Gin it to me; whut you say?
Ain't you sma't now! Oh, go 'way!
Possum do look mighty nice;
But you ax too big a price.

Tell me, is you talkin' true,
Dat's de gal's whut ma'ies you?

Come back, Sam; now whah's you gwine?
Co'se you knows dat possum's mine!

GUY WETMORE CARRYL

Guy Wetmore Carryl, son of Charles Edward Carryl (see page 77), was born in New York City, March 4, 1873. He graduated from Columbia University in 1895, was editor of Munsey's Magazine, 1895-96, and, during the time he lived abroad (from 1897 to 1902), was the foreign representative of various American publications.

Inheriting a remarkable technical gift from his father, young Carryl soon surpassed him as well as all other rivals in the field of brilliantly rhymed, brilliantly turned burlesques. Although he wrote several serious poems (the best of which have been collected in the posthumously published The Garden of Years (1904), Carryl's most characteristic work is to be found in his perversions of the parables of Æsop, Fables for the Frivolous (1898), the topsy-turvy interpreta

tions of old nursery rhymes, Mother Goose for Grownups (1900) and his fantastic variations on the fairy tales in Grimm Tales Made Gay (1903) — all of them with a surprising (and punning) Moral attached. This extraordinary versifier died, before reaching the height of his power, at the age of thirty-one, in the summer of 1904.

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,

66

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.

6

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.

66

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: 66
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!)

LEONORA SPEYER

Leonora Speyer was born in Washington, D. C., in 1873. On her mother's side, she is of New England stock; her father was Count Ferdinand von Stosch, a Prussian nobleman who fought for the Union in the Civil War, became an American citizen, lived and died here. As a girl, Leonora von Stosch was a professional violinist, playing with Nikisch, Anton Seidl and other famous conductors. Later, she married Sir Edgar Speyer who, before the World War, did much to bring modern European music to England. Since 1915, Mrs. Speyer has lived in New York City.

Although her husband had always written playlets for the entertainment of the family and had published a German translation of Keats' poems, Leonora Speyer had never written until 1915. For five years after that date, her verse appeared in various magazines and attracted no little attention. Her first volume, A Canopic Jar,