| |
| PEOPLE do n’t commonly discern | |
| The difference ’twixt POETRY and RHYME: | |
| The former can be made to thrill and burn, | |
| By master geniuses—and yet | |
| No two words shall together chime. | 5 |
| E’en Prose, so called, may be po-et- | |
| I-cal, and ring upon the ear | |
| Harmoniously, without a grain of jingle; | |
| While Rhyme, all sound, with oftentimes | |
| No symptom of idea, | 10 |
| Clinking, like handfuls of new dimes, | |
| Causes one’s very brain to tingle. | |
| |
| Some folks, new words will manufacture, | |
| That have no sense nor meaning:— | |
| They would denominate a crack a cracture, | 15 |
| Or, to make rhyme, call obloquy obscening! | |
| |
| The name of my French friend, Piemont, | |
| (A name that ’s smooth enough in song,) | |
| Has often been distorted into Pie-mont— | |
| A hill of pies!—just to make rhyme on’t! | 20 |
| |
| This brings me to the tale that I was going | |
| To tell, of Toby Grizzle, a rough clown | |
| Who grew up in the country—for in town | |
| The folks are polish’d, and extremely knowing. | |
| |
| Toby had never seen great towns and cities, | 25 |
| Where houses grow together by the acre; | |
| To die then, and see only what his Maker | |
| Had done in lands, and woods, and cattle— | |
| Thought Toby, “‘twere a thousand pities; | |
| So, down to Boston, in my cart I ’ll rattle.” | 30 |
| |
| So down he went, | |
| And turn’d up at the Indian Queen; | |
| Amazement and astonishment— | |
| At what he saw, | |
| And what was to be seen, | 35 |
| Hung heavily upon his under-jaw. | |
| This made him hungry, and he bought | |
| A yard of gingerbread to stay his yearnings, | |
| And after various crooks and turnings | |
| He got into the parlor, as he thought; | 40 |
| But, reader, ’t was the kitchen— | |
| So droll was everything—and so bewitching. | |
| |
| The cook, of his poetic powers was boasting; | |
| Betwixt whom and the scullion there arose | |
| A disputation, whether rhyme or prose | 45 |
| Most clear ideas convey’d— | |
| |
| —Beef was there roasting | |
| By dint of a huge jack—custom antique! | |
| “Now,” quoth the cook, “I ’ll speak | |
| In verse to this fat lout, and ascertain | 50 |
| Whether my rhymes be not, to all men, plain.” | |
| |
| Says he to Toby, “May I be so bold | |
| As to inquire how many hours have roll’d | |
| Since you into these regions stroll’d?” | |
| Quoth Toby, casting up his eager looks | 55 |
| To where the giddy jack-wheel whirl’d— | |
| “Odsbludikins, and snaggers! rat it, and adzooks! | |
| Your clock goes faster than aunt Katy’s; | |
| And I ’ll be skinn’d and darn’d, for all the world, | |
| If I can see to tell what time o’ day ’t is.” | 60 |
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