Franklin P. Adams

“ A soft susurrus in the night,
A song whose singer is unseen—
'Twere poetry itself to write
"A soft susurrus in the night!"
I know, as those mosquitos bite,
That I forgot to fix that screen,
"A soft susurrus in the night!"
A song whose singer is unseen.
A Summer Summary
Shall I, lying in a grot,
Die because the day is hot?
Or declare I can't endure
Such a torrid temperature?
Be it hotter than the flames
South Gehenna Junction claims,
If it be not so to me,
What care I how hot it be? ”

“ Worse than traditions of Hades.
Curse you! Be decent to ladies!
(Heavens! that woman is loud.)
Worse than traditions of Hades
Gaze at the "good-natured" crowd!
I Cannot Pay That Premium
Beside a frugal table, though spotless clean and white,
A loving couple they did sit and all seemed pleasant, quite;
They did not have no servant the things away to take,
For he was but a broker who much money did not make.
(Key changes to minor.)
He lit a fifty-cent cigar and then his wife did say:
"Your life insurance it will lapse if it you do not pay." ”

“ Such a bit of affectation I can view with toleration,
Such a folly I forgive and I forget.
Him who rocks the little boat, or him who rides the cyclemotor
I dislike a little more than just enough;
But you might as well be knowing that the guy who gets me going
Is the man who wears his kerchief in his cuff.
Now I've builded many a verse on that extremely stylish person
Who insists upon the hat of emerald hue ”

“ Lady in the blue kimono,
Heavy is our heart and dumb,
Though we weep no tear nor show no
Sign of sadness, we are glum;
For that wrapper, silk or cotton,
You eternally had on—
It is gone, but not forgotten.
Still the fact is, it is gone.
Lady in the blue kimono,
Although deadly hot the day,
Don't you think— (alas! we know no
Way to put what we would say!)
Er—although your smile is pleasant,
Wondrous fair, and all that stuff—
Do you really think, at present,
It is—er—ahem—enough?
Notions
Myrtie, my notion of no one to write about
Seems to be any one other than you ”

“ To-night
_
Love me to-night! Fold your dear arms around me—
Hurt me—I do but glory in your might!
Tho' your fierce strength absorb, engulf, and drown me,
Love me to-night!
The world's wild stress sounds less than our own heart-beat
Its puny nothingness sinks out of sight.
Just you and I and Love alone are left, sweet—
Love me to-night!
Love me to-night! I care not for to-morrow—
Look in my eyes, aglow with Love's own light:
Full soon enough will come daylight, and sorrow—
Love me to-night!
_
—BEATRICE M. BARRY, in the Banquet Table.
We can't to-night! We're overworked and busy ”

“ If he buys a friend a rickey not for any special cause,
He is captain of the lush-and-spendthrift squad;
If, before he spends a million, he will think a bit and pause,
There's a popular impression he's a wad.
If a man attends to business and looks to every chance,
He is mercenary, money-mad, and coarse ”

“ Book I., Ode 13.
"Quem tu, Lydia, Telephi Cervicem roseam, cerea Telephi—"
What time thou yearnest for the arms
Of Telephus, I fain would twist 'em;
When thou dost praise his other charms
It just upsets my well-known system;
My brain is like a three-ring circus,
In short, it gets my capra hircus.
My reason reels, my cheeks grow pale,
My heart becomes unduly spiteful,
My verses in the Evening Mail
Are far from snappy and delightful.
I put a civil question, Lyddy:
Is that a way to treat one's stiddy? ”

“ Left everything to keep, one night,
A small appointment.
And are you sure the girl you love—
This maid on whom you have your heart set
Is lowly—that she is not of
The Roman smart set?
A maiden modest as is she,
So full of sweetness and forbearance,
Must be all right; her folks must be
Delightful parents. ”

“ Part of me, most of me never shall perish; I shall be free from Oblivion's curse; Mine is a name that the future will cherish— I shall be known by my excellent verse. I shall be famous all over this nation
Centuries after myself shall have died ”

“ From me you get no silver bit.
Fie, out upon you, youthful traitor!
Hard is my heart and tight my purse;
Deaf is my ear to all your suing.
Except this little bit of verse,
There's absolutely nothing doing. ”

“ Phyllis, I've a keg of fine fermented grape juice,
Alban wine that's been nine years in the cellar.
Ivy chaplets? Sure. Also, in the garden,
Plenty of parsley.
See my little shack—why, you'd hardly know it.
All the rooms are swept, Sunday-like and shiny;
Flowers all around, altar simply famished—
Hungry for lamb stew.
Neighbours all are coming over to the party,
All the busy boys, all the giggling girlies,
Whiffs of certain things wafted from the kitchen—
Simply delicious.
Oh, of course. You ask why the fancy fireworks,
Why the awning out, why the stylish doings. ”

“ He is lacking in ambition and in force.
If a man but bats his consort oh-so-gently on the head,
If he throttles her a little round the neck,
He's a brute; if he's considerately conjugal instead,
Everybody calls him Mr. Henry Peck.
Lowers Scylla—frowns Charybdis—and the bark is like to sink—
This the symbolistic moral of my rhyme—
If Opinion trims your sails and if you care what people think
You will have a most unhappy sort of time.
An Election Night Pantoum
Gaze at the good-natured crowd,
List to the noise and the rattle!
Heavens! that woman is loud—
Loud as the din of a battle. ”

“ What keeps his heart and spirit up?
Again we learn it is the cup.
The moral to this little bit
Is anything you make of it.
Such recondite philosophy
Is far away too much for me.
Heads and Tails
If a single man is studious and quiet, people say
He is grouchy, he is old before his time;
If he's frivolous and flippant, if he treads the primrose way,
Then they mark him for a wild career of crime.
If a man asserts that So-and-So is beautiful or sweet,
He is daffy on the proposition, Girl;
If he's weary in the evening and he keeps his subway seat,
He's immediately branded as a churl. ”

“ Ay, three times happy are the wed ones,
Who cleave together till they're dead ones.
To Be Quite Frank
IN CHLORIN Horace: Book III, Ode 15.
"Uxor pauperis Ibyci—"
Your conduct, naughty Chloris, is
Not just exactly Horace's
Ideal of a lady
At the shady
Time of life;
You mustn't throw your soul away
On foolishness, like Pholoe—
Her days are folly-laden—
She's a maiden,
You're a wife. ”

“ Steals to me in the Heart.
To me it seems my Hands I
Should now impose on your
Head, praying God to keep you
So fine and clean and pure.
"And Yet It Is A Gentle Art!"
(Parody is a genre frowned upon by your professors of literature... And yet it is a gentle art— "The Point of View" in May Scribner's.)
A sweet disorder in the verse
That never looks behind
Shall profit not who steals my purse,
Let joy be unconfined!
How vainly men themselves amaze! ”

“ Now and then there's a couple whose conjugal life
Is happy as happy can be;
Now and then there's a man who believes that his wife
Is the One Unsurpassable She;
There are doubtless in England a great many folks
Whose humour is airy and sage ”

“ He "pleaded," "pouted," "called," and "viewed."
O synonymble writers, ye
Whose work is so high-pricey.
Think ye not that variety
May haply be too spicy?
Meseems that in an elder day
They had a thing or two to say.
The Amateur Botanist
A primrose by a river's brim Primula vulgaris was to him, And it was nothing more; A pansy, delicately reared, Viola tricolor appeared In true botanic lore.
That which a pink the layman deems Dianthus caryophyllus seems To any flower-fan; or A sunflower, in that talk of his, Annuus helianthus is, And it is nothing more. ”

“ For, by and large and altogether,
Us potes must be misunderstood.
* * *
What lovely weather!
"A Perfect Woman Nobly Planned"
(The man who wants the perfect wife should marry a "stock-size." She comes cheaper.—London Chronicle.)
Ah, Myrtilla, woe and dear me!
Lackadaydee and alas!
What is this, I greatly fear me,
That has come to pass?
Craving, as I do, perfection,
Loathing anything like flaws,
I must raise a slight objection
To your building laws.
You are five one-and-a-quarter,
And your girth is thirty-three—
Myrtie, you're a little shorter
Than you ought to be. ”

“ How dear to heart grows weary far from meadow grass is blue
Above Cayuga's waters we will sing I'm strong for you.
A Spanish cava fare thee well and everything so fine
That's where you get your old black Joe my darling Clementine
The old folks would enjoy it on the road to Mandalay
'Twas from Aunt Dinah's polly-wolly-woodle all the day.
I hear those good night ladies much obliged because we're here
Afraid to go home in the with a good song ringing clear
Just tell them that fair Harvard old Nassau is shining bright
How can I bear to grand old rag we roll along good night! ”

“ For, takin' 'em all along,
You never can tell till you've tried 'em,
And then you are like to be wrong.
There's times when you'll think that they're perfect;
There's times when you'll think that they're bum,
But the things you'll learn from those that have gone
May help you with those to come.
Norah, she landed from Dublin,
Green as acushla machree;
Norah was willing and anxious
To learn what a servant should be.
We told Mrs. Kirk all about her—
She offered her seven more per—
Now Norah she works, as you know, for the Kirks—
And we learned about servants from her. ”

“ Notion of mapless location is——d. it all—
Anywhere you simultaneous ain't.
My Ladye's Eyen
Poets ther ben in plenteous line yt take ye auncient theme
Of singing to a ladye's eyen whiche maken them to dreme,
And through ye blessed hours of slepe—thilk eyen or browne or blue
Doe soothe ye poet's slumbers deep: by goddiswoundes thaie doe!
O gentil reder, wit ye well, yt mony soche ther bee,
And whan an eyefulle damosel hath made a hitte wyth mee,
Hir eyen ben soe o'erpassing bright yt holden mee in thrall,
I tosse about ye livelong night, nor can ne slepe atte all. ”

“ There are readers who find in Gibbon a sedative for tired nerves; there are others who enjoy Trollope's quiet humour. Some people find in Henry James's tangled syntax the restful diversion they seek, and others enjoy Mr. Howells's unexciting realism. ”

“ When the soap slips under the tub.
The Flat-Hunter's Way
We don't get any too much light;
It's pretty noisy, too, at that;
The folks next door stay up all night;
There's but one closet in the flat;
The rent we pay is far from low ”

“ My tendencies are far from sporty.
Besides, the number of my years
Is over forty.
Horace the Wise
AD PYRRHAM Horace: Book I, Ode 5.
"Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa"
What lady-like youth in his wild aberrations
Is putting cologne on his brow?
For whom are the puffs and the blond transformations?
I wonder who's kissing you now.
[Footnote: Paraphraser's note: Horace beat the modern song
writers to this. The translation is literal
enough—"Quis...gracilis te puer...urget?".]
Tee hee! I must laugh when I think of his finish,
Not wise to your ways and your rep.
Ha! ha! ”

“ The Translated Way
"And Yet It Is a Gentle Art."
Occasionally
Jim and Bill
When Nobody Listens
Office Mottoes
Metaphysics
Heads and Tails
An Election Night Pantoum
I Can Not Pay That Premium
Three Authors
To Quotation
Melodrama
A Poor Excuse, but Our Own
Monotonous Variety
The Amateur Botanist
A Word for It
The Poem Speaks
Bedbooks
A New York Child's Garden of Verses
Downward, Come Downward
Speaking of Hunting
The Flat Hunter's Way
Birds and Bards
A Wish—An Apartmental Ditty
The Monument of Q. H. F.
Us Poets
Wordsworth wrote some tawdry stuff ”

“ Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team.
TOBOGGANING ON PARNASSUS By FRANKLIN P. ADAMS
TO BERT LESTON TAYLOR GUIDE, PHILOSOPHER, BUT FRIEND _If that these vagrant verses make
One heart more glad; if they but bring
A single smile, for that One's sake
I should be satisfied to sing.
As Locker said, in phrasing fitter,
Pleased if but One should like the twitter.
If I have eased one heart of pain;
If I have made one throb or thrill;
My labour has not been in vain. ”