""Tira lira!' stop him, stop him! 'Tra! la! la!' the soup's a shilling!" But until I reached Elvira's home, I never, never waited, And Elvira to her Ferdinand's irrevocably mated! STRICTLY GERM-PROOF BY ARTHUR GUITERMAN The Antiseptic Baby and the Prophylactic Pup Were playing in the garden when the Bunny gamboled up; They looked upon the Creature with a loathing undisguised; It wasn't Disinfected and it wasn't Sterilized. They said it was a Microbe and a Hotbed of Disease; They steamed it in a vapor of a thousand-odd degrees; They froze it in a freezer that was cold as Banished Hope And washed it in permanganate with carbolated soap. In sulphureted hydrogen they steeped its wiggly ears; They trimmed its frisky whiskers with a pair of hardboiled shears; They donned their rubber mittens and they took it by the hand And 'lected it a member of the Fumigated Band. There's not a Micrococcus in the garden where they play; They bathe in pure iodoform a dozen times a day; And each imbibes his rations from a Hygienic CupThe Bunny and the Baby and the Prophylactic Pup. THE DIFFERENCE BY JOHN B. TABB Unc' Si, de Holy Bible say, Dat he do fall seben times a day; "Well, chile, de slip may come to all, For, ef you watch him when he fall, EPITAPH FOR ANY NEW YORKER BY CHRISTOPHER MORLEY I, who all my life had hurried, "Take your Eternity," he said. THE JUMBLIES BY EDWARD LEAR They went to sea in a sieve, they did; In spite of all their friends could say, And when the sieve turn'd round and round, They call'd aloud, "Our sieve ain't big: Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live: They sail'd away in a sieve, they did, With only a beautiful pea-green veil And every one said who saw them go, The water it soon came in, it did; The water it soon came in: So, to keep them dry, they wrapp'd their feet And they fasten'd it down with a pin. And all night long they sail'd away; They whistled and warbled a moony song In the shade of the mountains brown." They sail'd to the Western Sea, they did,- And they bought a pig, and some green jackdaws, And forty bottles of ring-bo-ree, And no end of Stilton cheese: And in twenty years they all came back, In twenty years or more; And every one said, "How tall they've grown! For they've been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone, And the hills of the Chankly Bore." And they drank their health, and gave them a feast Of dumplings made of beautiful yeast; And every one said, "If we only live. We, too, will go to sea in a sieve, To the hills of the Chankly Bore." Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live: Their heads are green, and their hands are blue; THE BALLADE OF ADAPTATION BY BRANDER MATTHEWS The native drama's sick and dying, So say the cynic critic crew: "Bring me the paste! Bring me the glue! |