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 |  |
XXVI
“But now comes Beelzebub's endeavor
To make the battle look like dreamin';
The coot is more than Injun-clever
In every kind of trick an' schemin'.
To make the battle look like dreamin';
The coot is more than Injun-clever
In every kind of trick an' schemin'.
“When mornin' sot the little birdies
A-grindin' on their hurdy-gurdies
I puttered out with pick an' shovel
To lay the witches under gravel.
But everything was changed; the corpses
Were neither fish nor flesh nor porpses.
I couldn't light on wing or gizzard
Of fiend or spook or ghoul or wizard.
Instead of hell-fire salamanders
I found a stack of geese an' ganders;
An' wust of all, my neighbor Moultrie
Presented claims for slaughtered poultry.
Thus Beelzebub, that prince of cheatin',
Contrived to cover up his beatin',
To plunder me of all my laurels
An' cast a slur upon my morals.”
A-grindin' on their hurdy-gurdies
I puttered out with pick an' shovel
To lay the witches under gravel.
But everything was changed; the corpses
Were neither fish nor flesh nor porpses.
I couldn't light on wing or gizzard
Of fiend or spook or ghoul or wizard.
Instead of hell-fire salamanders
I found a stack of geese an' ganders;
An' wust of all, my neighbor Moultrie
Presented claims for slaughtered poultry.
Thus Beelzebub, that prince of cheatin',
Contrived to cover up his beatin',
To plunder me of all my laurels
An' cast a slur upon my morals.”
| The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme | |