Oh, woe is me! and other things like that!

Yestreen I soughtst to smoke my first cigar:

It gav’st my system a tremendous jar!

I didst not have the gumption of a gnat.

All night I couldst not tell where I wast at.

I wish I knew just what those cheap smokes are;

It seem’st to me they’re made of glue and tar.

Ah, me! I’m weaker than a half-starved cat.

Oh, let them smoke henceforth, say’st I, who will,

For who am I that I shouldst dare condemn

Their vile tobacco? I have hadst my fill:

Let others have it; I sha’n’tst envy them,

For I’llst not never smoke no more until

I’m ten times older than Mathusalem!

O Farmer, independentest of all

Mankind art thou! I know, because, last year

I spent my whole vacation, pretty near,

On Uncle Eben’s farm, and though I’m small,

I hoed the corn and beans, and helped him haul

And stack his hay. I’dst work until I’dst fear

I’dst just drop down and end my sad career

Before they’dst give the welcome dinner call.

My uncle dost not weigh his words with care,

For once he told me that I wast a shirk;

But I wouldst rather breathe the country air

Than be a shut-in office-boy or clerk;

For I found out whilst visitin’ out there

That I like farmin’, but I hate farm work.

One reason why I’m ’most afraid to get

So famous like we poets always do,

Is that they’ll print my spoony letters, too,

As is the way with all of us who let

Our fancies caper. Hadst I thought whilst yet

Unknown, I’dst be a poet, quite a few

Endearin’ words with which I soughtst to woo

More girls than one I’dst not have wrote, you bet!

If Susan Sanderson shouldst find I sent

The valentine I saidst I wrote for her

To Jane Jones, too, the thirty cents I’ve spent

For soda water’s wasted, I’dst infer:

Why must we poets do things we’ll repent?

And oh! why thus didst me and Byron err?

O Boy, that stood’st upon the burnin’ deck

And gotst thyself in our school readers and

The “Whoop-’er-up” school speakers of our land

Because thou wouldst not leave that sinkin’ wreck,

Oh, don’tst thou think if thou hadst saved thy neck

And wisely cut and run to beat the band,

Thou couldst have later done things still more grand?

Alas! too soon didst death thy valor check!

Oh, didst thou stay because thou couldst not swim?

Or wast it fame for which thy heart didst yearn?

Of course thou gotst a name time canst not dim,

But seemst to me that all I canst discern

In thy foolhardy, stickin’-to-it whim

Is that thou deemed the world hadst boys to burn.