A noble and a generous mind

Was Jack's;

Folks knew he would not talk behind

Their backs:

But when some maiden fresh and young,

At Jack a bit of banter flung,

She soon discovered that his tongue

Was sharp as any ax.

A flirt of most engaging wiles

Was Jill;

On Jack she lavished all her smiles,

Until

Her slave (and he was not the first)

Of lovesick swains became the worst,

His glance a strong box might have burst,

His sighs were fit to kill.

One April morning, clear and fair,

When both

Of staying home and idling there

In sloth

Were weary, Jack remarked to Jill:

"Oh, what's the sense in sitting still?

Let's mount the slope of yonder hill."

And she was nothing loth.

But as she answered: "What's the use?"

The gruff

Young swain replied: "Oh, there's excuse

Enough.

Your doting parents water lack;

We'll fill a pail and bring it back."

(The reader will perceive that Jack

Was putting up a bluff.)

Thus hand in hand the tempting hill

They scaled,

And Jack proposed a kiss to Jill,

And failed!

One backward start, one step too bold,

And down the hill the couple rolled,

Resembling, if the truth were told,

A luggage train derailed.

With eyes ablaze with anger, she

Exclaimed:

"Well, who'd have thought! You'd ought to be

Ashamed!

You quite forget yourself, it's plain,

So I'll forget you, too. Insane

Young man, I'll say oafweederzane."

(Her German might be blamed.)

But Jack, whose linguist's pride was pricked,

To shine,

Asked: "Meine Königin will nicht

Be mine?"

And when she answered: "Nein" in spleen,

He cried: "Then in the soup tureen

You'll stay. You're not the only queen

Discarded for a nein!"

The moral's made for maidens young

And small:

If you would in a foreign tongue

Enthrall,

Lead off undaunted in a Swede

Or Spanish speech, and you'll succeed,

But they who in a German lead

No favor win at all.

Though she was only a shepherdess,

Tending the meekest of sheep,

Never was African leopardess

Crosser than Little Bow Peep:

Quite apathetic, impassible

People described her as: "That

Wayward, contentious, irascible,

Testy, cantankerous brat!"

Yet, as she dozed in a grotto-like

Sort of a kind of a nook,

She was so charmingly Watteau-like,

What with her sheep and her crook;

"She is a dryad or nymph," any

Casual passer would think.

Poets pronounced her a symphony,

All in the palest of pink.

Thus it was not enigmatical,

That the young shepherd who first

Found her asleep, in ecstatical

Sighs of felicity burst:

Such was his sudden beatitude

That, as he gazed at her so,

Daphnis gave vent to this platitude:

"My! Ain't she elegant though!"

Roused from some dream of Arcadia,

Little Bow Peep with a start

Answered him: "I ain't afraid o' yer!

P'raps you imagine you're smart!"

Daphnis protested impulsively,

Blushing as red as a rose;

All was in vain. She convulsively

Punched the young man in the nose!

All of it's true, every word of it!

I was not present to peep,

But if you ask how I heard of it,

Please to remember the sheep.

There is no need of excuse. You will

See how such scandals occur:

If you recall Mother Goose, you will

Know what tail-bearers they were!

Moral: This pair irreclaimable

Might have made Seraphim weep,

But who can pick the most blamable?

Both saw a little beau peep!

She was one of those creatures

Whose features

Are hard beyond any reclaim;

And she loved in a hovel

To grovel,

And she hadn't a cent to her name.

She owned neither gallants

Nor talents;

She borrowed extensively, too,

From all of her dozens

Of cousins,

And never refunded a sou:

Yet all they said in abuse of her

Was: "She is prouder than Lucifer!"

(That, I must say, without meaning to blame,

Is always the way with that kind of a dame!)

There never was jolli-

Er colley

Than Old Mother Hubbard had found,

Though cheaply she bought him,

She'd taught him

To follow her meekly around:

But though she would lick him

And kick him,

It never had any effect;

He always was howling

And growling,

But goodness! What could you expect?

Colleys were never to flourish meant

'Less they had plenty of nourishment,

All that he had were the feathers she'd pluck

Off an occasional chicken or duck.

The colley was barred in

The garden,

He howled and he wailed and he whined.

The neighbors indignant,

Malignant

Petitions unanimous signed.

"The nuisance grows nightly,"

Politely

They wrote. "It's an odious hound,

And either you'll fill him,

Or kill him,

Or else he must go to the pound.

For if this howling infernally

Is to continue nocturnally—

Pardon us, ma'am, if we seem to be curt—

Somebody's apt to get horribly hurt!"

Mother Hubbard cried loudly

And proudly:

"Lands sakes! but you give yourselves airs!

I'll take the law to you

And sue you."

The neighbors responded: "Who cares?

We none of us care if

The sheriff

Lock every man jack of us up;

We won't be repining

At fining

So long as we're rid of the pup!"

They then proceeded to mount a sign,

Bearing this ominous countersign:

"Freemen! The moment has come to protest

And Old Mother Hubbard delendum est!"

They marched to her gateway,

And straightway

They trampled all over her lawn;

Most rudely they harried

And carried

Her round on a rail until dawn.

They marred her, and jarred her,

And tarred her

And feathered her, just as they should,

Of speech they bereft her,

And left her

With: "Now do you think you'll be good!"

The moral's a charmingly pleasing one.

While we would deprecate teasing one,

Still, when a dame has politeness rebuffed,

She certainly ought to be collared and cuffed.

A knack almost incredible for dealing with an edible

Jack Horner's elder sister was acknowledged to display;

She labored hard and zealously, but always guarded jealously

The secrets of the dishes she invented every day.

She'd take some indigestible, unpopular comestible,

And to its better nature would so tenderly appeal

That Jack invoked a benison upon a haunch of venison,

When really she was serving him a little leg of veal!

Jack said she was a miracle. The word was not satirical,

For daily climbing upward, she excelled herself at last:

The acme of facility, the zenith of ability

Was what she gave her brother for his Christmas Day repast.

He dined that evening eagerly and anything but meagerly,

And when he'd had his salad and his quart of Extra Dry,

With sisterly benignity, and just a touch of dignity,

She placed upon the table an unutterable pie!

Unflagging pertinacity, and technical sagacity,

Long nights of sleepless vigil, and long days of constant care

Had been involved in making it, improving it, and baking it,

Until of other pies it was the wonder and despair:

So princely and so prominent, so solemn, so predominant

It looked upon the table, that, with fascinated eye,

The youth, with sudden wonder struck, electrified, and thunder struck,

Could only stammer stupidly: "Oh Golly! What a pie!"

In view of his satiety, it almost seemed impiety

To carve this crowning triumph of a culinary life,

But, braced by his avidity, with sudden intrepidity

He broke its dome imposing with a common kitchen knife.

Ah, hideous fatality! for when with eager palate he

Commenced to eat, he happened on an accident uncouth,

And cried with stifled moan: "Of it one plum I tried. The stone of it

Had never been extracted, and I've broke a wisdom tooth!"

Jack's sister wept effusively, but loudly and abusively

His unreserved opinion of her talents he proclaimed;

He called her names like "driveller" and "simpleton" and "sniveller,"

And others, which to mention I am really too ashamed.

The moral: It is saddening, embarrassing, and maddening

A stone to strike in what you thought was paste. One thing alone

Than this mischance is crueller, and that is for a jeweller

To strike but paste in what he fondly thought to be a stone.

Little Miss Muffet discovered a tuffet,

(Which never occurred to the rest of us)

And, as 'twas a June day, and just about noonday,

She wanted to eat—like the best of us:

Her diet was whey, and I hasten to say

It is wholesome and people grow fat on it.

The spot being lonely, the lady not only

Discovered the tuffet, but sat on it.

A rivulet gabbled beside her and babbled,

As rivulets always are thought to do,

And dragon-flies sported around and cavorted,

As poets say dragon-flies ought to do;

When, glancing aside for a moment, she spied

A horrible sight that brought fear to her,

A hideous spider was sitting beside her

And most unavoidably near to her!

Albeit unsightly, this creature politely

Said: "Madam, I earnestly vow to you,

I'm penitent that I did not bring my hat. I

Should otherwise certainly bow to you."

Though anxious to please, he was so ill at ease

That he lost all his sense of propriety,

And grew so inept that he clumsily stept

In her plate—which is barred in Society.

This curious error completed her terror;

She shuddered, and growing much paler, not

Only left tuffet, but dealt him a buffet

Which doubled him up in a sailor-knot.

It should be explained that at this he was pained:

He cried: "I have vexed you, no doubt of it!

Your fist's like a truncheon." "You're still in my luncheon,"

Was all that she answered. "Get out of it!"

And The moral is this: Be it madam or miss

To whom you have something to say,

You are only absurd when you get in the curd

But you're rude when you get in the whey.

Upon a stairway built of brick

A pleasant-featured clock

From time to time would murmur "Tick"

And vary it with "Tock":

Although no great intelligence

There lay in either word,

They were not meant to give offence

To anyone who heard.

Within the pantry of the house,

Among some piles of cheese,

There dwelt an irritable mouse,

Extremely hard to please:

His appetite was most immense.

Each day he ate a wedge

Of Stilton cheese. In consequence

His nerves were all on edge.

With ill-concealed impatience he,

Upon his morning walk,

Had heard the clock unceasingly,

Monotonously talk,

Until his rage burst every bound.

He gave a fretful shout:

"Well, sakes alive! It's time I found

What all this talk's about."

With all the admirable skill

That marks the rodent race

The mouse ran up the clock, until

He'd crept behind the face,

And then, with words that no one ought

To use, and scornful squeals,

He cried aloud: "Just what I thought!

Great oaf, you're full of wheels!"

The timepiece sternly said: "Have done!"

And through the silent house

It struck emphatically one.

(But that one was the mouse!)

To earth the prowling rodent fell,

In terror for his life,

And turned to flee, but, sad to tell,

There stood the farmer's wife.

She did not faint, she did not quail,

She did not cry out: "Scat!"

She simply took him by the tail

And gave him to the cat,

And, with a stern, triumphant look,

She watched him clawed and cleft,

And with some blotting paper took

Up all that there was left.

The moral: In a farmer's home

Run down his herds, his flocks,

Run down his crops, run down his loam,

But when it comes to clocks,

Pray leave them ticking every one

In peace upon their shelves:

When running down is to be done

The clocks run down themselves.

Conveniently near to where

Young Simple Simon dwelt

There was to be a county fair,

And Simple Simon felt

That to the fair he ought to go

In all his Sunday clothes, and so,

Determined to behold the show,

He put them on and went.

(One-half his clothes was borrowed and the other half was lent.)

He heard afar the cheerful sound

Of horns that people blew,

Saw wooden horses swing around

A circle, two and two,

Beheld balloons arise, and if

He scented with a gentle sniff

The smells of pies, what is the dif-

Ference to me or you?

(You cannot say my verse is false, because I know it's true.)

As Simple Simon nearer came

To these attractive smells,

Avoiding every little game

Men played with walnut shells,

He felt a sudden longing rise.

The sparkle in his eager eyes

Betrayed the fact he yearned for pies:

The eye the secret tells.

('Tis known the pie of county fairs all other pies excels.)

So when he saw upon the road,

Some fifty feet away,

A pieman, Simple Simon strode

Toward him, shouting: "Hey!

What kinds?" as lordly as a prince.

The pieman said: "I've pumpkin, quince,

Blueberry, lemon, peach, and mince:"

And, showing his array,

He added: "Won't you try one, sir? They're very nice to-day."

Now Simon's taste was most profuse,

And so, by way of start,

He ate two cakes, a Charlotte Russe,

Six buns, the better part

Of one big gingerbread, a pair

Of lady-fingers, an eclair,

And ten assorted pies, and there,

His hand upon his heart,

He paused to choose between an apple dumpling and a tart.

Observing that upon his tray

His goods were growing few,

The pieman cried: "I beg to say

That patrons such as you

One does not meet in many a moon.

Pray, won't you try this macaroon?"

But soon suspicious, changed his tune,

Continuing: "What is due

I beg respectfully to add's a dollar twenty-two."

Then Simple Simon put a curb

Upon his appetite,

And turning with an air superb

He suddenly took flight,

While o'er his shoulder this absurd

And really most offensive word

The trusting pieman shortly heard

To soothe his bitter plight:

"Perhaps I should have said before your wares are out of sight."

The moral is a simple one,

But still of consequence.

We've seen that Simon's sense of fun

Was almost too intense:

Though blaming his deceitful guise,

We with the pieman sympathize,

The latter we must criticize

Because he was so dense:

He might have known from what he ate that Simon had no cents.

Composing scales beside the rails

That flanked a field of corn,

A farmer's boy with vicious joy

Performed upon a horn:

The vagrant airs, the fragrant airs

Around that field that strayed,

Took flight before the flagrant airs

That noisome urchin played.

He played with care "The Maiden's Prayer;"

He played "God Save the Queen,"

"Die Wacht am Rhein," and "Auld Lang Syne,"

And "Wearing of the Green:"

With futile toots, and brutal toots,

And shrill chromatic scales,

And utterly inutile toots,

And agonizing wails.

The while he played, around him strayed,

And calmly chewed the cud,

Some thirty-nine assorted kine,

All ankle-deep in mud:

They stamped about and tramped about

That mud, till all the troupe

Made noises, as they ramped about,

Like school-boys eating soup.

Till, growing bored, with one accord

They broke the fence forlorn:

The field was doomed. The cows consumed

Two-thirds of all the corn,

And viciously, maliciously,

Went prancing o'er the loam.

That landscape expeditiously

Resembled harvest-home.

"Most idle ass of all your class,"

The farmer said with scorn:

"Just see my son, what you have done!

The cows are in the corn!"

"Oh drat," he said, "the brat!" he said.

The cowherd seemed to rouse.

"My friend, it's worse than that," he said.

"The corn is in the cows."

The moral lies before our eyes.

When tending kine and corn,

Don't spend your noons in tooting tunes

Upon a blatant horn:

Or scaling, and assailing, and

With energy immense,

Your cows will take a railing, and

The farmer take offense.

A Paris butcher kept a shop

Upon the river's bank

Where you could buy a mutton chop

Or two for half a franc.

The little shop was spruce and neat,

In view of all who trod the street

The decorated joints of meat

Were hung up in a rank.

This Gallic butcher led a life

Of highly moral tone;

He never raised his voice in strife,

He never drank alone:

He simply sat outside his door

And slept from eight o'clock till four;

The more he slept, so much the more

To slumber he was prone.

One day outside his shop he put

A pig he meant to stuff,

And carefully around each foot

He pinned a paper ruff,

But, while a watch he should have kept,

His habit conquered, and he slept,

And for a thief who was adept

That surely was enough.

A Scottish piper dwelt near by,

Whose one ungracious son

Beheld that pig and murmured: "Why,

No sooner said than done!

It seems to me that this I need."

And grasping it, with all his speed

Across the Pont des Invalides

He started on a run.

Then, turning sharply to the right,

Without a thought of risk,

He fled. 'Tis fair to call his flight

Inordinately brisk.

But now the town was all astir,

In vain his feet he strove to spur,

They caught him, shouting: "Au voleur!"

Beside the Obelisk.

The breathless butcher cried: "A mort!"

The crowd said: "Conspuez!"

And some: "A bas!" and half a score

Responded: "Vive l'armée!"

While grim gendarmes with piercing eye,

And stern remarks about: "Canaille!"

The pig abstracted on the sly.

Such is the Gallic way!

The piper's offspring, his defeat

Deep-rooted in his heart,

A revolutionary sheet

Proceeded then to start.

Thenceforward every evening he

In leaders scathed the Ministry,

And wished he could accomplish the

Return of Bonaparte.

The moral is that when the press

Begins to rave and shout

It's often difficult to guess

What it is all about.

The editor we strive to pin,

But we can never find him in.

What startling knowledge we should win

If we could find him out!

Though Mary had the kind of face

The rudest wind would softly blow on;

Though she was full of simple grace,

Sweet, amiable, and kind, and so on;

I would not have you understand

That she was meek. You'd be mistaken.

She worked out logarithms, and

Her favorite essayist was Bacon.

And, though not positive, I think

She'd heard about Savonarola,

Had studied Maurice Maeterlinck,

And read the works of Emile Zola,

And Emerson's and some of Kant's,

And all of mine and Shopenhauer's;

But still she cultivated plants,

And spent her life in tending flowers.

She had a little hedge of box,

Azalias, and a bed of tansy,

A double row of hollyhocks,

And every different kind of pansy:

And, though so innocent of look,

She'd lovers by the scores and dozens,

And learned, by talking with the cook,

To tell her friends they were her cousins.

The first was French, the second Greek,

The third was born upon the Mersey,

The fourth one came from Mozambique,

The fifth one from the Isle of Jersey.

I cannot tell about the rest,

But, judging from their dress and faces,

They came from north, east, south, and west,

But all of them from different places.

Now, such was Mary's sense of pride,

Despite their fervent protestations,

Before she vowed to be a bride

She set them all examinations:

She asked each one to tell the date

Of Washington and Cleopatra,

Name Dickens' novels, and locate

The site of Yonkers and Sumatra.

But so it chanced that, from a score

Of suitors resolute and haughty,

One gained a mark of sixty-four,

And all the rest were under forty.

One swain alone the rest outclassed;

Because of one audacious guess, he

This strict examination passed

When Mary asked the date of Crécy.

The moral shows that when a maid

Her life devotes unto a garden,

When horticultural skill's displayed

Her heart she does not dare to harden.

So crafty suitors, scorn the fates

And you may lay this flattering balm to

Your souls; if you but get your dates

The chances are you'll get the palm, too!