Read Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor, Volume II Page 22

  THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT

  Behold the mansion reared by dedal Jack.

  See the malt stored in many a plethoric sack, In the proud cirque of Ivan's bivouac.

  Mark how the rat's felonious fangs invade The golden stores in John's pavilion laid.

  Anon with velvet foot and Tarquin strides Subtle grimalkin to his quarry glides-- Grimalkin grim that slew the fierce rodent Whose tooth insidious Johann's sackcloth rent.

  Lo! now the deep-mouthed canine foe's assault, That vexed the avenger of the stolen malt, Stored in the hallowed precincts of that hall That rose complete at Jack's creative call.

  Here stalks the impetuous cow with crumpled horn Whereon the exacerbating hound was torn. Who bayed the feline slaughter-beast that slew The rat predacious, whose keen fangs ran through The textile fibers that involved the grain Which lay in Hans's inviolate domain.

  Here walks forlorn the damsel crowned with rue, Lactiferous spoils from vaccine drugs who drew Of that corniculate beast whose tortuous horn Tossed to the clouds in fierce vindictive scorn The harrowing hound whose braggart bark and stir Arched the lithe spine and reared the indignant fur Of puss, that with verminicidal claw Struck the weird rat in whose insatiate maw Lay reeking malt that erst in Juan's courts we saw.

  Robed in senescent garb that seems in sooth Too long a prey to Chronos's iron tooth, Behold the man whose amorous lips incline, Full with Eros's osculative sign, To the lorn maiden whose lactalbic hands Drew albulactic bovine wealth from lacteal glands Of that immortal bovine, by whose horn Distort to realm ethereal was borne The beast catulean, vexed of the sly Ulysses quadrupedal, who made die The old mordacious rat that dared devour Antecedaneous ale in John's domestic bower.

  Lo! here, with hirsute honors doffed, succinct Of saponaceous locks, the priest who linked In Hymen's golden bands the torn unthrift, Whose means exiguous stared through many a rift, Even as he kissed the virgin all forlorn, Who milked the cow with implicated horn, Who in fine wrath the canine torturer skied, That dared to vex the insidious muricide, Who let auroral effluence through the pelt Of the sly rat that robbed the palace Jack had built.

  The loud cantankerous Shanghai comes at last, Whose shouts aroused the shorn ecclesiast, Who sealed the vows of Hymen's sacrament, To him, who, robed in garments indigent, Exosculates the damsel lachrymose, The emulgator of that horned brute morose, That tossed the dog, that worried the cat, that kilt The rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.

  * * * * *

  The late Mr. William R. Travers liked Bermuda enormously, but it wouldseem that he found its comforts not altogether unalloyed. A friendwho once visited him there was congratulating him on his improvedappearance.

  "This is a grand place for change and rest," said his friend. "Justwhat you needed."

  "Yes," replied Mr. Travers, sadly. "Th-th-this is amagn-ni-ni-nif-ficent place f-f-f-for b-b-both. The ni-ni-niggers lookout f-f-f-for the ch-ch-ch-_change_, and the hotel ke-ke-keepers taketh-th-the _rest_."