Читать книгу: «Sonnets of a Budding Bard», страница 4

Lines Wrote on a Summer Day Whilst Thinkin’ of a Soda Fountain

 
When I’m a man I shalt not care to be
The President of these United States:
I’dst rather be the drug-store clerk who waits
On people at the soda-fountain. He
Hast lots more first-class fun, it seems to me,
For whilst the public dost not get rebates
On soda, he canst get it at cut rates,
And lots of times, I’ll bet, he gets it free!
 
 
Of course, I know it must be pretty fine
To hear the brass bands and the big bass drums
Come marchin’ by the White House all in line
And playin’: “See, the Conquerin’ Hero Comes!”
And, yet, no presidential job in mine:
The soda clerk’s the one that gets the plums!
 

Lines Wrote After Bein’ Scolded for Not Doin’ as Children Used To

 
I yearn’st to live to be ten times as old
As wast Mathusalem, the patriarch:
Then when some older person durst remark:
“When I wast young the children weren’t so bold
And always loved to do as they wert told,
And went to bed soon after it wast dark;”
I’llst say to him: My errin’ friend, now hark
To one who wilt no longer hear thee scold:
 
 
I knew thy great-great-great-grand-parents when
They wert sly youngsters vexin’ their poor nurse,
And children now art good as they wert then!
They always have been stubborn, mean, perverse,
And always wilt be, since, alas! like men,
They’re just as heaven makes them – only worse!
 

Lines Wrote On Readin’ How Cleopatra Made Men Act Very Foolish

 
To-day I readst in an old history book
How Cleopatra used to make men do
Just any fool thing that she wanted to
By givin’ them a “lovey-dovey” look.
Time wast, long, long ago, when I’dst have shook
My head and saidst the story wast not true,
But that, alas! that wast before I knew
Miss Susan S. who hast my fancy took.
 
 
To-day I hadst an apple I’dst have not
Let any boy in school taste, but when she
Asked couldst she have a bite and took a lot,
I didst not mind at all, for, oh, to me,
Where she hadst bit hadst somehow made the spot
Taste awful sweet! Thus dost love rule us. See?
 

Sonnet Wrote Whilst Thinkin’ What I Wouldst Do with Carnegie’s Gold

 
O Great Carnegie! With thy wealth, oh, my!
I dost not know exactly what I’d do,
But seem’st to me I’d have more fun than you
Art havin’ with it. Anyhow, if I
Hadst money, as they say, “to burn,” I’d try
To burn it here, for, oh! ’twouldst make me blue
To think I’d have to smell it burnin’ through
The endless eons of the by and by!
 
 
And you can bet if I hadst gold in bins
As thou hast got, in quantities so vast
Thou canst not spend it, I’d buy diamond pins
And soda water to the very last!
And I’d be sorry that I wast not twins
So I couldst spend my fortune twice as fast.