Robert Frost

479

ROBERT FROST

RELATES THE DEATH OF THE TIRED MAN

THERE were two of us left in the berry-patch;
Bryan O'Lin and Jack had gone to Norwich.—
They called him Jack a' Nory, half in fun
And half because it seemed to anger him.-
So there we stood and let the berries go,
Talking of men we knew and had forgotten.
A sprawling, humpbacked mountain frowned on us
And blotted out a smouldering sunset cloud
That broke in fiery ashes. "Well," he said,
"Old Adam Brown is dead and gone; you'll never
See him any more. He used to wear

A long, brown coat that buttoned down before.
That's all I ever knew of him; I guess that's all
That anyone remembers. Eh?" he said,

And then, without a pause to let me answer,
He went right on.

"How about Dr. Foster?"

"Well, how about him?" I managed to reply.
He glared at me for having interrupted.
And stopped to pick his words before he spoke;
Like one who turns all personal remarks

Into a general survey of the world.

Choosing his phrases with a finicky care

So they might fit some vague opinions,

Taken, third-hand, from last year's New York Times

And jumbled all together into a thing

He thought was his philosophy.

"Never mind;

There's more in Foster than you'd understand.
But," he continued, darkly as before,

"What do you make of Solomon Grundy's case?
You know the gossip when he first came here.
Folks said he'd gone to smash in Lunenburg,
And four years in the State Asylum here
Had almost finished him. It was Sanders' job
That put new life in him. A clear, cool day;
The second Monday in July it was.

'Born on a Monday,' that is what they said.
Remember the next few days? I guess you don't;
That was before your time. Well, Tuesday night
He said he'd go to church; and just before the prayer
He blurts right out, 'I've come here to get christened.
If I am going to have a brand new life

I'll have a new name, too.' Well, sure enough
They christened him, though I've forgotten what;
And Etta Stark, (you know, the pastor's girl)
Her head upset by what she called romance,
She went and married him on Wednesday noon.
Thursday the sun or something in the air
Got in his blood and right off he took sick.
Friday the thing got worse, and so did he;
And Saturday at four o'clock he died.
Buried on Sunday with the town decked out
As if it was a circus-day. And not a soul
Knew why they went or what he meant to them
Or what he died of. What would be your guess?"
"Well," I replied, "it seems to me that he,
Just coming from a sedentary life,

Felt a great wave of energy released,

And tried to crowd too much in one short week.
The laws of physics teach-”

"No, not at all.

He never knew 'em. He was just tired," he said.

Louis Untermeyer.

ESTABLISHES

OWEN SEAMAN

THE ENTENTE CORDIALE BY RECITING THE SINGULAR STUPIDITY OF J. SPRATT, ESQ.," IN THE MANNER OF GUY WETMORE CARRYL.

Of all the mismated pairs ever created

The worst of the lot were the Spratts.

Their life was a series of quibbles and queries
And quarrels and squabbles and spats.

They argued at breakfast, they argued at tea,

And they argued from midnight to quarter past three.

Owen Seaman

The family Spratt-head was rather a fat-head,

And a bellicose body to boot.

481

He was selfish and priggish and worse, he was piggish— A regular beast of a brute.

At table his acts were incredibly mean;

He gave his wife fat-and he gobbled the lean!

What's more, she was censured whenever she ventured
To dare to object to her fare;

He said "It ain't tasteful, but we can't be wasteful;
And someone must eat what is there!"

But his coarseness exceeded all bounds of control
When he laughed at her Art and the State of her Soul.

So what with his jeering and fleering and sneering,
He plagued her from dawn until dark.

He bellowed" I'll teach ye to read Shaw and Nietzsche ".
And he was as bad as his bark.

"The place for a woman

-"he'd start, very glib. And so on, for two or three hours ad lib.

So very malignant became his indignant

Remarks about "Culture" and "Cranks,"
That at last she revolted. She up and she bolted
And entered the militant ranks.

When she died, after breaking nine-tenths of the laws, She left all her money and jewels to the Cause!

And THE MORAL is this (though a bit abstruse): What's sauce for a more or less proper goose,

When it rouses the violent, feminine dander,

Is apt to be sauce for the propaganda.

Louis Untermeyer.

THE MODERN HIAWATHA

He killed the noble Mudjokivis.
Of the skin he made him mittens,
Made them with the fur side inside
Made them with the skin side outside.
He, to get the warm side inside,
Put the inside skin side outside;

He, to get the cold side outside,
Put the warm side fur side inside.
That's why he put the fur side inside,
Why he put the skin side outside,
Why he turned them inside outside.

Unknown.

SOMEWHERE-IN-EUROPE-WOCKY

"TWAS brussels, and the loos liège
Did meuse and arras in latour;
All vimy were the metz maubege,
And the tsing-tau namur.

"Beware the petrograd, my son

The jaws that bite, the claws that plough! Beware the posen, and verdun

The soldan mons glogau!"

He took his dixmude sword in hand;
Long time his altkirch foe he sought;
Then rested he 'neath the warsaw tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in danzig thought he stood
The petrograd, with eyes of flame,

Came ypring through the cracow wood,
And longwied as it came.

Rigid Body Sings

One two! One two! and through and through

The dixmude blade went snicker-snack; He left it dead, and with its head

He gallipolied back.

"And hast thou slain the petrograd?
Come to my arms, my krithnia boy!
O chanak day! Artois! Grenay!"
He woevred in his joy.

'Twas brussels, and the loos liège
Did meuse and arras in latour;
All vimy were the metz maubege,
And the tsing-tau namur.

483

F. G. Hartswick.

RIGID BODY SINGS

GIN a body meet a body
Flyin' through the air,
Gin a body hit a body,

Will it fly? and where?
Ilka impact has its measure,

Ne'er a' ane hae I,

Yet a' the lads they measure me,

Or, at least, they try.

Gin a body meet a body

Altogether free,

How they travel afterwards

We do not always see.

Ilka problem has its method
By analytics high;

For me, I ken na ane o' them,

But what the waur am I?

J. C. Maxwell.