Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A MERRY HEART: GOIN' SHOOTIN', by THELMA LUCILE LULL



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A MERRY HEART: GOIN' SHOOTIN', by                    
First Line: I took me out a-hunting for to bag a gamesome kill
Last Line: Holds still some eight professors on the dead tree limb!
Subject(s): Comedy; Guns; Hunting; Irony; Teaching & Teachers; Hunters


I took me out a-hunting for to bag a gamesome kill,
And hied me to a wilderness inscrutable and still,
Where I spied within a fastness, sanctified and dim,
Seventeen professors on a dead tree limb!

Seventeen professors in sedate, pedantic row,
Discoursing on the dec'rous means to make their college go;
I spotted me a puffy one, protesting over much,
And caught him with a pot-shot, just for such.

He spun and he wobbled and he fell like lead;
Cried, "I oppose the measure," and lay obviously dead,
With atrophied extremities thrust upward in the air,
As edible, apparently, as any mummy's pair.

I chanced another pot-shot, and -- lucky accident! --
Another three went toppling, shot in the precedent.
Three noble voices shouted, "For tradition we will die!"
And the feet of four professors pointed mutely at the sky.

But still thirteen professors sat sedately on the limb,
And one spoke of a matter that began to trouble him;
"I trust I am not hasty -- though I've not considered long --
In forming an opinion that something must be wrong.

"For if you note statistics, here upon our tree
Are full four less professors than there used to be!"
Amaze, then computation; disputation pro and con;
Until the weighty matter was almost agreed upon,

When five harrassed professors turned up their toes and died --
"We cannot, oh, we cannot bear to actually decide!"
So then the vote was taken, and all were found agreed
That there were less upon the limb than when they first were treed.

"I think we ought to act!" cried one, queer and rather grim,
And a cold convulsive shudder shook the dead tree limb.
"Act? O horror! Horror!" cried all the others then,
"No! No! No! No, never! No, and no again!"

Then I told me it was folly for to shoot such harmless birds,
For they never move from off their perch and injure only words,
And entertain the passersby with habits, quaint and slow,
Discoursing on the dec'rous means to make the college go.

So I took me from the wilderness, inscrutable and still,
And vowed me never any more professors for to kill.
And that lair so intellectual, sanctified and dim,
Holds still some eight professors on the dead tree limb!





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