The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems for Pale People, by Edwin C. Ranck

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Title: Poems for Pale People
A Volume of Verse

Author: Edwin C. Ranck

Release Date: October 9, 2008 [EBook #26864]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Poems for Pale People

A Volume of Verse

By

Edwin C. Ranck

Humanity Printing and Publishing Co.
St. Louis, Mo.

Copyrighted 1906 by
EDWIN C. RANCK

PREFACE

_This little volume was written for no reason on earth and with no
earthly reason. It just simply happened, on the principle, I suppose
that "murder will out." Murder is a bad thing and so are nonsense
rhymes. There is often a valid excuse for murder; there is none for
nonsense rhymes. They seem to be a necessary evil to be classed with
smallpox, chicken-pox, yellow fever and other irruptive diseases. They
are also on the order of the boomerang and eventually rebound and
inflict much suffering on the unlucky verse-slinger. So you see
nonsense, like a little learning is a dangerous thing and should be
handled with as much care as the shotgun which is never known to be
loaded._

_A man who writes nonsense may become in time a big gun. But this is
rare; more often he becomes a small bore. This appears paradoxical and
will probably require thinking over, but the more you think it over the
less you will understand. This is true of parlor magic. It is also true
of the magazine poets. It really never pays to think. Thinking is too
much like work. After reading these rhymes you will not think that the
writer ever did think, which after all is the right way to think._

_When Dryden wrote "Alexander's Feast" he modestly stated that it was
the grandest poem ever written. Mr. Dryden evidently believed this or
he wouldn't have said so. But then every one did not agree with Mr.
Dryden. Now I am going one step further and will positively state that
the writer of this volum