E.M.B.

“ But, darling, there’s plenty of time before you.
Oh, if you but knew, dear, you’d run like the kitten,
And scamper away from a future that waits:—
If you knew the dry nonsense the big folks have written
On purpose to pester the little folks’ pates.
We want all poor Algernon’s deepest attention,
You see his sad case by the way that he frowns;
He’s fighting a thing that they call a declension—
A sort of a regiment of soldiers called nouns.
He’ll beat them, you know, for he’s brave and he’s willing ”