Grimm Tales Made Gay by Guy Wetmore Carryl (e textbook reader TXT) 📗
- Author: Guy Wetmore Carryl
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reply—
(I might say: “Couldn’t speak to save its sole!”)
And the foolish bard, instead
Of responding, only read
A verse that wasn’t bad upon the whole:
And it pleased the cat so greatly,
Though she knew not what it meant,
That I’ll quote approximately
How it went:—
“If I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree”—
(I might put in: “I think I’d just as leaf!”)
“Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough”—
Well, he’d plagiarized it bodily, in brief!
But that cat of simple breeding
Couldn’t read the lines between,
So she took it to a leading
Magazine.
[105]
She was jarred and very sore
When they showed her to the door.
(I might hit off the door that was a jar!)
To the spot she swift returned
Where the poet sighed and yearned,
And she told him that he’d gone a little far.
“Your performance with this rhyme has
Made me absolutely sick,”
She remarked. “I think the time has
Come to kick!”
[106] I could fill up half the page
With descriptions of her rage—
(I might say that she went a bit too fur!)
When he smiled and murmured: “Shoo!”
“There is one thing I can do!”
She answered with a wrathful kind of purr.
“You may shoo me, and it suit you,
But I feel my conscience bid
Me, as tit for tat, to boot you!”
(Which she did.)
The Moral of the plot
(Though I say it, as should not!)
Is: An editor is difficult to suit.
But again there’re other times
When the man who fashions rhymes
Is a rascal, and a bully one to boot!
Do with a Cap
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[107]How Much Fortunatus CouldDo with a Cap
Fortunatus, a fisherman Dane,
Set out on a sudden for Spain,
Because, runs the story,
He’d met with a hoary
Mysterious sorcerer chap,
Who, trouble to save him,
Most thoughtfully gave him
A magical traveling cap.
I barely believe that the story is true,
But here’s what that cap was reported to do.
[108]
Suppose you were sitting at home,
And you wished to see Paris or Rome,
You’d pick up that bonnet,
You’d carefully don it,
The name of the city you’d call,
And the very next minute
By Jove, you were in it,
Without having started at all!
One moment you sauntered on upper Broadway,
And the next on the Corso or rue de la Paix!
[109]
This shows Fortunatus, a restlessness feeling,
Forsaking his fishing, and leaving his ceiling.[110]
[111] Why, it beat every journey of Cook’s,
Knocked spots out of Baedeker’s books!
He stepped from his doorway
Direct into Norway,
He hopped in a trice to Ceylon,
He saw Madagascar,
Went round by Alaska,
And called on a girl in Luzon:
If they said she’d be down in a moment or two,
He took, while he waited, a peek at Peru!
He could wake up at eight in Siam,
Take his tub, if he wanted, in Guam.
Eat breakfast in Kansas,
And lunch in Matanzas,
Go out for a walk in Brazil,
Take tea in Madeira,
Dine on the Riviera,
[112] And smoke his cigar in Seville,
Go out to the theatre in Vladivostok,
And retire in New York at eleven o’clock!
[113]
Every tongue he could readily speak:
French, German, Italian, Greek,
Norwegian, Bulgarian,
Turkish, Bavarian,
Japanese, Hindustanee,
Russian and Mexican!
He was a lexicon,
Such as you seldom will see.
His knowledge linguistic gave Ollendorff fits,
And brought a hot flush to the face of Berlitz!
He would bow in an intimate way
To Menelik and to Loubet,
He was frequently beckoned,
By William the Second,
A word of advice to receive,
He talked with bravado
About the Mikado,
King Oscar, Oom Paul, the Khedive,
King Victor Emmanuel Second, the Shah,
King Edward the Seventh, Kwang Su, and the Czar!
[114] But what did he get from it all?
His wife used to wait in the hall!
When this wandering mortal
Set foot on the portal,
She always appeared on the scene,
And, far from ideally,
Remarked: “Well, I really
Would like to know where you have been!”
Now what is the good of a wandering life,
If you have to tell all that you do to your wife?
She’d indulge in a copious cry,
She’d remark she’d undoubtedly die,
Or, like many another,
Go back to her mother,
And what would the world think of that?
She only grew pleasant,
When offered a present
Of gloves or a gown or a hat:
And more than his talisman saved him in fare
Fortunatus expended in putting things square!
And The Moral is easily said:
Like our hero, you’re certain to find,
When such a cap goes on a head,
Retribution will follow behind!
from Habitual Sadness
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[115]How a Princess Was Wooedfrom Habitual Sadness
In days of old the King of Saxe
Had singular opinions,
For with a weighty battle-axe
He brutalized his minions,
And, when he’d nothing to employ
His mind, he chose a village,
And with an air of savage joy
Delivered it to pillage.
But what aroused within his breast
A rage well-nigh primeval
Was, most of all, his daughter, dressed
In fashion mediæval:
The gowns that pleased this maiden’s eye
Were simple as Utopia,
And for a hat she had a high
Inverted cornucopia.
[116] In all her life she’d never smiled,
Her sadness was abysmal:
The boisterous monarch found his child
Unutterably dismal.
He therefore said the prince who made
Her laughter from its shell come,
Besides in ducats being paid,
Might wed the girl, and welcome!
I ought to say, ere I forget,
She was uncommon comely—
(Who ever read a Grimm tale yet,
In which the girl was homely?)
And so the King’s announcement drew
Nine princes in a column.
But all in vain. The princess grew,
If anything, more solemn.[117]
One read her “Innocents Abroad,”
The next wore clothes eccentric,
The third one swallowed half his sword,
As in the circus-tent trick.
Thus eight of them into her cool
Reserve but deeper shoved her:
There was but one authentic fool—
The prince who really loved her!
[118] He’d alternate between the height
Of hope and deep abasement,
He caught distressing colds at night,
By watching ’neath her casement:
He did what I have done, I know,
And you, I do not doubt it,—
Instead of bottling up his woe,
He bored his friends about it!
In brooding on the ways of Fate
Long hours he daily wasted,
His food remained upon his plate,
’Twas scarcely touched or tasted:
He said the bitter things of love,
All lovers, save a few, say,
And learned by heart the verses of
Swinburne, and A. de Musset!
[119]
This attitude his wished-for bride
To silent laughter goaded,
Until he talked of suicide,
And then the girl exploded!
“You make me laugh, and so,” she said,
“I’ll marry you next season.”
(Not half the people who are wed
Have half so good a reason!)
[120] The Moral: The deliberate clown
Can never beat love’s barriers down:
’Tis better to be like the owl,
Comic because so grave a fowl.
From him we well may take our cue—
By him be taught, to wit, to woo!
of Grammar by Far
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[121]How a Girl was too Recklessof Grammar by Far
Matilda Maud Mackenzie frankly hadn’t any chin,
Her hands were rough, her feet she turned invariably in;
Her general form was German,
By which I mean that you
Her waist could not determine
To within a foot or two:
And not only did she stammer,
But she used the kind of grammar
That is called, for sake of euphony, askew.
From what I say about her, don’t imagine I desire
A prejudice against this worthy creature to inspire.
She was willing, she was active,
She was sober, she was kind,
But she never looked attractive
And she hadn’t any mind!
I knew her more than slightly,
And I treated her politely
When I met her, but of course I wasn’t blind!
[122]Matilda Maud Mackenzie had a habit that was droll,
She spent her morning seated on a rock or on a knoll,
And threw with much composure
[123] A smallish rubber ball
At an inoffensive osier
By a little waterfall;
[124] But Matilda’s way of throwing
Was like other people’s mowing,
And she never hit the willow-tree at all!
[125]
This serves in the easiest way to explain
What is meant by taking an aim in vain.[126]
[127] One day as Miss Mackenzie with uncommon ardor tried
To hit the mark, the missile flew exceptionally wide,
And, before her eyes astounded,
On a fallen maple’s trunk
Ricochetted, and rebounded
In the rivulet, and sunk!
Matilda, greatly frightened,
In her grammar unenlightened,
Remarked: “Well now I ast yer! Who’d ’er thunk?”
But what a marvel followed! From the pool at once there rose
A frog, the sphere of rubber balanced deftly on his nose.
He beheld her fright and frenzy,
And, her panic to dispel,
On his knee by Miss Mackenzie
He obsequiously fell.
With quite as much decorum
As a speaker in a forum
He started in his history to tell.
[128] “Fair maid,” he said, “I beg you, do not hesitate or wince,
If you’ll promise that you’ll wed me, I’ll at once become a prince;
For a fairy old and vicious
An enchantment round me spun!”
Then he looked up, unsuspicious,
And he saw what he had won,
And in terms of sad reproach he
Made some comments, sotto voce,*
* (Which the publishers have bidden me to shun!)
[129] Matilda Maud Mackenzie said, as if she meant to scold:
“I never! Why, you forward thing! Now ain’t you awful bold!”
Just a glance he paused to give her,
And his head was seen to clutch,
Then he darted to the river,
And he dived to beat the Dutch!
While the wrathful maiden panted:
“I don’t think he was enchanted!”
(And he really didn’t look it overmuch!)
The Moral: In one’s language one conservative should be:
Speech is silver, and it never should be free![130]
Gave Way to His Madness
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[131] How the Peaceful AladdinGave Way to His Madness
His name was Aladdin.
The clothes he was clad in
Proclaimed him an Arab at sight,
And he had for a
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