The Wit and Humor of America
Chapter 157 : "By--the--great--guns!" moaned Watson, as he placed his hands to his brow an

"By--the--great--guns!" moaned Watson, as he placed his hands to his brow and swooned right in the middle of the street.

THE COQUETTE

_A Portrait_

BY JOHN G. SAXE

"You're clever at drawing, I own,"

Said my beautiful cousin Lisette, As we sat by the window alone, "But say, can you paint a Coquette?"

"She's painted already," quoth I; "Nay, nay!" said the laughing Lisette, "Now none of your joking,--but try And paint me a thorough Coquette."

"Well, cousin," at once I began In the ear of the eager Lisette, "I'll paint you as well as I can That wonderful thing, a Coquette.

"She wears a most beautiful face,"

("Of course!" said the pretty Lisette), "And isn't deficient in grace, Or else she were not a Coquette.

"And then she is daintily made"

(A smile from the dainty Lisette), "By people expert in the trade Of forming a proper Coquette.

"She's the winningest ways with the beaux,"

("Go on!"--said the winning Lisette), "But there isn't a man of them knows The mind of the fickle Coquette!

"She knows how to weep and to sigh,"

(A sigh from the tender Lisette), "But her weeping is all in my eye,-- Not that of the cunning Coquette!

"In short, she's a creature of art,"

("Oh hus.h.!.+" said the frowning Lisette), "With merely the ghost of a heart,-- Enough for a thorough Coquette.

"And yet I could easily prove"

("Now don't!" said the angry Lisette), "The lady is always in love,-- In love with herself,--the Coquette!

"There,--do not be angry!--you know, My dear little cousin Lisette, You told me a moment ago To paint _you_--a thorough Coquette!"

A SPRING FEELING

BY BLISS CARMAN

I think it must be spring. I feel All broken up and thawed.

I'm sick of everybody's "wheel"; I'm sick of being jawed.

I am too winter-killed to live, Cold-sour through and through.

O Heavenly Barber, come and give My soul a dry shampoo!

I'm sick of all these nincomp.o.o.ps, Who weep through yards of verse, And all these sonneteering dupes Who whine and froth and curse.

I'm sick of seeing my own name Tagged to some paltry line, While this old _corpus_ without shame Sits down to meat and wine.

I'm sick of all these Yellow Books, And all these Bodley Heads; I'm sick of all these freaks and spooks And frights in double leads.

When good Napoleon's publisher Was dangled from a limb, He should have had an editor On either side of him.

I'm sick of all this taking on Under a foreign name; For when you call it _decadent_, It's rotten just the same.

I'm sick of all this puling trash And namby-pamby rot,-- A Pegasus you have to thrash To make him even trot!

An Age-end Art! I would not give, For all their plotless plays, One round Flagstaffian adjective Or one Miltonic phrase.

I'm sick of all this poppyc.o.c.k In bilious green and blue; I'm tired to death of taking stock Of everything that's "New."

New Art, New Movements, and New Schools, All maimed and blind and halt!

And all the fads of the New Fools Who can not earn their salt.

I'm sick of the New Woman, too.

Good Lord, she's worst of all.

Her rights, her sphere, her point of view, And all that folderol!

She makes me wish I were the snake Inside of Eden's wall, To give the tree another shake, And see another fall.

I'm very much of Byron's mind; I like sufficiency; But just the common garden kind Is good enough for me.

I want to find a warm beech wood, And lie down, and keep still; And swear a little; and feel good; Then loaf on up the hill,

And let the Spring house-clean my brain, Where all this stuff is crammed; And let my heart grow sweet again; And let the Age be d.a.m.ned.

WASTED OPPORTUNITIES[6]

BY ROY FARRELL GREENE

The lips I might have tasted, rosy ripe as any cherry, How they pair off by the dozens when my memory goes back Across the current of the years aboard of Fancy's ferry, Which shuns the sh.o.r.es of What-We-Have and touches What-We-Lack.

The girl I took t' singin'-school one night, who vowed she'd never Before walked with a feller 'thout her mother bein' by, I reckon that her temptin' mouth will haunt my dreams forever, The lips I might have tasted if I'd had the nerve t' try!

I recollect another girl, as chipper as a robin, Who rode beside me in a sleigh one night through snow an' sleet, An' both my hands I kept in use a guidin' good ol' Dobbin-- One didn't need them any mor'n a chicken needs four feet.

Too scared was I to hold her in, or warm her cheeks with kisses,-- I know, now, she expected it, for once I heard her sigh-- To-day I'd like t' kick myself for these neglected blisses, The lips I might have tasted if I'd had the nerve t' try.

I never kissed Rebecca, she was sober as a Quaker, I never kissed Alvira, though I took her home one night, That city cousin of the Smiths, a Miss Myrtilla Baker, Though scores of opportunities slipped by me, left an' right.

It makes me hate myself to-day when I on Fancy's ferry Have crossed the current of the years to olden days gone by, T' think of all the lips I've missed, ripe-red as topmost cherry, The lips I might have tasted if I'd had the nerve t' try.