No usual words can bear the woe I feel, No tralatitions trite give me relief! O Webster! lend me words to voice my grief Bitter as quassia, quass or kumquat peel! For I am sad . . . bound on the cosmic wheel, What mad chthonophagy bids slave and chief Through endless cycles bite the earth like beef, By turns each cannibal and each the meal? Turn we to nature Webster, and we see Your whidah bird refuse all strobile fruit, Your tragacanth in tears ooze from the tree . . . We hear your flammulated owlets hoot! Turn we to nature, Webster, and we find Few creatures have a quite contented mind. Your koulan there, with dyslogistic snort, Will leave his phacoid food on worts to browse, While glactophorous Himalayan cows The knurled kohl-rabi spurn in uncouth sport; No margay climbs margosa trees; the short Gray mullet drink no mulse, nor house In pibcorns when the youth of Wales carouse . . . No tournure doth the toucan's tail contort . . . So I am sad! . . . and yet, on Summer eves, When xebecs search the whishing scree for whelk, And the sharp sorrel lifts obcordate leaves, And cryptogamous plants fulfil the elk, I see the octopus play with his feet, And find within this sadness something sweet. |