ended knees!
Go forth and slay all folk who make
Us wait "One moment, please."

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 neighbours dance for my delight;
I hear the people dance and sing
Like practically anything.

Women and men and girls and boys,
All making curious kinds of noise
And dancing in so weird a way,
I never saw the like by day.

So loud a show was never heard
As that which yesternight occurred:
They danced and sang, as I have said,
As I lay wakeful on my bed.

They shout and cry and yell and laugh
And play upon the phonograph;
And endlessly I count the sheep,
Endeavouring to fall asleep.

III

It is very nice to think
This town is full of meat and drink;
That is, I'd think it very nice
If my papa but had the price.

IV

This town is so full of a number of folks,
I'm sure there will always be matter for jokes.

Lines on Reading Frank J. Wilstach's
"A Dictionary of Similes"

As neat as wax, as good as new,
As true as steel, as truth is true,
Good as a sermon, keen as hate,
Full as a tick, and fixed as fate--

Brief as a dream, long as the day,
Sweet as the rosy morn in May,
Chaste as the moon, as snow is white,
Broad as barn doors, and new as sight--

Useful as daylight, firm as stone,
Wet as a fish, dry as a bone,
Heavy as lead, light as a breeze--
Frank Wilstach's book of similes.

The Dictaphone Bard

[And here is a suggestion: Did you ever try dictating your
stories or articles to the dictaphone for the first draft? I
would be glad to have you come down and make the
experiment.--From a shorthand reporter's circular letter.]

(As "The Ballad of the Tempest" would have
to issue from the dictaphone to the stenographer)

_Begin each line with a capital. Indent alternate
lines. Double space after each fourth
line._

_We were crowded in the cabin comma
Not a soul would dare to sleep dash comma
It was midnight on the waters comma
And a storm was on the deep period_

_Apostrophe Tis a fearful thing in capital Winter
To be shattered by the blast comma
And to hear the rattling trumpet
Thunder colon quote capita