Franklin P. Adams

“ And solemn truth is that which is not gay.
A man of sixty years is not a youth,
Nor are black tresses those completely gray.
But this is clear as glass, as glass is clear:
The day of Christmas comes but once a year. ”

“ She labored all day in the hot little kitchen;
She washed and she ironed and hummed most bewitchin’,
The beautiful anthem of Erin go bragh.
All friendless and lonely was Maggie O’Ryan,
No sweethearts there came her lone heart to beguile;
Yet cheerful and gladsome, nor sobbin’ nor sighin’,
For friends that were left in the Emerald Isle;
No threnody hers for the land she was born in;
She always arose before six in the mornin’,
And sang the sweet strains of her “Erin Mavourneen”—
The minor melodics of Erin go bragh. ”

“ There’s such a charm in melancholy
I would not, if I could, be gay.
For me the month is never May.
Fate hurls at me a daily volley.
The nights are black, the noons are gray—
Go! you may call it madness, folly. ”

“ The hills and waters o’er,
When those summer tourists moor’d their bark
On the swell New England shore.
Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the weak-hearted, came.
But, like a bunch of exiled bums,
Trying to beat the game. ”

“ She mists my glance with pains.
She back from olden times yet
Within mine eye remains.
She had many glittering sisters
Who all have taken flight,
With my torments and my gladnesses
Dissolved they in wind and night. ”

“ Give ear unto my song.
Or slim or stout, or tall or short,
Good people all, of every sort,
Attend ye to my metric sport
Until I sound the gong.
Good people all, of every sort,
Give ear unto my song. ”

“ Though the universal rumor
Place her at the top of fun,
To my narrow mind, of humor
She has absolutely none.
Lives of actresses remind us,
We can make an awful Hit,
If we only put behind us
All our Piety and Wit. ”

“ On the court or on the links
Sybaris was once a wonder,
You’re his Jonah, you’re his Jinx—
Why delight to drag him under?
Sybaris was once a wonder
You must ruin with your love.
Why delight to drag him under? ”

“ Success
Success, oh word so ill-defined,
Oh word that means the same to few!
A myriad meanings all combined
Are rolled in you.
Is it success to have great wealth
And all the pleasures it will bring? ”

“ In Forest Hills, the well-known ceme-tery.
And still, instead of charity and penance,
You raise the rent and disposses your tenants.
But stay! Despite your wondrous wealth and fame,
None is so sure as Plato, so rapacious—
You cannot beat, you cannot tie his game;
The grave that yawns for rich and poor is spacious. ”

“ Book I, Elegy 1.
“Cynthia prima suis miserum me cepitocellis—”
Cynthia first and the wonderful eyes of her
Taught me the meaning of Love and Romance;
Now I have sung to the stars and the skies of her—
Love has diluted the pride of my glance. ”

“ Swat, hit, connect, line out, get on the job.
Else you shall feel the brunt of fandom’s ire
Biff, bang it, clout it, hit it on the knob—
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
The burden of good pitching. Curved or straight.
Or in or out, or haply up or down,
To puzzle him that standeth by the plate,
To lessen, so to speak, his bat-renown:
Like Christy Mathewson or Miner Brown,
So pitch that every man can but admire
And offer you the freedom of the town—
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
The burden of loud cheering. O the sounds! ”

“ Beside the Springs of Dove;
And she is grown so dear, so dear,
She never told her love.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
Look backward with a smile.
The apparel oft proclaims the man,
And only man is vile. ”

“ And sad are the moorlands and sad are the leas.
And sadder the songs that they sing about Erin,
And saddest the way that they drop off the g’s.
Oh, red is the berry that grows on the holly,
And tender the mem’ry of vanished things dear,
And this is the thought of my sweet melancholy,
That Christmas comes once and but once in the year.
(In one of Frank L. Stanton’s manners.)
I
Chris’mus am a-comin’,
Cahve de possum meat!
My! dem sweet potatoes
Am mighty good to eat. ”

“ She dances a measure that’s wholly jejune.
’Tis time to divert one’s estraying attention
To bonnets embowered with every old thing—
Fruits, myrtle and parsley—again I must mention
’Tis Spring!
’Tis time for the sacrifice sacred to Faunus—
⁠He may get our lambkin, he may get our goat.
O Sextius, ere death shall have wholly withdrawn us,
⁠Take this from Horatius, your favorite pote;
Soon Pluto will cail you, at some unforeseen time,
⁠You'll go, be you journalist-jester or king,
You can’t get away from it. ”

“ This William Shaxpur! Fade away!
Good sooth, the fellow is a flivver!”
His path is steep, his lot is hard,
Who Rare and Wondrous Lines composes.
Alas! to be a famous bard
Is not an ostermoor of roses! ”

“ And yearn for that Trovatore trill;
They ask for Bellini, Balfe, Wagner, Rossini,
The while, in unscrupulous zeal.
The people who “write” a new song in a night
Grow rich on the tunes that they steal. ”

“ Thou who refusest to steam up,
Thou who denyest me heat,
Thou who wilt not send my cream up,
Thou who purloinest my meat—
Father of infants whose weeping
All through the perilous night
Loudly inhibits my sleeping—
Read, if thou canst, what I write:
Why, at this holiday season,
Should I drop into the slot
Money? There isn’t a reason ”

“ To a person loving leisure in a high and heaping measure
What a joyaunce, what a treasure is a Sunday afternoon!
Of diversions there are plenty, from the dolce far niente
Joys to seventeen or twenty things to kill a day in June. ”

“ You’ll weep and wail and sob and sorrow,
But you’ll forget it all to-morrow.
I shall not biff you with a brick
Nor pull your hair. I scorn to spleen.
I leave such actions to the hick
Who wears no laurel on his bean. ”

“ The stunts that I see which are pleasing to me
Are painfully, fearfully few.
The acrobats eight are an act that I hate;
The monkeys and dogs I detest.
And the comedy kind that are known as refined
Are as dull as an almanac jest. ”

“ Have said, I say, nobody can deny.
And if none can gainsay what I have said,
Then that which I have said none can gainsay,
A man who’s passed away is known as dead;
Dead is a person who has passed away. ”

“ Never met a orfcer yet as wasn’t cold an’ cruel
(O the wily sergeant, and ah, the willing maid!)
And it’s shop! shop! shop!
Till the sweat begins to drop—
Never was a present yet worth a charge o’ hop!
Now those are the things that Christmas brings, the things of the tide of Yule,
And that is the way of that dreadsome day, as it goes by the swerveless rule!
(In Hood’s worst manner.)
JOCOSE JOE STENCIL
A Bathetic Ballad
Joe Stencil was a nice young man,
And eke a shipping clerk,
Although he’d often work to love,
He never loved to work. ”

“ The corn the farmer grows on the farm—
The corn whose cost he views with alarm:
So he stings the stockman
That charges the packer
That sticks the wholesaler
That soaks the retailers
That raises the costofliving. ”

“ If it were generally known how many writers who have achieved success have practically been made by editors endowed with the gift of helping the young author to find himself, the public would be indeed surprised. Once in a while one may be startled by some grateful communication or dedication expressive of such literary indebtedness, but this is rare. It must be owned that the attitude of the successful author is usually one of self-congratulation.—Boston Herald. ”

“ Our board and room and clothes are paid for;
Why worry, then, what we were made for?
As I have said a thousand times,
(Please pardon my repeating.
One has to, writing reams of rhymes.)
The longest life is fleeting. ”

“ Madura maid that o’er the stove holdeth despotic sway,
Small is the labor that you do, though great your weekly pay,
Far from a Savarin are you in the rôle that you have picked,
Tortoni could have beaten you from clams to Benedict. ”

“ Out in Chicago, Ill.,
I made the convention nominate,
And now—the terrible chill.
For many a sun has set and shone
On the path we used to trudge
When I was a King in Washington
And you were a circuit judge. ”

“ Of waterways, or fish, or horses—
Of something greater far than these:
Human Resources
Resources wasted in campaigns,
In oratory dry and juiceless.
The waste of energy and brains
Strikes me as useless. ”

“ The guy who’s cagey with his kale
Should beat it quick to Bloomingdale.
A little wine’s the proper dope,
It makes you talk and sing and hope,
Peace it promotes, for who would bicker
When plied with wine? Hooray for licker! ”

“ That brave, intrepid, fearless, dauntless, wise, courageous one,
That plain and honest Democrat, Rhode Island’s favorite son,
Who loathes the predatory rich, the wicked trust and grafter,
That sterling statesman, need I say [Continued cheers and laughter] . ”

“ I want some reward for my rhymes.
I’ve called you a great little guy
Right n. p. r. m., top o’ colyum;
I’ve pinned some verbenas on you, Bill Maecenas,
And all that I got was a drink—
A pint of Old Caecuban Rye! ”

“ True Comfort
(There is nothing quite so comforting in this life as anword of five syllables.—Mr. W. Pett Ridge.)
Brevity! Heavens, what inefficaciousness!
Brevity! Piffle! A mere fabulosity!
Comfort is only a great ostentatiousness ”

“ He worked the tedious days,
Till once he said: “I’ll strike the boss
For just a little raise.”’
“Why, Jones,” replied the Leader then,
“How can you be so base?
Why, I could get a hundred men
To-day to take your place.” ”

“ If you had to make some verses on the topics of the day,
You would read the morning papers rather fully;
For you’d like to find a theme to make your readers shout: “Hooray!”
And to make your Dear Employer say: “That’s bully!” ”

“ You constantly swear at the boreal air—
Pray slip me the reason for that.”
“In my costly abode,” Father William replied,
“The casements are fashioned so ill
That the wind enters in till the temp-er-a-ture
Of my bedroom is way below nil.” ”

“ Ohio. Ingenuous, tricksy.
“New Orleans? No! . . . How you stare!” . . . .
She always applauded at “Dixie.”
She is found in the shop and the street;
She sits in a restaurant chair;
She may be bourgeois or élite ”

“ Down to “ ———.”
CHORUS
You can always get a laugh with that—
Never try to hit the crowd above the hat,
If you want to get’em shrieking,
Imitate a lady speaking—
You can always get a laugh with that. ”

“ By Francois Villon
[Editor’s Note: One of the things we know less than we do others is how to translate French. And so, to translate another of Mons. Villon’s refrains, “We cry you mercy, every one.”] ”

“ NO TROUBLE TO SHOW GOODS
[For the benefit of advertisers, present and prospective, it should be stated that these are only a few of the publisher’s kinds of type.]
Speak gently to the printer man,
His work is pretty hard ”

“ Thorns, Rifts, Clouds, Flaws, Blemishes, Etc.
[“The attitude of mind I have always believed in, is to answer, when anybody says how ugly Mrs. Blank’s nose is, ‘Yes, but hasn’t she a lovely complexion?’”—Kate Douglas Wiggin.] ”

“ Then, donning one of BEANEM’S HATS,
He rode out in his WHATSTHECAR;
Played ball; then home to RENTEM’S FLATS
To smoke a SHUTEMOUT CIGAR.
He listened to his WAXAPHONE,
Then lay—ending his day so rough—
Upon a mattress widely known. ”

“ Her lawful spouse to sleep.
John Spratt, he hated bridge;
His consort was a fiend.
Who always would suggest a game
Whenever friends convened.
J. Spratt liked keeping house,
His wife preferred to board. ”

“ Book I, Ode 22.
[Those whom the original verbiage may confuse are advised to read only the italics: those who detest our efforts may read only Q. H. Flaccus’s words, set of course in Roman; and the rest may combine them.]
(Integer vitae) A man who’s on the level,
(Non eget . . . arcu) He needn’t have a fear ”