Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TOM TWIST, by WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TOM TWIST, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Tom twist was a wonderful fellow
Last Line: Where it still continues to spin.
Subject(s): Activity; Sailing & Sailors; Wandering & Wanderers; Youth; Exercise; Seamen; Sails; Wanderlust; Vagabonds; Tramps; Hoboes


TOM TWIST was a wonderful fellow,
No boy was so nimble and strong;
He could turn ten summersets backward,
And stand on his head all day long;
No wrestling, or leaping, or running,
This tough little urchin could tire;
His muscles were all gutta-percha,
And his sinews bundles of wire.

Tom Twist liked the life of a sailor,
So off, with a hop and a skip,
He went to a Nantucket captain,
Who took him on board of his ship;
The vessel was crowded with seamen,
Young, old, stout and slim, short and tall,
But in climbing and swinging and jumping,
Tom Twist was ahead of them all.

He could scamper all through the rigging,
As spry and as still as a cat,
While as for a jump from the maintop
To deck, he thought nothing of that;
He danced at the end of the yard-arm,
Slept sound in the bend of a sail,
And hung by his legs from the bowsprit,
When the wind was blowing a gale.

The vessel went down in a tempest,
A thousand fathoms or more,
But Tom Twist dived under the breakers,
And swimming five miles got ashore;
The shore was a cannibal island,
The natives were hungry enough,
But they felt of Tommy all over,
And found him entirely too tough.

So they put him into a boy-coop,
Just to fatten him up, you see,
But Tommy crept out, very slyly,
And climbed to the top of a tree;
The tree was the nest of a Condor,
A bird with prodigious big wings,
Who lived upon boa-constrictors,
And other digestible things.

The Condor flew home in the evening,
And there lay friend Tommy, so snug,
She thought she had pounced on a very
Remarkable species of bug;
She soon woke him up with her pecking,
But Tommy gave one of his springs,
And leaped on the back of the Condor,
Between her long neck and her wings.

The Condor tried plunging and pitching,
But Tommy held on with firm hand,
Then off, with a scream, flew the Condor,
Over forest and ocean and land;
By and by she got tired of her burden,
And flying quite close to the ground,
Tom untwisted his legs from the creature,
And quickly slipped off with a bound.

He landed all right and feet foremost,
A little confused by his fall,
And then ascertained he had lighted
On top of the great Chinese Wall;
He walked to the City of Pekin
Where he made the Chinamen grin;
He turned ten summersets backward,
And they made him a Mandarin!

Then Tom had to play the Celestial,
And to dangle a long pigtail,
And he dined on puppies and kittens,
Till his spirits began to fail;
Then he sighed for his native country,
And he longed for its ham and eggs,
And in turning summersets backward
His pigtail would catch in his legs.

He sailed for his dear home and harbor,
The house of his mother he knew,
He climbed up the lightning-rod quickly,
And came down the chimney-flue;
His mother in slumber lay dreaming
She never would see him more,
When she opened her eyes and Tommy
Stood there on the bedroom floor!

Her nightcap flew off in amazement,
Her hair stood on end with surprise;
"What kind of a ghost or a spirit
Is this that I see with my eyes?"
"I am your most dutiful Tommy"—
"I will not believe it," she said,
"Till you turn ten summersets backward,
And stand half an hour on your head."

"That thing I will do, dearest mother."
At once, with a skip and a hop,
He turned the ten summersets backward,
But then was unable to stop!
The tenth took him out of the window,
His mother jumped from her bed,
To see his twentieth summerset
Take him over the kitchen shed.

Then over the patch of potatoes,
And beyond the church on the hill,
She saw him tumbling and turning,
Turning and tumbling still;
Until Tommy's body diminished
In size to the head of a pin,
Spinning away in the distance,
Where it still continues to spin.





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