Then he strode across the court, But he suddenly stopped short When he pa.s.sed within the castle by a ma.s.sive oaken door: There were courtiers without number, But they all were plunged in slumber, The prince"s ear delighting By uniting In a snore.
The prince remarked: "This must be Philadelphia, Pennsylvania!"
(And so was born the jest that"s still The comic journal"s mania!)
[Ill.u.s.tration: _This shows how the prince won the princess"s heart, And the end of her sleeping was simply a start._]
With torpor reprehensible, Numb, comatose, insensible, The flunkeys and the chamberlains all slumbered like the dead, And snored so loud and mournfully, That Charming pa.s.sed them scornfully And came to where a princess lay asleep upon a bed.
She was so extremely fair That His Highness didn"t care For the risk, and so he kissed her ere a single word he spoke:-- In a jiffy maids and pages, Ushers, lackeys, squires, and sages, As fresh as if they"d been at least A week awake, Awoke, And hastened, bustled, dashed and ran Up stairways and through galleries: In brief, they one and all began Again to earn their salaries!
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Aroused from her paralysis, As if in deep a.n.a.lysis Of him who had awakened her, the princess met his eye: Her glance at first was critical, And sternly a.n.a.lytical.
And then she dropped her lashes and she gave a little sigh.
As he watched her, wholly dumb, She observed: "You doubtless come For one of two good reasons, and I"m going to ask you which.
Do you mean my house to harry, Or do you propose to marry?"
He answered: "I may rue it, But I"ll do it, If you"re rich!"
The princess murmured with a smile: "I"ve millions, at the least, to come!"
The prince cried: "Please excuse me, while I go and get the priest to come!"
[Ill.u.s.tration]
_The Moral_: When affairs go ill The sleeping partner foots the bill.
_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 h.o.m.oeopathist Would change to an hydropathist, And back again, with stupefying calm!
[Ill.u.s.tration]
The closets of her villa Were full of sarsaparilla, Ammonia, digitalis, bronchial troches, soda mint.
Restoratives hirsutical, And soaps to clean the cuticle, And iodine, and peptonoids, and lint.
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.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
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!)
[Ill.u.s.tration]
_How a Cat Was Annoyed and a Poet Was Booted_
A poet had a cat.
There is nothing odd in that-- (I _might_ make a little pun about the _Mews_!) But what is really more Remarkable, she wore A pair of pointed patent-leather shoes.
And I doubt me greatly whether E"er you heard the like of that: Pointed shoes of patent-leather On a cat!
[Ill.u.s.tration]
His time he used to pa.s.s Writing sonnets, on the gra.s.s-- (I _might_ say something good on _pen_ and _sward_!) While the cat sat near at hand, Trying hard to understand The poems he occasionally roared.
(I myself possess a feline, But when poetry I roar He is sure to make a bee-line For the door.)
The poet, cent by cent, All his patrimony spent-- (I _might_ tell how he went from _werse_ to _werse_!) Till the cat was sure she could, By advising, do him good So addressed him in a manner that was terse: "We are bound toward the scuppers, And the time has come to act, Or we"ll both be on our uppers For a fact!"
On her boot she fixed her eye, But the boot made no reply-- (I _might_ say: "Couldn"t speak to save _its sole_!") And the foolish bard, instead Of responding, only read A verse that wasn"t bad upon the whole: And it pleased the cat so greatly, Though she knew not what it meant, That I"ll quote approximately How it went:--
"If I should live to be The last leaf upon the tree"-- (I _might_ put in: "I think I"d just as _leaf_!") "Let them smile, as I do now, At the old forsaken bough"-- Well, he"d plagiarized it bodily, in brief!
But that cat of simple breeding Couldn"t read the lines between, So she took it to a leading Magazine.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
She was jarred and very sore When they showed her to the door.
(I _might_ hit off the _door_ that was _a jar_!) To the spot she swift returned Where the poet sighed and yearned, And she told him that he"d gone a little far.
"Your performance with this rhyme has Made me absolutely sick,"
She remarked. "I think the time has Come to kick!"
[Ill.u.s.tration]