THE SYCOPHANTIC FOX AND THE
GULLIBLE RAVEN

A raven sat upon a tree,

And not a word he spoke, for
His beak contained a piece of Brie,
Or, maybe, it was Roquefort.

We'll make it any kind you please—
At all events it was a cheese.

Beneath the tree's umbrageous limb
A hungry fox sat smiling;
He saw the raven watching him,
And spoke in words beguiling:

"J'admire," said he, "ton beau plumage,"
(The which was simply persiflage.)

Two things there are, no doubt you know,
To which a fox is used:

A rooster that is bound to crow,

A crow that's bound to roost;
And whichsoever he espies

He tells the most unblushing lies.

"Sweet fowl," he said, "I understand
You're more than merely natty,

I hear you sing to beat the band
And Adelina Patti.

Pray render with your liquid tongue
A bit from 'Götterdämmerung.'

This subtle speech was aimed to please
The crow, and it succeeded;

He thought no bird in all the trees

Could sing as well as he did.

In flattery completely doused,

He gave the "Jewel Song" from "Faust."

But gravitation's law, of course,

As Isaac Newton showed it,
Exerted on the cheese its force,

And elsewhere soon bestowed it.
In fact, there is no need to tell
What happened when to earth it fell.

I blush to add that when the bird
Took in the situation

He said one brief, emphatic word,
Unfit for publication.

The fox was greatly startled, but
He only sighed and answered "Tut."

The Moral is: A fox is bound

To be a shameless sinner.

And also: When the cheese comes round

You know it's after dinner.

But (what is only known to few)

The fox is after dinner, too.

HOW JACK FOUND THAT BEANS MAY GO BACK ON A CHAP

Without the slightest basis

For hypochondriasis,

A widow had forebodings which a cloud around her

flung,

And with expression cynical

For half the day a clinical

Thermometer she held beneath her tongue.

Whene'er she read the papers

She suffered from the vapors,

At every tale of malady or accident she'd groan; In every new and smart disease,

From housemaid's knee to heart disease,

She recognized the symptoms as her own!

She had a yearning chronic

To try each novel tonic,

Elixir, panacea, lotion, opiate, and balm;

And from a homeopathist

Would change to an hydropathist,

And back again, with stupefying calm!

She was nervous, cataleptic,

And anemic, and dyspeptic:

Though not convinced of apoplexy, yet she had her

fears.

She dwelt with force fanatical,

Upon a twinge rheumatical,

And said she had a buzzing in her ears!

Now all of this bemoaning

And this grumbling and this groaning

The mind of Jack, her son and heir, unconscionably bored.

His heart completely hardening,

He gave his time to gardening,

For raising beans was something he adored.

Each hour in accents morbid

This limp maternal bore bid

Her callous son affectionate and lachrymose good-bys.

She never granted Jack a day

Without some long "Alackaday!"

Accompanied by rolling of the eyes.

But Jack, no panic showing,

Just watched his beanstalk growing,

And twined with tender fingers the tendrils up the

pole.

At all her words funereal

He smiled a smile ethereal,

Or sighed an absent-minded "Bless my soul!"

That hollow-hearted creature

Would never change a feature:

No tear bedimmed his eye, however touching was her

talk.

She never fussed or flurried him,

The only thing that worried him

Was when no bean-pods grew upon the stalk!

But then he wabbled loosely

His head, and wept profusely,

And, taking out his handkerchief to mop away his

tears,

Exclaimed: "It hasn't got any!"

He found this blow to botany

Was sadder than were all his mother's fears.

The Moral is that gardeners pine
Whene'er no pods adorn the vine.
Of all sad words experience gleans
The saddest are: "It might have beans.”
(I did not make this up myself:
'Twas in a book upon my shelf.
It's witty, but I don't deny
It's rather Whittier than I!)

Harry Herbert Knibbs was born at Niagara Falls, October 24, 1874. After a desultory schooling, he attended Harvard for three years when he was thirty-four. "Somebody said I took honors in English," says Knibbs, "but I never saw them." He wrote his first book, Lost Farm Camp, a novel, as a class exercise. In 1911, Knibbs settled in Los Angeles, California, where he has lived ever since.

In Riders of the Stars (1916) and Songs of the Trail (1920), Knibbs carries on the tradition of Bret Harte and the Pike County Ballads. High-hearted verse this is, with more than an occasional flash of poetry. To the typical Western breeziness, Knibbs adds a wider whimsicality, a rough-shod but nimble imagination.

THE VALLEY THAT GOD FORGOT

Out in the desert spaces, edged by a hazy blue,
Davison sought the faces of the long-lost friends he
knew:

They were there, in the distance dreaming
Their dreams that were worn and old;

They were there, to his frenzied seeming,
Still burrowing down for gold.

Davison's face was leather; his mouth was a swollen

blot,

His mind was a floating feather, in The Valley That God Forgot;

Wild as a dog gone loco,

Or sullen or meek, by turns,
He mumbled a "Poco! Poco!"

And whispered of pools and ferns.

Gold! Why his, for the finding! But water was never

found,

Save in deep caverns winding miles through the underground: