Mother Goose for Grown-ups. Carryl Guy Wetmore

      She was one of those creatures

      Whose features

      Are hard beyond any reclaim;

      And she loved in a hovel

      To grovel,

      And she hadn't a cent to her name.

      She owned neither gallants

      Nor talents;

      She borrowed extensively, too,

      From all of her dozens

      Of cousins,

      And never refunded a sou:

      Yet all they said in abuse of her

      Was: "She is prouder than Lucifer!"

      (That, I must say, without meaning to blame,

      Is always the way with that kind of a dame!)

      There never was jolli-

      Er colley

      Than Old Mother Hubbard had found,

      Though cheaply she bought him,

      She'd taught him

      To follow her meekly around:

      But though she would lick him

      And kick him,

      It never had any effect;

      He always was howling

      And growling,

      But goodness! What could you expect?

      Colleys were never to flourish meant

      'Less they had plenty of nourishment,

      All that he had were the feathers she'd pluck

      Off an occasional chicken or duck.

      The colley was barred in

      The garden,

      He howled and he wailed and he whined.

      The neighbors indignant,

      Malignant

      Petitions unanimous signed.

      "The nuisance grows nightly,"

      Politely

      They wrote. "It's an odious hound,

      And either you'll fill him,

      Or kill him,

      Or else he must go to the pound.

      For if this howling infernally

      Is to continue nocturnally —

      Pardon us, ma'am, if we seem to be curt —

      Somebody's apt to get horribly hurt!"

      Mother Hubbard cried loudly

      And proudly:

      "Lands sakes! but you give yourselves airs!

      I'll take the law to you

      And sue you."

      The neighbors responded: "Who cares?

      We none of us care if

      The sheriff

      Lock every man jack of us up;

      We won't be repining

      At fining

      So long as we're rid of the pup!"

      They then proceeded to mount a sign,

      Bearing this ominous countersign:

      "Freemen! The moment has come to protest

      And Old Mother Hubbard delendum est!"

      They marched to her gateway,

      And straightway

      They trampled all over her lawn;

      Most rudely they harried

      And carried

      Her round on a rail until dawn.

      They marred her, and jarred her,

      And tarred her

      And feathered her, just as they should,

      Of speech they bereft her,

      And left her

      With: "Now do you think you'll be good!"

      The moral's a charmingly pleasing one.

      While we would deprecate teasing one,

      Still, when a dame has politeness rebuffed,

      She certainly ought to be collared and cuffed.

      A knack almost incredible for dealing with an edible

      Jack Horner's elder sister was acknowledged to display;

      She labored hard and zealously, but always guarded jealously

      The secrets of the dishes she invented every day.

      She'd take some indigestible, unpopular comestible,

      And to its better nature would so tenderly appeal

      That Jack invoked a benison upon a haunch of venison,

      When really she was serving him a little leg of veal!

      Jack said she was a miracle. The word was not satirical,

      For daily climbing upward, she excelled herself at last:

      The acme of facility, the zenith of ability

      Was what she gave her brother for his Christmas Day repast.

      He dined that evening eagerly and anything but meagerly,

      And when he'd had his salad and his quart of Extra Dry,

      With sisterly benignity, and just a touch of dignity,

      She placed upon the table an unutterable pie!

      Unflagging pertinacity, and technical sagacity,

      Long nights of sleepless vigil, and long days of constant care

      Had been involved in making it, improving it, and baking it,

      Until of other pies it was the wonder and despair:

      So princely and so prominent, so solemn, so predominant

      It looked upon the table, that, with fascinated eye,

      The youth, with sudden wonder struck, electrified, and thunder struck,

      Could only stammer stupidly: "Oh Golly! What a pie!"

      In view of his satiety, it almost seemed impiety

      To carve this crowning triumph of a culinary life,

      But, braced by his avidity, with sudden intrepidity

      He broke its dome imposing with a common kitchen knife.

      Ah, hideous fatality! for when with eager palate he

      Commenced to eat, he happened on an accident uncouth,

      And cried with stifled moan: "Of it one plum I tried. The stone of it

      Had never been extracted, and I've broke a wisdom tooth!"

      Jack's sister wept effusively, but loudly and abusively

      His unreserved opinion of her talents he proclaimed;

      He called her names like "driveller" and "simpleton" and "sniveller,"

      And others, which to mention I am really too ashamed.

      The moral: It is saddening, embarrassing, and maddening

      A stone to strike in what you thought was paste. One thing alone

      Than this mischance is crueller, and that is for a jeweller

      To strike but paste in what he fondly thought to be a stone.