy service is a joke;
Our janitor's a foreign dub
Who never does a thing but smoke
Our landlord says he will not cut
A cent from rent already dear;
And so we sought for better--but
We think we'll stay another year.
Birds and Bards
When Milton sang "O nightingale
That on yon gloomy spray,"
The sonneteer whom we revere
Lauded that birdie's lay.
While Keats's ode upon that bird
Was limpid as the notes
That, sweet and strong, were in the song
Of Philomelian throats.
And Bryant's "To a Water-fowl!"
Had praise in every line,
And every word about the bird
Impinged on the divine.
When Wordsworth did the skylark stuff,
He praised the bird a few,
And Shelley's ode sincerely showed
He liked the skylark, too.
O Poets, if ye had but dwelt
Upon a Harlem block,
Fain would I read your poems sweet
Upon the sparrows' "Peet! Peet! Peet!"
The sparrows that have built their nest
Ten feet from where one takes one's rest,
And 'gin their merry, blithesome song
Each morning--quenchless, clear and strong
Promptly at four o'clock.
A Wish
(An Apartmental Ditty.)
Mine be a flat beside the Hill;
A vendor's cry shall soothe my ear
A landlord shall present his bill
At least a dozen times a year.
The tenor, oft, below my flat,
Shall practise "Violets" and such;
And in the area a cat
Shall beat the band, the cars, and Dutch.
Around the neighbourhood shall be
About a hundred thousand kids;
And, eke in that vicinitee,
Ten pianolas without lids.
And mornings, I suppose, by gosh,
I'll be awakened prompt at seven,
By ladies hanging up the wash
Only a mile or so from heaven.
The Monument of Q.H.F.
AD MELPOMENEN
Horace: Book III, Ode 30.
_"Exegi monumentum aere perennius.
Regalique situ pyramidum altius"_
Look you, the monument I have erected
High as the pyramids, royal, sublime,
During as brass--it shall not be affected
E'en by the elements coupled with Time.
Part of me, most of me never shall perish;
I shall be free from Oblivion's curse;
Mine is a name that the future will cherish--
I shall be known by my excellent verse.
I shall be famous all over this nation
Centuries after myself shall have died;
People will point to my versification--
I, who was born on the Lower East Side!
Come, then, Melpomene, why not admit me?
I want a wreath that is Delphic and green,
Seven, I think, is the size that will fit me--
Slip me some laurel to wear on my bean.