At Variance

When with me the play she goes,
I much admire the buds and bows
And all that on Kate’s headgear grows.
But when some other night I see
That hat between the stage and me,
My taste and Kate’s do not agree.

by Ellis Parker Butler

A Minute

She plucked a blossom fair to see;
Upon my coat I let her pin it;
And thus we stood beneath the tree
A minute.
She turned her smiling face to me;
I saw a roguish sweetness in it;
I kissed her once;—it took, maybe,
A minute.
The time was paltry, you’ll agree;
It took but little to begin it;
But since my heart has not been free
A minute.

by Ellis Parker Butler

A Scotchman Whose Name Was Isbister

A Scotchman whose name was Isbister
Had a maiden giraffe he called “sister”
When she said “Oh, be mine,
Be my sweet Valentine!”
He just shinned up her long neck and kissed her.

by Ellis Parker Butler

A Satisfactory Reform

A merry burgomaster
In a burgh upon the Rhine
Said, “Our burghers all are
Far too fond of drinking wine.”
So the merry burgomaster,
When the burgomasters met,
Bade them look into the matter
Ere the thing went farther yet.
And the merry burgomasters
Did decide the only way
To alleviate the evil
Without worry or delay
Would be just to call a meeting
Of the burghers, great and small,
And then open every wine cask
And proceed to drink it all.
“For,” they said, “when we have swallowed
Every drop that’s in the land,
There can be no more of drinking,
It is plain to understand.”
So they called a monster meeting,
And the burghers, small and great,
Drank and drank until they were too
Tipsy to perambulate.
But there still was wine in plenty,
So, in sooth, the only way
Was to call another meeting;
So they called it for next day.
Thus from day to day the burghers
Met and swallowed seas of wine,
And they vowed the reformation
Was a mission quite divine.
And today the worthy burghers
In that burgh upon the Rhine
Still continue their great mission,
And still swallow seas of wine.
And they vow they will not falter
In their great reforming task
Till the last drop has been emptied
From the very last wine cask.

by Ellis Parker Butler

A St Valentine’s Day Tragedy

Oh! Montmorency Vere de Vere,
To think that one I held so dear
Should use a base deceiver’s art
To trifle with my loving heart.
A brand new ten-cent valentine
With lace and hearts and verses fine,
I sent to show my love for thee
And in return you send to me
The one I sent to you last year,
Oh! Montmorency Vere de Vere.

by Ellis Parker Butler

A Study In Feeling

To be a great musician you must be a man of moods,
You have to be, to understand sonatas and etudes.
To execute pianos and to fiddle with success,
With sympathy and feeling you must fairly effervesce;
It was so with Paganini, Remenzi and Cho-pang,
And so it was with Peterkin Von Gabriel O’Lang.
Monsieur O’Lang had sympathy to such a great degree.
No virtuoso ever lived was quite so great as he;
He was either very happy or very, very sad;
He was always feeling heavenly or oppositely bad;
In fact, so sympathetic that he either must enthuse
Or have the dumps; feel ecstacy or flounder in the blues.
So all agreed that Peterkin Von Gabriel O’Lang
Was the greatest violinist in the virtuoso gang.
The ladies bought his photographs and put them on the shelves
In the place of greatest honor, right beside those of themselves;
They gladly gave ten dollars for a stiff backed parquette chair.
And sat in mouth-wide happiness a-looking at his hair.
I say “a looking at his hair,” I mean just what I say,
For no one ever had a chance to hear P. O’Lang play;
So subtle was his sympathy, so highly strung was he,
His moods were barometric to the very last degree;
The slightest change of weather would react upon his brain,
And fill his soul with joyousness or murder it with pain.
And when his soul was troubled he had not the heart to play.
But let his head droop sadly down in such a soulful way,
That every one that saw him declared it was worth twice
(And some there were said three times) the large admission price;
And all were quite unanimous and said it would be crude
For such a man to fiddle when he wasn’t in the mood.
But when his soul was filled with joy he tossed his flowing hair
And waved his violin-bow in great circles in the air;
Ecstaticly he flourished it, for so his spirit thrilled,
Thus only could he show the joy with which his heart was filled;
And so he waved it up and down and ’round and out and in,—
But he never, never, NEVER touched it to his violin!

by Ellis Parker Butler

An Old-Fashioned Garden

Strange, is it not? She was making her garden,
Planting the old-fashioned flowers that day—
Bleeding-hearts tender and bachelors-buttons—
Spreading the seeds in the old-fashioned way.
Just in the old fashioned way, too, our quarrel
Grew until, angrily, she set me free—
Planting, indeed, bleeding hearts for the two of us,—
Ordaining bachelor’s buttons for me.
Envoi
Strange, was it not? But seeds planted in anger
Sour in the earth and, ere long, a decay
Withered the bleeding hearts, blighted the buttons,
And—we were wed—in the old-fashioned way.

by Ellis Parker Butler

Anticipation

I hold her letter as I stand,
Nor break the seal; no need to guess
What dainty little female hand
Penned this most delicate address.
The scented seal—I break it not,
But stand in stormy revery;
I tremble as I wonder what
She who penned this will say to me.
I wonder what my wife will say
If so it be she e’er shall know
I only mailed her note today—
It should have gone two weeks ago!

by Ellis Parker Butler