The Bashful Earthquake

Crime, Wickedness, Villany, Vice, And Sin only misery bring; If you want to be Happy and Nice, Be good and all that sort of thing.

The Earthquake rumbled And mumbled And grumbled; And then he bumped, And everything tumbled-- Bumpyty-thump! Thumpyty-bump!-- Houses and palaces all in a lump!

“Oh, what a crash! Oh, what a smash! How could I ever be so rash?” The Earthquake cried. “What under the sun Have I gone and done? I never before was so mortified!” Then away he fled, And groaned as he sped: “This comes of not looking before I tread.”

Out of the city along the road He staggered, as under a heavy load, Growing more weary with every league, Till almost ready to faint with fatigue. He came at last to a country lane Bordering upon a field of grain; And just at the spot where he paused to rest, In a clump of wheat, hung a Dormouse nest.

The sun in the west was sinking red, And the Dormouse had just turned into bed, Dreaming as only a Dormouse can, When all of a sudden his nest began To quiver and shiver and tremble and shake. Something was wrong, and no mistake!

In a minute the Dormouse was wide awake, 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!”