A Gotham Garden of Verses

I

In summer when the days are hot
The subway is delayed a lot;
In winter, quite the selfsame thing;
In autumn also, and in spring.

And does it not seem strange to you
That transportation is askew
In this--I pray, restrain your mirth!--
In this, the Greatest Town on Earth?

II

All night long and every night
The neighbors dance for my delight;
I hear the people dance and sing
Like practically anything.

Women and men and girls and boys,

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poem by Franklin P. Adams
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If the Advertising Man Had Been Gilbert

Never mind the slippery wet street--
The tire with a thousand claws will hold you.
Stop as quickly as you will--
Those thousand claws grip the road like a vise.
Turn as sharply as you will--
Those thousand claws take a steel-prong grip on the road to prevent a side skid.
You're safe--safer than anything else will make you--
Safe as you would be on a perfectly dry street.
And those thousand claws are mileage insurance too.

--From the Lancaster Tire and Rubber Company's advertisement in the Saturday Evening Post

Never mind if you find it wet upon the street and slippery;
Never bother if the street is full of ooze;
Do not fret that you'll upset, that you will spoil your summer frippery,
You may turn about as sharply as you choose.
For those myriad claws will grip the road and keep the car from skidding,
And your steering gear will hold it fast and true;
Every atom of the car will be responsive to your bidding,
AND those thousand claws are mileage insurance too--

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poem by Franklin P. Adams
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To a Vers Librist

"Oh bard," I said, "your verse is free;
The shackles that encumber me,
The fetters that are my obsession,
Are never gyves to your expression.

"The fear of falsities in rhyme,
In metre, quantity, or time,
Is never yours; you sing along
Your unpremeditated song."

"Correct," the young vers librist said.
"Whatever pops into my head
I write, and have but one small fetter:
I start each line with a capital letter.

"But rhyme and metre--Ishkebibble!--
Are actually negligible.
I go ahead, like all my school,
Without a single silly rule."

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poem by Franklin P. Adams
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The Higher Education

(Harvard's prestige in football is a leading factor. The best players in the leading preparatory schools prefer to study at Cambridge, where they can earn fame on the gridiron. They do not care to be identified with Yale and Princeton.--JOE VILA in the Evening Sun.)

"Father," began the growing youth,
"Your pleading finds me deaf;
Although I know you speak the truth
About the course at Shef.
But think you that I have no pride,
To follow such a trail?
I cannot be identified
With Princeton or with Yale."

"Father," began another lad,
Emerging from his prep;
"I know you are a Princeton grad,
But the coaches have no pep.
But though the Princeton profs provide
Fine courses to inhale;
I cannot be identified
With Princeton or with Yale."

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poem by Franklin P. Adams
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A Plea

Writers of baseball, attention!
When you're again on the job-
When, in your rage for invention,
You with the language play hob-
Most of your dope we will pardon,
Though of the moth ball it smack;
But-cut out the 'sinister garden,'
Chop the 'initial sack.'

Rake poor old Roget's 'Thesaurus'
For phrases fantastic and queer;
And though on occasions you bore us,
We will refrain from a sneer.
We will endeavour to harden
Ourselves to the rest of your clack,
If you'll cut out the 'sinister garden'
And chop the 'initial sack.'

Singers of words that are scrambled,
Say, if you will, that he 'died,'

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poem by Franklin P. Adams
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Bedbooks

(There is said to be a steady demand for 'bedbooks'
in England. There are readers who find in Gibbon a
sedative for tired nerves; there are others who enjoy
Trollope's quiet humour. Some people find in Henry
James's tangled syntax the restful diversion they seek,
and others enjoy Mr. Howells's unexciting realism.
-_The Sun_.)

How sleep the brave who sink to rest,
Lulled by the waves of dreamy diction,
Like that appearing in the best
Of modern fiction!

When sleeplessness the Briton claims,
And hits him with her wakeful wallop,
He goes to Gibbon or to James,
Or maybe Trollope.

No paltry limit, such as those
The craving-slumber Yankee curses-

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poem by Franklin P. Adams
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Results Ridiculous

("Humourists have amused themselves by translating famous sonnets into free verse. A result no less ridiculous would have been obtained if somebody had re-written a passage from 'Paradise Lost' as a rondeau." --George Soule in the New Republic)

"PARADISE LOST"

Sing, Heavenly Muse, in lines that flow
More smoothly than the wandering Po,
Of man's descending from the height
Of Heaven itself, the blue, the bright,
To Hell's unutterable throe.

Of sin original and the woe
That fell upon us here below
From man's pomonic primal bite--
Sing, Heavenly Muse!

Of summer sun, of winter snow, Of future days, of long ago,
Of morning and "the shades of night,"
Of woman, "my ever new delight,"
Go to it, Muse, and put us Joe--
Sing, Heavenly Muse!

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poem by Franklin P. Adams
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Ballade Of The Hardy Annual

Many a jest that refuses to die
Bobs up again as the seasons appear;
Deathless it hits us again in the eye-
Changeless and dull as the calendar year.
Musty and mouldy and yellow and sere,
Stronger, withal, than the sturdiest oak;
Ancient and solemn and deadly and drear-
Down with the grandmother-funeral joke!

Soon as the snow has forgotten to fly,
All through the day of the 'leathery sphere,'
Jokelets and pictures and verses we spy
All on the theme of the grandmother dear.
Bonnets, umbrellas, and buckets of beer
Please us and tickle us quite to the choke.
But-on this matter our attitude's clear-
Down with the grandmother-funeral joke!

Giggle we can at a blueberry pie;
Scream at a comedy king or ameer;

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poem by Franklin P. Adams
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A Psalm of Labouring Life

Tell me not, in doctored numbers,
Life is but a name for work!
For the labour that encumbers
Me I wish that I could shirk.

Life is phony! Life is rotten!
And the wealthy have no soul;
Why should you be picking cotton,
Why should I be mining coal?

Not employment and not sorrow
Is my destined end or way;
But to act that each tomorrow
Finds me idler than today.

Work is long, and plutes are lunching;
Money is the thing I crave;
But my heart continues punching
Funeral time-clocks to the grave.

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poem by Franklin P. Adams
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Ballade Of The Breakfast Table

When the Festal Board, as the papers say,
Groans 'neath the weight of a lot to eat,
At breakfast, Fruhstuck or dejeuner,
(As a bard tri-lingual I'm rather neat)
At breakfast, then, if I may repeat,
This is what gets me into a huff,
This is a query I cannot beat:
Why don't they ever have spoons enough?

I've broken my fast with the grave and gay,
With hoi polloi and with the elite;
I've been all over the U. S. A.
From Dorchester Crossing to Kearney Street.
But aye when I sit in the morning seat
Comes to my notice the self-same bluff,
Plenty of food, but in this they cheat:
Why don't they ever have spoons enough?

Take it at breakfast, only to-day:
This was the layout, fresh and sweet:

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poem by Franklin P. Adams
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