Chapter I: Front Matter

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.
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._

CONTENTS

Us Poets Rubber-Stamp Humour The Simple Stuff "Carpe Diem" or Cop The Day That for Money! Xanthias Jollied Horace the Wise Jealousy To Be Quite Frank R. S. V. P. Advice When Horace "Came Back" Nix on the Fluffy Stuff Catullus, Considerable Kisser V. Catullus Explains The Rich Man To-night Those Two Boys Help! The Passionate Householder to His Love The Servants Our Dum'd Animals A Soft Susurrus A Summer Summary A Quatrain To a Light Housekeeper How? Ballade of the Breakfast Table Ornithology To Alice-Sit-By-the-Hour To Alice-Sit-By-the-Hour (Second Idyl) Notions My Ladye's Eyen To a Lady "A Perfect Woman Nobly Planned" An Ultimatum to Myrtilla Love Gustatory She Is Not Fair To Myrtilla, Again Myrtilla's Third Degree To Myrtilla Complaining Christmas Cards - To the Grocery Boy To the Janitor To the Waiter To the Apartment House Telephone Girl To the Barber To the Hall and Elevator Boy Ballade of a Hardy Annual A Plea Footlight Motifs--Mrs. Fiske Footlight Motifs--Olga Nethersole Ballade of the Average Reader Poesy's Guerdon Signal Service Sporadic Fiction Popular Ballad; "Never Forget Your Parents" Ballade to a Lady (To Annabelle) To a Thesaurus The Ancient Lays Erring in Company The Limit Chorus for Mixed Voices 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;
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 Shelley;
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 prone 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 gods 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. SALLUSTIUM CRISPUM

Horace: Book II, Ode 2

_"Nellus argento color est avaris."_

Sallust, I know you of old, How you hate the sight of gold-- "Idle ingots that encumber Mother Earth"--I've got your number.

Why is Proculeius known From Elmira to Malone? For his money? Don't upset me! For his love of folks--you get me?

Choke the Rockefeller yen For the clink of iron men! Happiness it will not mint us, Take it from your Uncle Quintus.

Fancy food and wealthy drink Raise Gehenna with a gink; Pastry, terrapin, and cheeses Bring on gout and swell diseases.

Phraates upon the throne Old King Cyrus used to own Fails to hoodwink or deceive me, Cyrus was some king, believe me!

Get me right: a man's-size prince Knows that money is a quince. When they see the Yellow Taffy, Reg'lar Princes don't go daffy.

Xanthias Jollied

AD XANTHIAM PHOCEUM

Horace: Book II, Ode 4.

_"Ne sit ancillae tibi amor pudori."_

Nay, Xanthias, feel unashamed
That she you love is but a servant.
Remember, lovers far more famed
Were just as fervent.

Achilles loved the pretty slave
Briseis for her fair complexion;
And to Tecmessa Ajax gave
His young affection.

Why, Agamemnon at the height
Of feasting, triumph, and anointment,
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.

Her arms and face I can commend,
And, as the writer of a poem,
I fain would compliment, old friend,
The limbs below 'em.

Nay, be not jealous. Stop your fears.
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! how his fancy for you will diminish!
I know, for I'm Jonathan Hep.

Jealousy

AD LYDIAM

Horace: 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?

What mean those marks upon thee, girl? Those prints of brutal osculation? Great grief! that lowlife and that churl! That Telephus abomination! Can him, O votary of Venus, Else everything is off between us.

O triply beatific those Whose state is classified as married, Untroubled by the green-eyed woes, By such upheavals never harried. 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.

Your daughter, with propriety, May look for male society, Do one thing and another In which mother Shouldn't mix; But revels Bacchanalian Are--or should be--quite alien To you a married person, Something worse'n Forty-six!

Yes, Chloris, you cut up too much,
You love the dance and cup too much,
Your years are quickly flitting--
To your knitting,
Right about!
Forget the incidental things
That keep you from parental things--
The World, the Flesh, the Devil,
On the level,
Cut 'em out!

R.S.V.P.

AD PHYLLIDEM

Horace: Book IV Ode II

"_Est mihi nonum superantis annum_"

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. Well, I'll tell you why. It's Maecenas' birthday 13th of April.

Telephus? Oh, tush! Pass him up completely! Telly's such a swell; Telly doesn't love you; Telly is a trifler; Telly's running round with Some other fairy.

Phyllie, don't mismate; those that do regret it. Phaeton--you know his unhappy story; Poor Bellerophon, too, you must remember, Pegasus shook him.

If these few remarks, rather aptly chosen, Make a hit with you, come, don't make me jealous. Let me sing you songs of my own composing, Oh, come on over!

Advice

AD ARIUSTUM FUSCUM

I

Horace: Book I, Ode 22.

"_Integer vitae sclerisque purus_"--

_Take it from me: A guy who's square,
His chances always are the best.
I'm in the know, for I've been there,
And that's no ancient Roman jest._

What time he hits the hay to rest
There's nothing on his mind but hair,
No javelin upon his chest--
_Take it from me, a guy who's square._

There's nothing that can throw a scare
Into the contents of his vest;
His name is Eva I-Don't-Care;
_His chances always are the best._

Why, once, when I was way out West,
Singing to Lalage, a bear
Came up, and I was some distressed--
_I'm in the know, for I've been there._

But back he went into his lair,
(Cage, corner, den, retreat, nook, nest),
And left me to "The Maiden's Prayer"--
_And that's no ancient Roman jest._

In Newtonville or Cedar Crest,
In Cincinnati or Eau Claire,
I'll warble till I am a pest,
"My Lalage"--no matter where--
_Take it from me!_

II

Fuscus, my friend, take it from me--
I know the world and what it's made of--
One on the square has naught to be
Afraid of.

The Moorish bows and javelins? Nope.
Such deadly things need not alarm him.
Why, even arrows dipped in dope
Can't harm him!

He's safe in any clime or land,
Desert or river, hill or valley;
Safe in all places on the Rand-
McNally.

Why, one day in my Sabine grot,
I sang for Lalage to hear me;
A wolf came in and he did not
Come near me!

Ah, set me on the sunless plain, In China, Norway, or Matanzas, Ay, place me anywhere from Maine To Kansas.

Still of my Lalage I'll sing, Where'er the Fates may chance to drop me; And nobody nor anything Shall stop me.

When Horace "Came Back"

CARMEN AMOEBAEUM