Mother Goose for Grown-ups
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TO CONSTANCE
In memory of other days,Dear critic, when your whispered praiseCheered on the limping pen.How short, how sweet those younger hours,How bright our suns, how few our showers,Alas, we knew not then!If but, long leagues across the seas,The trivial charm of rhymes like theseShall serve to link us twainAn instant in the olden spellThat once we knew and loved so well,I have not worked in vain!NOTE
I have pleasure in acknowledging the courteous permission of the editors to reprint in this form such of the following verses as were originally published in Harper's Magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, and the London Sketch.
G. W. C.
THE ADMIRABLE ASSERTIVENESS OF JILTED JACK
A noble and a generous mindWas Jack's;Folks knew he would not talk behindTheir backs:But when some maiden fresh and young,At Jack a bit of banter flung,She soon discovered that his tongueWas sharp as any ax.A flirt of most engaging wilesWas Jill;On Jack she lavished all her smiles,UntilHer slave (and he was not the first)Of lovesick swains became the worst,His glance a strong box might have burst,His sighs were fit to kill.One April morning, clear and fair,When bothOf staying home and idling thereIn slothWere weary, Jack remarked to Jill:"Oh, what's the sense in sitting still?Let's mount the slope of yonder hill."And she was nothing loth.But as she answered: "What's the use?"The gruffYoung swain replied: "Oh, there's excuseEnough.Your doting parents water lack;We'll fill a pail and bring it back."(The reader will perceive that JackWas putting up a bluff.)Thus hand in hand the tempting hillThey scaled,And Jack proposed a kiss to Jill,And failed!One backward start, one step too bold,And down the hill the couple rolled,Resembling, if the truth were told,A luggage train derailed.With eyes ablaze with anger, sheExclaimed:"Well, who'd have thought! You'd ought to beAshamed!You quite forget yourself, it's plain,So I'll forget you, too. InsaneYoung man, I'll say oafweederzane."(Her German might be blamed.)But Jack, whose linguist's pride was pricked,To shine,Asked: "Meine Königin will nichtBe mine?"And when she answered: "Nein" in spleen,He cried: "Then in the soup tureenYou'll stay. You're not the only queenDiscarded for a nein!"The moral's made for maidens youngAnd small:If you would in a foreign tongueEnthrall,Lead off undaunted in a SwedeOr Spanish speech, and you'll succeed,But they who in a German leadNo favor win at all.THE BLATANT BRUTALITY OF LITTLE BOW PEEP
Though she was only a shepherdess,Tending the meekest of sheep,Never was African leopardessCrosser than Little Bow Peep:Quite apathetic, impassiblePeople described her as: "ThatWayward, contentious, irascible,Testy, cantankerous brat!"Yet, as she dozed in a grotto-likeSort of a kind of a nook,She was so charmingly Watteau-like,What with her sheep and her crook;"She is a dryad or nymph," anyCasual passer would think.Poets pronounced her a symphony,All in the palest of pink.Thus it was not enigmatical,That the young shepherd who firstFound her asleep, in ecstaticalSighs of felicity burst:Such was his sudden beatitudeThat, as he gazed at her so,Daphnis gave vent to this platitude:"My! Ain't she elegant though!"Roused from some dream of Arcadia,Little Bow Peep with a startAnswered him: "I ain't afraid o' yer!P'raps you imagine you're smart!"Daphnis protested impulsively,Blushing as red as a rose;All was in vain. She convulsivelyPunched the young man in the nose!All of it's true, every word of it!I was not present to peep,But if you ask how I heard of it,Please to remember the sheep.There is no need of excuse. You willSee how such scandals occur:If you recall Mother Goose, you willKnow what tail-bearers they were!Moral: This pair irreclaimableMight have made Seraphim weep,But who can pick the most blamable?Both saw a little beau peep!THE COMMENDABLE CASTIGATION OF OLD MOTHER HUBBARD
She was one of those creaturesWhose featuresAre hard beyond any reclaim;And she loved in a hovelTo grovel,And she hadn't a cent to her name.She owned neither gallantsNor talents;She borrowed extensively, too,From all of her dozensOf cousins,And never refunded a sou:Yet all they said in abuse of herWas: "She is prouder than Lucifer!"(That, I must say, without meaning to blame,Is always the way with that kind of a dame!)There never was jolli-Er colleyThan Old Mother Hubbard had found,Though cheaply she bought him,She'd taught himTo follow her meekly around:But though she would lick himAnd kick him,It never had any effect;He always was howlingAnd growling,But goodness! What could you expect?Colleys were never to flourish meant'Less they had plenty of nourishment,All that he had were the feathers she'd pluckOff an occasional chicken or duck.The colley was barred inThe garden,He howled and he wailed and he whined.The neighbors indignant,MalignantPetitions unanimous signed."The nuisance grows nightly,"PolitelyThey wrote. "It's an odious hound,And either you'll fill him,Or kill him,Or else he must go to the pound.For if this howling infernallyIs to continue nocturnally —Pardon us, ma'am, if we seem to be curt —Somebody's apt to get horribly hurt!"Mother Hubbard cried loudlyAnd proudly:"Lands sakes! but you give yourselves airs!I'll take the law to youAnd sue you."The neighbors responded: "Who cares?We none of us care ifThe sheriffLock every man jack of us up;We won't be repiningAt finingSo long as we're rid of the pup!"They then proceeded to mount a sign,Bearing this ominous countersign:"Freemen! The moment has come to protestAnd Old Mother Hubbard delendum est!"They marched to her gateway,And straightwayThey trampled all over her lawn;Most rudely they harriedAnd carriedHer round on a rail until dawn.They marred her, and jarred her,And tarred herAnd feathered her, just as they should,Of speech they bereft her,And left herWith: "Now do you think you'll be good!"The moral's a charmingly pleasing one.While we would deprecate teasing one,Still, when a dame has politeness rebuffed,She certainly ought to be collared and cuffed.THE DISCOURAGING DISCOVERY OF LITTLE JACK HORNER
A knack almost incredible for dealing with an edibleJack Horner's elder sister was acknowledged to display;She labored hard and zealously, but always guarded jealouslyThe secrets of the dishes she invented every day.She'd take some indigestible, unpopular comestible,And to its better nature would so tenderly appealThat Jack invoked a benison upon a haunch of venison,When really she was serving him a little leg of veal!Jack said she was a miracle. The word was not satirical,For daily climbing upward, she excelled herself at last:The acme of facility, the zenith of abilityWas what she gave her brother for his Christmas Day repast.He dined that evening eagerly and anything but meagerly,And when he'd had his salad and his quart of Extra Dry,With sisterly benignity, and just a touch of dignity,She placed upon the table an unutterable pie!Unflagging pertinacity, and technical sagacity,Long nights of sleepless vigil, and long days of constant careHad been involved in making it, improving it, and baking it,Until of other pies it was the wonder and despair:So princely and so prominent, so solemn, so predominantIt looked upon the table, that, with fascinated eye,The youth, with sudden wonder struck, electrified, and thunder struck,Could only stammer stupidly: "Oh Golly! What a pie!"In view of his satiety, it almost seemed impietyTo carve this crowning triumph of a culinary life,But, braced by his avidity, with sudden intrepidityHe broke its dome imposing with a common kitchen knife.Ah, hideous fatality! for when with eager palate heCommenced to eat, he happened on an accident uncouth,And cried with stifled moan: "Of it one plum I tried. The stone of itHad never been extracted, and I've broke a wisdom tooth!"Jack's sister wept effusively, but loudly and abusivelyHis unreserved opinion of her talents he proclaimed;He called her names like "driveller" and "simpleton" and "sniveller,"And others, which to mention I am really too ashamed.The moral: It is saddening, embarrassing, and maddeningA stone to strike in what you thought was paste. One thing aloneThan this mischance is crueller, and that is for a jewellerTo strike but paste in what he fondly thought to be a stone.THE EMBARRASSING EPISODE OF LITTLE MISS MUFFET
Little Miss Muffet discovered a tuffet,(Which never occurred to the rest of us)And, as 'twas a June day, and just about noonday,She wanted to eat – like the best of us:Her diet was whey, and I hasten to sayIt is wholesome and people grow fat on it.The spot being lonely, the lady not onlyDiscovered the tuffet, but sat on it.A rivulet gabbled beside her and babbled,As rivulets always are thought to do,And dragon-flies sported around and cavorted,As poets say dragon-flies ought to do;When, glancing aside for a moment, she spiedA horrible sight that brought fear to her,A hideous spider was sitting beside herAnd most unavoidably near to her!Albeit unsightly, this creature politelySaid: "Madam, I earnestly vow to you,I'm penitent that I did not bring my hat. IShould otherwise certainly bow to you."Though anxious to please, he was so ill at easeThat he lost all his sense of propriety,And grew so inept that he clumsily steptIn her plate – which is barred in Society.This curious error completed her terror;She shuddered, and growing much paler, notOnly left tuffet, but dealt him a buffetWhich doubled him up in a sailor-knot.It should be explained that at this he was pained:He cried: "I have vexed you, no doubt of it!Your fist's like a truncheon." "You're still in my luncheon,"Was all that she answered. "Get out of it!"And The moral is this: Be it madam or missTo whom you have something to say,You are only absurd when you get in the curdBut you're rude when you get in the whey.THE FEARFUL FINALE OF THE IRASCIBLE MOUSE
Upon a stairway built of brickA pleasant-featured clockFrom time to time would murmur "Tick"And vary it with "Tock":Although no great intelligenceThere lay in either word,They were not meant to give offenceTo anyone who heard.Within the pantry of the house,Among some piles of cheese,There dwelt an irritable mouse,Extremely hard to please:His appetite was most immense.Each day he ate a wedgeOf Stilton cheese. In consequenceHis nerves were all on edge.With ill-concealed impatience he,Upon his morning walk,Had heard the clock unceasingly,Monotonously talk,Until his rage burst every bound.He gave a fretful shout:"Well, sakes alive! It's time I foundWhat all this talk's about."With all the admirable skillThat marks the rodent raceThe mouse ran up the clock, untilHe'd crept behind the face,And then, with words that no one oughtTo use, and scornful squeals,He cried aloud: "Just what I thought!Great oaf, you're full of wheels!"The timepiece sternly said: "Have done!"And through the silent houseIt struck emphatically one.(But that one was the mouse!)To earth the prowling rodent fell,In terror for his life,And turned to flee, but, sad to tell,There stood the farmer's wife.She did not faint, she did not quail,She did not cry out: "Scat!"She simply took him by the tailAnd gave him to the cat,And, with a stern, triumphant look,She watched him clawed and cleft,And with some blotting paper tookUp all that there was left.The moral: In a farmer's homeRun down his herds, his flocks,Run down his crops, run down his loam,But when it comes to clocks,Pray leave them ticking every oneIn peace upon their shelves:When running down is to be doneThe clocks run down themselves.THE GASTRONOMIC GUILE OF SIMPLE SIMON
Conveniently near to whereYoung Simple Simon dweltThere was to be a county fair,And Simple Simon feltThat to the fair he ought to goIn all his Sunday clothes, and so,Determined to behold the show,He put them on and went.(One-half his clothes was borrowed and the other half was lent.)He heard afar the cheerful soundOf horns that people blew,Saw wooden horses swing aroundA circle, two and two,Beheld balloons arise, and ifHe scented with a gentle sniffThe smells of pies, what is the dif-Ference to me or you?(You cannot say my verse is false, because I know it's true.)As Simple Simon nearer cameTo these attractive smells,Avoiding every little gameMen played with walnut shells,He felt a sudden longing rise.The sparkle in his eager eyesBetrayed the fact he yearned for pies:The eye the secret tells.('Tis known the pie of county fairs all other pies excels.)So when he saw upon the road,Some fifty feet away,A pieman, Simple Simon strodeToward him, shouting: "Hey!What kinds?" as lordly as a prince.The pieman said: "I've pumpkin, quince,Blueberry, lemon, peach, and mince:"And, showing his array,He added: "Won't you try one, sir? They're very nice to-day."Now Simon's taste was most profuse,And so, by way of start,He ate two cakes, a Charlotte Russe,Six buns, the better partOf one big gingerbread, a pairOf lady-fingers, an eclair,And ten assorted pies, and there,His hand upon his heart,He paused to choose between an apple dumpling and a tart.Observing that upon his trayHis goods were growing few,The pieman cried: "I beg to sayThat patrons such as youOne does not meet in many a moon.Pray, won't you try this macaroon?"But soon suspicious, changed his tune,Continuing: "What is dueI beg respectfully to add's a dollar twenty-two."Then Simple Simon put a curbUpon his appetite,And turning with an air superbHe suddenly took flight,While o'er his shoulder this absurdAnd really most offensive wordThe trusting pieman shortly heardTo soothe his bitter plight:"Perhaps I should have said before your wares are out of sight."The moral is a simple one,But still of consequence.We've seen that Simon's sense of funWas almost too intense:Though blaming his deceitful guise,We with the pieman sympathize,The latter we must criticizeBecause he was so dense:He might have known from what he ate that Simon had no cents.THE HARMONIOUS HEEDLESSNESS OF LITTLE BOY BLUE
Composing scales beside the railsThat flanked a field of corn,A farmer's boy with vicious joyPerformed upon a horn:The vagrant airs, the fragrant airsAround that field that strayed,Took flight before the flagrant airsThat noisome urchin played.He played with care "The Maiden's Prayer;"He played "God Save the Queen,""Die Wacht am Rhein," and "Auld Lang Syne,"And "Wearing of the Green:"With futile toots, and brutal toots,And shrill chromatic scales,And utterly inutile toots,And agonizing wails.The while he played, around him strayed,And calmly chewed the cud,Some thirty-nine assorted kine,All ankle-deep in mud:They stamped about and tramped aboutThat mud, till all the troupeMade noises, as they ramped about,Like school-boys eating soup.Till, growing bored, with one accordThey broke the fence forlorn:The field was doomed. The cows consumedTwo-thirds of all the corn,And viciously, maliciously,Went prancing o'er the loam.That landscape expeditiouslyResembled harvest-home."Most idle ass of all your class,"The farmer said with scorn:"Just see my son, what you have done!The cows are in the corn!""Oh drat," he said, "the brat!" he said.The cowherd seemed to rouse."My friend, it's worse than that," he said."The corn is in the cows."The moral lies before our eyes.When tending kine and corn,Don't spend your noons in tooting tunesUpon a blatant horn:Or scaling, and assailing, andWith energy immense,Your cows will take a railing, andThe farmer take offense.THE INEXCUSABLE IMPROBITY OF TOM, THE PIPER'S SON
A Paris butcher kept a shopUpon the river's bankWhere you could buy a mutton chopOr two for half a franc.The little shop was spruce and neat,In view of all who trod the streetThe decorated joints of meatWere hung up in a rank.This Gallic butcher led a lifeOf highly moral tone;He never raised his voice in strife,He never drank alone:He simply sat outside his doorAnd slept from eight o'clock till four;The more he slept, so much the moreTo slumber he was prone.One day outside his shop he putA pig he meant to stuff,And carefully around each footHe pinned a paper ruff,But, while a watch he should have kept,His habit conquered, and he slept,And for a thief who was adeptThat surely was enough.A Scottish piper dwelt near by,Whose one ungracious sonBeheld that pig and murmured: "Why,No sooner said than done!It seems to me that this I need."And grasping it, with all his speedAcross the Pont des InvalidesHe started on a run.Then, turning sharply to the right,Without a thought of risk,He fled. 'Tis fair to call his flightInordinately brisk.But now the town was all astir,In vain his feet he strove to spur,They caught him, shouting: "Au voleur!"Beside the Obelisk.The breathless butcher cried: "A mort!"The crowd said: "Conspuez!"And some: "A bas!" and half a scoreResponded: "Vive l'armée!"While grim gendarmes with piercing eye,And stern remarks about: "Canaille!"The pig abstracted on the sly.Such is the Gallic way!The piper's offspring, his defeatDeep-rooted in his heart,A revolutionary sheetProceeded then to start.Thenceforward every evening heIn leaders scathed the Ministry,And wished he could accomplish theReturn of Bonaparte.The moral is that when the pressBegins to rave and shoutIt's often difficult to guessWhat it is all about.The editor we strive to pin,But we can never find him in.What startling knowledge we should winIf we could find him out!THE JUDICIOUS JUDGMENT OF QUITE CONTRARY MARY
Though Mary had the kind of faceThe rudest wind would softly blow on;Though she was full of simple grace,Sweet, amiable, and kind, and so on;I would not have you understandThat she was meek. You'd be mistaken.She worked out logarithms, andHer favorite essayist was Bacon.And, though not positive, I thinkShe'd heard about Savonarola,Had studied Maurice Maeterlinck,And read the works of Emile Zola,And Emerson's and some of Kant's,And all of mine and Shopenhauer's;But still she cultivated plants,And spent her life in tending flowers.She had a little hedge of box,Azalias, and a bed of tansy,A double row of hollyhocks,And every different kind of pansy:And, though so innocent of look,She'd lovers by the scores and dozens,And learned, by talking with the cook,To tell her friends they were her cousins.The first was French, the second Greek,The third was born upon the Mersey,The fourth one came from Mozambique,The fifth one from the Isle of Jersey.I cannot tell about the rest,But, judging from their dress and faces,They came from north, east, south, and west,But all of them from different places.Now, such was Mary's sense of pride,Despite their fervent protestations,Before she vowed to be a brideShe set them all examinations:She asked each one to tell the dateOf Washington and Cleopatra,Name Dickens' novels, and locateThe site of Yonkers and Sumatra.But so it chanced that, from a scoreOf suitors resolute and haughty,One gained a mark of sixty-four,And all the rest were under forty.One swain alone the rest outclassed;Because of one audacious guess, heThis strict examination passedWhen Mary asked the date of Crécy.The moral shows that when a maidHer life devotes unto a garden,When horticultural skill's displayedHer heart she does not dare to harden.So crafty suitors, scorn the fatesAnd you may lay this flattering balm toYour souls; if you but get your datesThe chances are you'll get the palm, too!THE LINGUISTIC LANGUOR OF CHARLES AUGUSTUS SPRAGUE
A child of nature curiousWas Charles Augustus Sprague;He made his parents furiousBecause he was so vague:Although his age was nearly twoEleven words were all he knew,These sounded much as sounds the DutchThat's spoken at The Hague.A few of his errata'Tis just I should avow,He called his mother "Tata,"And "moo" he dubbed a cow,Nor was it altogether plainWhy "choo-choo" meant a railway train.He called a cat "miouw," and thatNo purist would allow.Within his father's orchardThere stood, for all to see,With branches bent and tortured,An ancient apple tree:That Charles Augustus Sprague might drowseHis mother on its swaying boughsHis cradle hung, and, while it swung,She sang with energy.A sudden blow arisingOne day, the branches broke,With suddenness surprisingThe sleeping babe awoke,And crashing down to earth he fell.Ah me, that I should have to tellThe words that mild and genial childOn this occasion spoke!His face convulsed and chequeredWith passion and with tears,He blotted out the recordOf both his speechless years:His mother stupefied, aghast,Heard Charles Augustus speak at last;He opened wide his mouth and criedThese ill conditioned sneers."Sapristi! Accidente!Perchance my speech is late,But, be she two or twenty,A nincompoop I hate!What idiot said that woman's 'plannedTo warn, to comfort, and command?'"His words I quench. Excuse my French —Je dis que tu m'embêtes!The moral: Common clocks, we find,In silence take a sudden wind,But only heroes, as we know,In silence take a sudden blow.THE MYSTERIOUS MISAPPREHENSION CONCERNING A MAN IN OUR TOWN
There was a man in our town,Half beggar, half rapscallion,Who, just because his eyes were brown,Was thought to be Italian:And, though with much insistenceHe said that people erred,And bitterly to ItalyHe frequently referred,The false report, as is the wayOf false reports, had come to stay!So every one who'd been to RomeBy aid of Cook's or Gaze's,Would call upon him at his homeTo flaunt Italian phrases."Capite Questa lingua?"The inquiry would be:"Pochissimo? Benissimo!Vi prego, ditemi,Siete voi contento qua,Lontano dall'Italia?"The victim, plunged in deep disgust,Grew nervous, could not slumber;Said he, "I'm called Italian, justBecause my eyes are umber,And if this persecutionIs ever to be stopped,Some stern and stoic, hard, heroicCourse I must adopt!"And so, to everyone's surprise,He calmly scratched out both his eyes!The neighbors said: "So strange a thingMight seem to be an omen.We thought his wits were wandering,But now we know they're Roman!"And so at him by legions,By bevies, hosts, and herds,Professors, purists, tramps, and touristsScreamed Italian words.Perceiving all he'd done was vain,He scratched his eyesight in again.The moral: If your neighbors sayYou're one thing or another,You'll find there isn't any wayTheir prejudice to smother.What matter if they think youFrom Italy or Greece?I beg you, treasure no displeasure:Bow and hold your peace.Like Omar, underneath the bowYou'll find there's paradise enow!THE OPPORTUNE OVERTHROW OF HUMPTY DUMPTY
Upon a wall of medium heightBombastically satA boastful boy, and he was quiteUnreasonably fat:And what aroused a most intenseDisgust in passers-byWas his abnormal impudenceIn hailing them with "Hi!"While by his kicks he loosened bricksThe girls to terrify.When thus for half an hour or moreHe'd played his idle tricks,And wounded something like a scoreOf people with the bricks,A man who kept a fuel shopAcross from where he satRemarked: "Well, this has got to stop."Then, snatching up his hat,And sallying out, began to shout:"Look here! Come down from that!"The boastful boy to laugh began,As laughs a vapid clown,And cried: "It takes a bigger manThan you to call me down!This wall is smooth, this wall is high,And safe from every one.No acrobat could do what IHad been and gone and done!"Though this reviled, the other smiled,And said: "Just wait, my son!"Then to the interested throngThat watched across the wayHe showed with smiling face a longAnd slender Henry Clay,Remarking: "In upon my shelvesAll kinds of coal there are.Step in, my friends, and help yourselves.And he who first can jarThat wretched urchin off his perchWill get this good cigar."The throng this task did not disdain,But threw with heart and soul,Till round the youth there raged a rainOf lumps of cannel-coal.He dodged for all that he was worth,Till one bombarder deftTriumphant brought him down to earth,Of vanity bereft."I see," said he, "that this is theCoal day when I get left."The moral is that fuel canBecome the tool of fateWhen thrown upon a little man,Instead of on a grate.This story proves that when a bratImagines he's admired,And acts in such a fashion thatHe makes his neighbors tired,That little fool, who's much too cool;Gets warmed when coal is fired.THE PREPOSTEROUS PERFORMANCE OF AN OLD LADY OF BANBURY
Within a little attic a retiring, but erraticOld lady (six-and-eighty, to be frank),Made sauces out of cranberry for all the townof Banbury,Depositing the proceeds in the bank.Her tendency to thriftiness, her scorn of anyshiftinessBuilt a bustling business, and in courseOf time her secret yearnings were revealed,and all her earningsShe squandered in the purchase of a horse."I am not in a hurry for a waggonette orsurrey,"She said. "In fact, I much prefer to ride."And spite of all premonishment, to everyone'sastonishment,The gay old lady did so – and astride!Now this was most periculous, but, what wasmore ridiculous,The horse she bought had pulled a car,and so,The lazy steed to cheer up, she'd a bell uponher stirrup,And rang it twice to make the creature go!I blush the truth to utter, but it seems apound of butterAnd thirty eggs she had to sell. Of course,In scorn of ways pedestrian, this fatuousequestrianTo market gaily started on the horse.Becoming too importunate to hasten, the un —fortunateOld lady plied her charger with a birch.In view of all her cronies, this stupidest ofponiesFell flat before the Presbyterian church!If it should chance that one set a red ItaliansunsetBeside a Beardsley poster, and a plaidLike any canny Highlander's beside a FijiIslander'sMost variegated costume, and should addA Turner composition, and with clever intuition,To cap the climax, pile upon them allThe aurora borealis, then veracity, not malice,Might claim a close resemblance to her fall.At sight of her disaster, with arnica and plasterThe neighbors ran up eagerly to aid.They cried: "Don't do that offen, ma'am, oryou will need a coffin, ma'am,You've hurt your solar plexus, we're afraid.We hope your martyrdom'll let you noticewhat an omeletteYou've made in half a jiffy. It is great!"She only clutched her bonnet (she had fallenflat upon it),And answered: "Will you tell me if it'sstraight?"The moral's rather curious: for often thepenuriousAre apt to think old horses of accountIf you would ride, then seek fine examples ofthe equine,And don't look on a molehill as a mount.