Tobogganing On Parna.s.sus.

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.

My work has not been all for nil, If only One, from Maine to Kansas, Shall say "I like his simple stanzas."

If but a solitary voice Should say "These verses polyglot Are not so bad," I should rejoice; But oh, my publishers would not!

And I, though shy and unanointed, Should be a little disappointed._

Us Poets

Wordsworth wrote some tawdry stuff; Much of Moore I have forgotten; Parts of Tennyson are guff; Bits of Byron, too, are rotten.

All of Browning isn't great; There are slipshod lines in Sh.e.l.ley; Every one knows Homer's fate; Some of Keats is vermicelli.

Sometimes Shakespeare hit the slide, Not to mention Pope or Milton; Some of Southey's stuff is snide.

Some of Spenser's simply Stilton.

When one has to boil the pot, One can't always watch the kittle.

You may credit it or not-- Now and then _I_ slump a little!

Rubber-Stamp Humour

If couples mated but for love; If women all were perfect cooks; If Hoosier authors wrote no books; If horses always won; If people in the flat above Were silent as the very grave; If foreign counts were p.r.o.ne to save; If tailors did not dun--

If automobiles always ran As advertised in catalogues; If tramps were not afraid of dogs; If servants never left; If comic songs would always scan; If Alfred Austin were sublime; If poetry would always rhyme; If authors all were deft--

If office boys were not all cranks On base-ball; if the selling price Of meat and coal and eggs and ice Would stop its mad increase; If women started saying "Thanks"

When men gave up their seats in cars; If there were none but good cigars, And better yet police--

If there were no such thing as booze; If wifey's mother never came To visit; if a foot-ball game Were mild and harmless sport; If all the Presidential news Were colourless; if there were men At every mountain, sea-side, glen, River and lake resort--

If every girl were fair of face; If women did not fear to get Their suits for so-called bathing wet-- If all these things were true, This earth would be a pleasant place.

But where would people get their laughs?

And whence would spring the paragraphs?

And what would jokers do?

The Simple Stuff

AD PUERUM

Horace: Book I, Ode 32.

"_Persicos odi, puer, apparatus_."

Nix on the Persian pretence!

Myrtle for Quintus H. Flaccus!

Wreaths of the linden tree, hence!

Nix on the Persian pretence!

Waiter, here's seventy cents-- Come, let me celebrate Bacchus!

Nix on the Persian pretence!

Myrtle for Quintus H. Flaccus.

"Carpe Diem," or Cop the Day

AD LEUCONOEN

Horace: Book I, Ode 13.

_"Tu ne quoesieris, scire nefas--"_

It is not right for you to know, so do not ask, Leuconoe, How long a life the G.o.ds may give or ever we are gone away; Try not to read the Final Page, the ending colophonian, Trust not the gypsy's tea-leaves, nor the prophets Babylonian.

Better to have what is to come enshrouded in obscurity Than to be certain of the sort and length of our futurity.

Why, even as I monologue on wisdom and longevity How Time has flown! Spear some of it!

The longest life is brevity.

That For Money!

AD C. SALl.u.s.tIUM CRISPUM

Horace: Book II, Ode 2