The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme The witch of Shiloh, the last of the Wampanoags, the gentle earl, the enchanted voyage |
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 | The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme |  |
VII
“It was the daintiest of brushes,”
Our Yankee Caesar calmly writes,
“An' what with double teeth an' tushes
I got a fisher's luck of bites.
The stunted trash begun the flurry,
As leetle chaps are apt to dew;
They scaled around me hurry-scurry
With every kind of spit an' mew.
They stung an' pizened like muskeeters
Until I fairly danced with pain,
An' rubbed me with their bristly feeturs,
An' allays rubbed agin the grain.
But, what was specially disgustin',
They'd skip atop of me an' crow
To make believe that I was bustin'
An' hadn't many steps to go.
But all the same, I kep' a-whirlin'
My hefty sabre 'round my head,
An' sent at least a hundred skirlin',
An' left a hundred more for dead.
Our Yankee Caesar calmly writes,
“An' what with double teeth an' tushes
I got a fisher's luck of bites.
The stunted trash begun the flurry,
As leetle chaps are apt to dew;
They scaled around me hurry-scurry
With every kind of spit an' mew.
They stung an' pizened like muskeeters
Until I fairly danced with pain,
An' rubbed me with their bristly feeturs,
An' allays rubbed agin the grain.
But, what was specially disgustin',
They'd skip atop of me an' crow
To make believe that I was bustin'
An' hadn't many steps to go.
But all the same, I kep' a-whirlin'
My hefty sabre 'round my head,
126
An' left a hundred more for dead.
“At last I druv the pigmy passel
To scatter out an' fly like chaff;
An' then begun the serious wrastle
With Beelzebub an' puss'nal staff.
The first I tackled was a dragon,
A dozen yards from snoot to tail,
With eyes a chap could hang a flag on,
An' pinions like a lugger's sail.
But when I punched the bloated critter
I found him nawthin' but a skin;
He wasn't even stuffed with litter,
An' vanished when I punched agin.
That raised my grit; I recollected
That Satan flies the spunky saint;
An' so I purty soon dissected
Another dragon's gilt an' paint.
To scatter out an' fly like chaff;
An' then begun the serious wrastle
With Beelzebub an' puss'nal staff.
The first I tackled was a dragon,
A dozen yards from snoot to tail,
With eyes a chap could hang a flag on,
An' pinions like a lugger's sail.
But when I punched the bloated critter
I found him nawthin' but a skin;
He wasn't even stuffed with litter,
An' vanished when I punched agin.
That raised my grit; I recollected
That Satan flies the spunky saint;
An' so I purty soon dissected
Another dragon's gilt an' paint.
| The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme | |