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Wit and Humor of America, The Vol 06

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<h2>A SPRING FEELING</h2> <h3>BY BLISS CARMAN</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> 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. </div> <div class="stanza"> I am too winter-killed to live, Cold-sour through and through. O Heavenly Barber, come and give My soul a dry shampoo! </div> <div class="stanza"> I'm sick of all these nincompoops, Who weep through yards of verse, And all these sonneteering dupes Who whine and froth and curse. </div> <div class="stanza"> 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. </div> <div class="stanza"> 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. </div> <div class="stanza"> When good Napoleon's publisher Was dangled from a limb, He should have had an editor On either side of him. </div> <div class="stanza"> I'm sick of all this taking on Under a foreign name; For when you call it decadent, It's rotten just the same. </div> <div class="stanza"> I'm sick of all this puling trash And namby-pamby rot,— A Pegasus you have to thrash To make him even trot! </div> <div class="stanza"> An Age-end Art! I would not give, For all their plotless plays, One round Flagstaffian adjective Or one Miltonic phrase. </div> <div class="stanza"> I'm sick of all this poppycock In bilious green and blue; I'm tired to death of taking stock Of everything that's "New." </div> <div class="stanza"> 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. </div> <div class="stanza"> 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! </div> <div class="stanza"> She makes me wish I were the snake Inside of Eden's wall, To give the tree another shake, And see another fall. </div> <div class="stanza"> I'm very much of Byron's mind; I like sufficiency; But just the common garden kind Is good enough for me. </div> <div class="stanza"> 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, </div> <div class="stanza"> 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 damned. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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