Black Beetles in Amber - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 149

CALIFORNIAN SUMMER PICTURES

THE FOOT-HILL RESORT

Assembled in the parlor Of the place of last resort,The smiler and the snarler And the guests of every sort— The elocution chap With rhetoric on tap; The mimic and the funny dog; The social sponge; the money-hog; Vulgarian and dude; And the prude; The adiposing dame With pimply face aflame; The kitten-playful virgin— Vergin' on to fifty years; The solemn-looking sturgeon Of a firm of auctioneers; The widower flirtatious; The widow all too gracious;The man with a proboscis and a sepulcher beneath.One assassin picks the banjo, and another picks his teeth.

AT ANCHOR

The soft asphaltum in the sun;Betrays a tendency to run;Whereas the dog that takes his wayAcross its course concludes to stay.

THE IN-COMING CLIMATE

Now o' nights the ocean breeze Makes the patient flinch,For that zephyr bears a sneeze In every cubic inch.Lo! the lively populationChorusing in sternutationA catarrhal acclamation!

A LONG-FELT WANT

Dimly apparent, through the gloomOf Market-street's opaque simoom,A queue of people, parti-sexed,Awaiting the command of "Next!"A sidewalk booth, a dingy sign:"Teeth dusted nice—five cents a shine."

TO THE HAPPY HUNTING GROUNDS

Wide windy reaches of high stubble field;A long gray road, bordered with dusty pines;A wagon moving in a "cloud by day."Two city sportsmen with a dove between,Breast-high upon a fence and fast asleep—A solitary dove, the only doveIn twenty counties, and it sick, or elseIt were not there. Two guns that fire as one,With thunder simultaneous and loud;Two shattered human wrecks of blood and bone!And later, in the gloaming, comes a man—The worthy local coroner is he,Renowned all thereabout, and popularWith many a remain. All tenderlyCompiling in a game-bag the débris,He glides into the gloom and fades from sight.The dove, cured of its ailment by the shock,Has flown, meantime, on pinions strong and fleet,To die of age in some far foreign land.