The poem was written by Raymond Browning, principal of the Central Academy of Littleton, North Carolina.
The Poet LaureateA tigress wild named Laurie
Departed from the Zoo;
She wandered through the country;
A poet walked there too.When Laurie was recaptured
Shoe-strings hung on her claws
And ragged strips of breeches
Were trailing from her jaws.The people missed their poet
But 'twas a lucky fate
For he became thereafter
The poet laureate.
The Paratrooper's Lament
I think that I shall never see
This poem was found by a Fort Bragg, North Carolina
librarian on ink-scratched paper in a notebook. The unknown
author never returned to claim it. This poem was printed in
the Raleigh News and Observer, October 9, 1956.
A drop-zone lovely as a tree,
A tree who scans the skies all day,
And lifts her hungry arms to prey,
A tree whose jagged limbs are pressed
Against the jumper's bleeding breast,
A tree who may in summer wear
A mess of troopers in her hair,
Upon whose bosom they have lain
And infinitely screamed with pain.
Jump-pay is drawn by fools like me,
But only God can miss a tree.
The Old Oaken Bucket
With what anguish of mind I remember my childhood
Just think of it! Moss on the vessel that lifted
Oh, had I but realized in time to avoid them
How little I knew of the enteric fever
A copy of this poem was given to me by a friend.
I enjoyed it immensely so I share it here.
This parody was penned by Ambrose Bierce, and it was based on an old song.
Recalled in the light of knowledge since gained,
The malarious farm, the wet, fungus-grown wildwood,
The chills then contracted that since have remained;
The scum-covered duck pond, the pigsty close by it,
The ditch where the sour-smelling house drainage fell,
The damp, shaded dwelling, the foul barnyard nigh it--
But worse than all else was that terrible well,
And the old oaken bucket, the mold-crusted bucket,
That moss-covered bucket that hung in the well.
The water I drank in the days called to mind,
Ere I knew what professors and scientists gifted
In the waters of wells by analysis find;
The rotting wood fiber, the oxide of iron,
The algae, the frog of unusual size,
The water as clear as the verses of Byron,
All things I remember with tears in my eyes.
The dangers that lurked in that pestilent draft,
I'd have tested for organic germs and destroyed them
With potassic permanganate ere I had quaffed.
Or perhcance I'd have boiled it, and afterward strained it
Through filters of charcoal and gravel combined;
Or, after distilling, condensed and regained it
In potable form with its filth left behind.
Which lurked in the water I ventured to drink;
But since I've become a devoted believer
In teachings of science, I shudder to think.
And now, far removed from the scenes I'm describing,
The story of warning to others I tell,
As memory reverts to my youthful imbibing
And I gag at the thought of that horrible well,
And the old oaken bucket, the fungus-grown bucket--
In fact, the slop bucket that hung in the well.
"Gastric" was published in a North Carolina newspaper over the initials "C. T" in the early 1900s. The poem was intended to be funny, and it is -- especially when read aloud. The humor seems to be on more than one level and I think the poet has the last laugh! Unfortunately, after this one noteworthy effort "C. T." seems to have faded into respectability.Gastric
We stood at first before the mast
And watched the colors playing,
Of sunlight through the fog that passed
From wave-heads wildly spraying."We dreamed of this," the ladies cried,
"And when we woke were wishing
On this June morn that we might ride
At sea with you a-fishing!"Our Captain reefed his snowy sail
To aid us in our angling;
And 'long our lines, like coats of mail,
Bright flashed the fishes dangling.As elm-boughs swing in Southern breeze
When boughs with leaves are freighted,
So swayed our craft and crowned the seas
And in the hollows waited.The ladies felt a sinking void
About the solar plexus;
My lassie said, with fun destroyed,
"He reefed the sail to vex us."She laid sad eyes on all the crew;
She rolled them on the water;
Then back on me her eyes she threw--
I wished I had not brought her.(My vial-case was left ashore,
So naught had I to give her;
I would have given my earthly store
To have her on the river.)With troubled breath she sighed and frowned
As wrinkly as the ocean;
'Twas then she prayed for stable ground
Instead of frothy motion.With languid limbs she lay beside
The vessel's kindly railing;
She hid her face, but could not hide
Th' effect of ocean sailing.For gastric muscles 'gan to play--
Like crawfish ran their action--
And breakfast then was thrust away
As by some stronger faction.She rolled her eyes off to the land,
Her beauty all seemed slaughtered;
No charming grace could she command,
Her spirits were so watered.She rose at length, but wilted yet
Was this fair blooming daughter,
Who cast her lot with our gay set--
Her bread upon the water.C. T.
Only rarely have I seen the question of whether it matters if you are alive or dead addressed in such a cheerful manner and with such conviction!How Did You Die?
Did you tackle the trouble that came your way
With a resolute heart and cheerful?
Or hide your face from the light of day
With a craven soul and fearful?
Oh, a trouble's a ton, or a trouble's an ounce,
Or a trouble is what you make it,
And it isn't the fact that you're hurt that counts,
But only how did you take it?You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what's that?
Come up with a smiling face,
It's nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there -- that's disgrace.
The harder you're thrown, why, the higher you bounce;
Be proud of your blackned eye!
It isn't the fact that you're licked that counts;
It's how did you fight -- and why?And though you be done to death, what then?
If you battled the best you could,
If you played your part in the world of men,
Why the Critic will call it good.
Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,
And whether he's slow or spry,
It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts,
But only how did you die?Edmund Vance Cooke
This memorable poem comes from North Carolina c. 1857.Ode to a Ditch
Respectfully Dedicated to the Town Commissioners
Oh, ditch of all ditches,
Death's store-house of riches,
Where wan disease slumbers mid festoons of slime!
Oh dark fetid sewer,
Where death is the brewer
And ail is the liquor he brews all the time!Oh, hot-bed of fever,
That fatal bereaver
Whose fiery breath blights the blossom of life!
Oh, palace of miasm
Whose hall is a chasm
Where pestilence revels and poison is rife!Where, where on the earth,
From the place of Sol's birth
To the couch of his rest in the cloud-curtained West,
Is a ditch full as thou
Of the treasures which now
The phantom king hides in they green oozy breast?When Summer's sun beams,
What glorious steams
From Fever's foul kitchen, the sewer, will rise
Whose fragrance inhaled
Has never yet failed
Sending wicked men--somewhere--good men to the skies.What vapors will creep,
In the night when men sleep
From thy cavernous recesses forth to the air;
And go on their mission
To feed the physician
And treat the dry graveyard to noggins of bier!Oh, trench of all trenches!
Oh, stench of all stenches,
Far worse than the dead quails of Israel and Moses:
To look on thy slough
The lord knows is enough,
But words can't express the emotions of noses!Oh, wonderful sewer,
Each year brings a newer
And ghostlier charm to thy cavernous deeps!
More puppies and cats
To say nothing of rats,
And offal and filth of all manner in heaps.Anonymous
