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Home  »  The World’s Wit and Humor  »  My Familiar

The World’s Wit and Humor: An Encyclopedia in 15 Volumes. 1906.

John Godfrey Saxe (1816–1887)

My Familiar

AGAIN I hear that creaking step—

He’s rapping at the door!—

Too well I know the boding sound

That ushers in a bore.

I do not tremble when I meet

The stoutest of my foes,

But Heaven defend me from the friend

Who comes—but never goes!

He drops into my easy chair,

And asks about the news;

He peers into my manuscript,

And gives his candid views;

He tells me where he likes the line,

And where he’s forced to grieve;

He takes the strangest liberties—

But never takes his leave!

He reads my daily paper through

Before I’ve seen a word;

He scans the lyric that I wrote

And thinks it quite absurd;

He calmly smokes my last cigar,

And coolly asks for more;

He opens everything he sees—

Except the entry door!

He talks about his fragile health,

And tells me of his pains;

He suffers from a score of ills

Of which he ne’er complains;

And how he struggled once with death

To keep the fiend at bay;

On themes like those away he goes—

But never goes away!

He tells me of the carping words

Some shallow critic wrote;

And every precious paragraph

Familiarly can quote;

He thinks the writer did me wrong;

He’d like to run him through!

He says a thousand pleasant things—

But never says “Adieu!”

Whene’er he comes—that dreadful man—

Disguise it as I may,

I know that, like an autumn rain,

He’ll last throughout the day.

In vain I speak of urgent tasks;

In vain I scowl and pout;

A frown is no extinguisher—

It does not put him out!

I mean to take the knocker off,

Put crape upon the door,

Or hint to John that I am gone

To stay a month or more.

I do not tremble when I meet

The stoutest of my foes,

But Heaven defend me from the friend

Who never, never goes!