The Bee's Bayonet (a Little Honey and a Little Sting): Camouflage in Word PaintingWatrous, Edwin Alfred
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The Bee's Bayonet (a Little Honey and a Little Sting): Camouflage in Word Painting
Watrous, Edwin Alfred
American poetry -- 20th century
The Dogs of War are out of tune,--
No harmony doth move the critters:
Unless they cease their fighting soon
The wounded whelps will have no litters.
Jerusalem! the Turk is spent!
The bagpipes took his breath, I think.
The Crescent now is badly bent,
And Allah's cause is on the blink.
The Bulgar too has shot his bolt,
And soon will quit--the poor pariah!
For now there's rumor of revolt
In Ananias and Sofia.
The Hun is playing with the Slav--
The Kremlin Mouse and Potsdam Cat;
But Cossack, too, can smear the salve,
And 'twixt them twain doth Peace fall flat.
Some day the Dove of Peace will swoop
With long, befigured _bill_, and put it
Against the Vulture-Kultur coop
And make the Prussian Junkers _foot it_.
MEN HAD HORNS THEN
Newspaper Item, Athens, Pa., July 29: The archaeologists who
are traversing the Susquehanna River Valley, visiting sites of
Indian villages and digging up aborigines and other relics, are
said to have made a most astounding discovery on the Murray
farm, near here, in finding the bones of sixty-eight
pre-historic men. The average height of these men when their
skeletons were assembled was seven feet, while many were much
taller. Additional evidence of their gigantic size is found in
the massive stone battle axes in their graves. The average age
of these men is said to have been from thirty to forty. Another
amazing point of this discovery is the allegation that
"perfectly formed skulls were found from which horns grew
straight out from the head."
The Homestead of Satan, they say, has been found
Near Athens, P. A., in a hole in the ground;
And people are flocking from Athens and Sayre
To view the remains of their ancestors there.
When Satan established himself in this zone
He found it distasteful to live all alone;
So he went to Towanda in quest of a bride,
And then tilled the soil till his seed multiplied.
So scores of young Devils at Murray's were born
That measured five cubits between hoof and horn.
Each one was equipped with a tail and two wings,
And _asbestos garments_ at Nick's Sulphur Springs.
And that's why you find all their skeletons here
In good preservation: but isn't it queer
That Devils at Athens, the place of their birth,
Were the sole legatees of Hell upon Earth?
But Devils, like men, reach the ends of their ropes,
And have disappointments and unfulfilled hopes,--
So Satan discovered, too late we are told,
The climate at Murray's was too beastly cold.
His imps all contracted pneumonia and died;
So he buried them here in the Pit, side by side,
Near Athens, P. A., by the River Chemung,
Where they've been unmolested till now, and unsung.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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