After The Fourth Was Over
(Written for Uncle Lionel Sackville.)
[NISSEN PLAYING TRICKS]
After the Fourth was over, after the play was done,
Poor little John and Willie forgot that they'd had some fun;
John, with his eyes all bandaged, Willie with one eye gone,
Had changed from joyous boys, who rose with the FOURTH'S bright dawn,
Determined to shoot great cannons and frighten some silly girls,
To tie big crackers to dogs' tails, and make the pin wheels whirl.
Tommy with one hand bound up and with a bepowdered face,
Alex with two burned fingers and bones nearly all out of place;
Edgar with one leg broken and poor little Peter with two,
Thought that they'd had enough sorrow to last them a whole life through,
But mother, who heard them crying, while soothing her darlings to sleep,
Was thankful that some of the pieces she yet was able to keep,
And sad for the weeping mother of poor naughty, unlucky Jim,
As the booming JULY CELEBRATION blew the whole head off of him.