Cobwebs from a Library Corner - John Kendrick Bangs (e textbook reader .TXT) 📗

Koot has learned to walk,
And likewise, ’tis said, to talk;
But, to Mrs. Koot’s dismay,
Seems to have a funny way:
Full of questions, “Why and How,”
All about the sacred cow.
Questions of a flippant ilk,
Like “Is Buddha made of milk?”
Questions void of answers spite
Of his parents’ second sight.
What to do with Baby Koot
Worries all the whole cahoot.

Finally the message ends
With best love to all our friends.
Give our enemies a twist.
Let each true theoso-fist
Strike a thunder-hitting blow
For the firm of Koot & Co.;
Strike till black is every eye
Doubting our theosophy.
And impress on every tribe
_Now’s the season to subscribe._
Guard against the coming storm;
Keep our astral bodies warm.
Give us bonnets for the head;
Keep our spirit stomachs fed.
Let your glad remittance go
Out to Hoomi Koot & Co.,
Through their Agents on the earth,
Men and women full of worth;
And when next a message comes
From the Koots down to their chums,
Those who’ve paid their money down
Will receive a harp and crown.

Step up lively! now’s the time
For your nickel and your dime,
To provide for winter suits
For the grand Mahatma Koots.
Furthermore, be not too brash,
Send it up in solid cash.
Astral money, it may be,
Circulates in theory;
But ’tis best to give us cold,
Bilious, drossy, filthy gold.

All our blessings to you go.
Yours, for health,
H. Koots & Co.



THE GOLD-SEEKERS


GOLD, gold, gold!
What care we for hunger and cold?
What care we for the moil and strife,
Or the thousands of foes to health and life,
When there’s gold for the mighty, and gold for the meek,
And gold for whoever shall dare to seek?
Untold
Is the gold;
And it lies in the reach of the man that’s bold:
In the hands of the man who dares to face
The death in the blast, that blows apace;
That withers the leaves on the forest tree;
That fetters with ice all the northern sea;
That chills all the green on the fair earth’s breast,
And as certainly kills as the un-stayed pest.
It lies in the hands of the man who’d sell
His hold on his life for an ice-bound hell.
What care we for the fevered brain
That’s filled with ravings and thoughts insane,
So long as we hold
In our hands the gold?—
The glistening, glittering, ghastly gold
That comes at the end of the hunger and cold;
That comes at the end of the awful thirst;
That comes through the pain and torture accurst
Of limbs that are racked and minds o’erthrown,
The gold lies there and is all our own,
Be we mighty or meek,
If we do but seek.
For the hunger is sweet and the cold is fair
To the man whose riches are past compare;
And the o’erthrown mind is as good as sane,
And a joy to the limbs is the racking pain,
If the gold is there.
And they say, if you fail, in your dying day
All the tears, all the troubles, are wiped away
By the fever-thought of your shattered mind
That a cruel world has at last grown kind;
That your hands o’errun with the clinking gold,
With nuggets of weight and of worth untold,
And your vacant eyes
Gloat o’er the riches of Paradise!



ODE TO A POLITICIAN


ALL hail to thee, O son of Æolus!
All hail to thee, most high Borean lord!
The lineal descendant of the Winds art thou.
Child of the Cyclone,
Cousin to the Hurricane,
Tornado’s twin,
All hail!
The zephyrs of the balmy south
Do greet thee;
The eastern winds, great Boston’s pride,
In manner osculate caress thy massive cheek;
Freeze onto thee,
And at thy word throw off congealment
And take on a soft caloric mood;
And from afar,
From Afric’s strand,
Siroccan greetings come to thee!
The monsoon and simoom,
In the soft empurpled Orient,
At mention of thy name
Doff all the hats of Heathendom!
And all combined in one vast aggregation,
Cry out hail, hail, thrice hail to thee,
Who after years, and centuries, and cycles e’en,
Hast made the winds incarnate!
To thee
The visible expression in the flesh,
Material and tangible,
Of all that goes to make the element
That rages, blusters, blasts, and blows!
And if the poet’s mind speaks true,
If he can penetrate their purposes at all,
It is not far from their intent
To lift thee on their broad November wings
So high
That none but gods can ever hope
Again to gaze upon thy face!



SOME ARE AMATEURS


SHAKESPEARE was partly wrong—the world’s a stage,
This is admitted by the bard’s detractors.
Had William seen some Hamlets of this age
He’d not have called _all_ men upon it actors.

Imprint

Publication Date: 07-29-2010

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