The Promissory Note

1947

In a rounded, reeling rune,

'Neath the moon,

To the dripping and the dropping of my tears.

Ah, my soul is swathed in gloom,

(Ulalume!)

In a dim Titanic tomb,

For my gaunt and gloomy soul
Ponders o'er the penal scroll,
O'er the parchment (not a rhyme),
Out of place, out of time,—

I am shredded, shorn, unshifty,

(Oh, the fifty!)

And the days have passed, the three,

Over me!

And the debit and the credit are as one to him and me!

'Twas the random runes I wrote

At the bottom of the note,

(Wrote and freely

Gave to Greeley)

In the middle of the night,
In the mellow, moonless night,
When the stars were out of sight,
When my pulses, like a knell,
(Israfel!)

Danced with dim and dying fays,
O'er the ruins of my days,

O'er the dimeless, timeless days,

When the fifty, drawn at thirty,

Seeming thrifty, yet the dirty

Lucre of the market, was the most that I could raise!

Fiends controlled it,

(Let him hold it!)

Devils held me for the inkstand and the pen;

Now the days of grace are o'er,

(Ah, Lenore!)

I am but as other men;

What is time, time, time,

To my rare and runic rhyme,
To my random, reeling rhyme,
By the sands along the shore,

Where the tempest whispers, "Pay him!" and I answer,

"Nevermore!"

Bayard Taylor [1825-1878]

MRS. JUDGE JENKINS

BEING THE ONLY GENUINE SEQUEL TO "MAUD MULLER

AFTER WHITTIER

MAUD MULLER all that summer day
Raked the meadow sweet with hay;

Yet, looking down the distant lane,
She hoped the Judge would come again.

But when he came, with smile and bow,
Maud only blushed, and stammered, "Ha-ow?"

And spoke of her "pa,” and wondered whether
He'd give consent they should wed together.

Old Muller burst in tears, and then
Begged that the Judge would lend him "ten";

For trade was dull and wages low,

And the "craps," this year, were somewhat slow.

And ere the languid summer died,

Sweet Maud became the Judge's bride.

But on the day that they were mated,
Maud's brother Bob was intoxicated;

And Maud's relations, twelve in all,
Were drunk at the Judge's hall;

very

And when the summer came again,
The young bride bore him babies twain;

Mrs. Judge Jenkins

And the Judge was blest, but thought it strange
That bearing children made such a change.

For Maud grew broad, and red, and stout,
And the waist that his arm once clasped about

Was more than he now could span; and he
Sighed as he pondered, ruefully,

How that which in Maud was native grace
In Mrs. Jenkins was out of place;

And thought of the twins, and wished that they
Looked less like the men who raked the hay

On Muller's farm, and dreamed with pain
Of the day he wandered down the lane.

And, looking down that dreary track,
He half regretted that he came back.

For, had he waited, he might have wed
Some maiden fair and thoroughbred;

For there be women as fair as she,
Whose verbs and nouns do more agree.

Alas for maiden! alas for judge!

And the sentimental,-that's one-half "fudge";

For Maud soon thought the Judge a bore,

With all his learning and all his lore;

1949

And the Judge would have bartered Maud's fair face For more refinement and social grace.

If, of all words of tongue and pen,

The saddest are, "It might have been,"

More sad are these we daily see: "It is, but hadn't ought to be."

Bret Harte [1839-1902]

THE MODERN HIAWATHA

From The Song of Milkanwatha"

He killed the noble Mudjokivis,
With the skin he made him mittens,
Made them with the fur side inside,
Made them with the skin side outside,
He, to get the warm side inside,
Put the inside skin side outside:

He, to get the cold side outside,

Put the warm side fur side inside:
That's why he put the fur side inside,
Why he put the skin side outside,
Why he turned them inside outside.

George A. Strong [1832-1912]

HOW OFTEN

AFTER LONGFELLOW

THEY stood on the bridge at midnight,
In a park not far from the town;
They stood on the bridge at midnight,
Because they didn't sit down.

The moon rose o'er the city,

Behind the dark church spire;

The moon rose o'er the city,

And kept on rising higher.

How often, oh! how often

They whispered words so soft;

How often, oh! how often,

How often, oh! how oft.

Ben King [1857-1894]

"IF I SHOULD DIE TO-NIGHT

AFTER MEYERS

IF I should die to-night

And you should come to my

Weeping and heartsick o'er my lifeless clay-
If I should die to-night,

Culture in the Siums

And you should come in deepest grief and woe-
And say: "Here's that ten dollars that I owe,"
I might arise in my large white cravat
And say, "What's that?"

If I should die to-night

1951

And you should come to my cold corpse and kneel,
Clasping my bier to show the grief you feel,
I say, if I should die to-night

And you should come to me, and there and then
Just even hint at paying me that ten,

I might arise the while,

But I'd drop dead again.

Ben King [1857-1894]

SINCERE FLATTERY

OF W. W. (AMERICANUS)

THE clear cool note of the cuckoo which has ousted the legitimate nest-holder,

The whistle of the railway guard dispatching the train to the inevitable collision,

The maiden's monosyllabic reply to a polysyllabic proposal, The fundamental note of the last trump, which is presumably D natural;

All of these are sounds to rejoice in, yea, to let your very ribs re-echo with:

But better than all of them is the absolutely last chord of the apparently inexhaustible pianoforte player.

James Kenneth Stephen [1859-1892]

"O CRIKEY, Bill!" she ses to me, she ses.

"Look sharp," ses she, "with them there sossiges. Yea! sharp with them there bags of mysteree! For lo!" she ses, "for lo! old pal," ses she,

"I'm blooming peckish, neither more nor less."