The Bashful Earthquake, & Other Fables and Verses — Story, Setting & Ideas

And, putting his head outside his nest, Cried: “WHO IS IT DARES DISTURB MY REST?”

His voice with rage was a husky squeak. The Earthquake by now had become so weak He’d scarcely strength enough to speak. He even forgot the rules of grammar; All he could do was to feebly stammer: “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid it’s me. Please don’t be angry. I’ll try to be--”

No one will know what he meant to say, For all at once he melted away.

The Dormouse, grumbling, went back to bed, “Oh, bother the Bats!” was all he said.

A scarecrow in a field of corn, A thing of tatters all forlorn, Once felt the influence of Spring And fell in love--a foolish thing, And most particularly so In his case--_for he loved a crow_!

“Alack-a-day! it’s wrong, I know, It’s wrong for me to love a crow; An all-wise man created me To scare the crows away,” cried he; “And though the music of her ‘Caw’ Thrills through and through this heart of straw,

“My passion I must put away And do my duty, come what may! Yet oh, the cruelty of fate! I fear she doth reciprocate My love, for oft at dusk I hear Her in my cornfield hovering near.

“And once I dreamt--oh, vision blest! That she alighted on my breast. ’T is very, very hard, I know, But all-wise man decreed it so.” He cried and flung his arm in air, The very picture of despair.

Poor Scarecrow, if he could but know! Even now his lady-love, the Crow, Sits in a branch, just out of sight, With her good husband, waiting night, To pluck from out his sleeping breast His heart of straw to line her nest.

The politest musician that ever was seen Was Montague Meyerbeer Mendelssohn Green. So extremely polite he would take off his hat Whenever he happened to meet with a cat.

“It’s not that I’m partial to cats,” he’d explain; “Their music to me is unspeakable pain. There’s nothing that causes my flesh so to crawl As when they perform a G-flat caterwaul.

Yet I cannot help feeling--in spite of their din-- When I hear at a concert the first violin Interpret some exquisite thing of my own, If it were not for _cat gut_ I’d never be known.

And so, when I bow as you see to a cat, It is n’t to _her_ that I take off my hat; But to fugues and sonatas that possibly hide Uncomposed in her--well--in her tuneful inside!”

_Gather Kittens while you may, Time brings only Sorrow; And the Kittens of To-day Will be Old Cats To-morrow._

I saw, one day, when times were very good, A newly rich man walking in a wood, Who chanced to meet, all hungry, lean, and sore, The wolf that used to sit outside his door. Forlorn he was, and piteous his plaint. “Help me!” he howled. “With hunger I am faint. It is so long since I have seen a door-- And you are rich, and you have many score. When you’d but one, I sat by it all day; Now you have many, I am turned away. Help me, good sir, once more to find a place. Prosperity now stares me in the face.” The newly rich man, jingling all the while The silver in his pocket, smiled a smile: He saw a way the wolf could be of use.

“Good wolf,” said he, “you’re going to the deuce,-- The dogs, I mean,--and that will never do; I think I’ve found a way to see you through. I too have worries. Ever since I met Prosperity I have been sore beset By begging letters, charities, and cranks, All very short in gold and long in thanks. Now, if you’ll come and sit by my front door From eight o’clock each morning, say, till four, Then every one will think that I am poor, And from their pesterings I’ll be secure. Do you accept?” The wolf exclaimed, “I do!” The rich man smiled; the wolf smiled; _I_ smiled, too, And in my little book made haste to scrawl: “Thus affluence makes niggards of us all!”

One day a Poppy, just in play, Said to a butterfly, “Go ’way, Go ’way, you naughty thing! Oh, my! But you’re a bold bad butterfly!”

Of course ’t was only said in fun, He was a perfect paragon-- In every way a spotless thing (Save for two spots upon his wing).