Trees
 

TREES

by: Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)
THINK that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth's sweet flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in Summer wear A nest of robins in her hair; Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.

Got curious and went digging on wiki for why the author died so young... He was a soldier in WW1, should have guessed from the date. He and his wife already had 5 children by then.

Technical World Magazine, Feb 1909

like many trades, the better the job is done, the less it is noticed.

Yeah, so Roses ARE red.
I made up the rest
If you got some big FUCKen secret,
Then why don't you sing ME something.

I'm in the midst of a Trauma.
Leave a message,... I'll call you back.
Leave it by the bed.

Some people SHOULD die
That's just unconscious knowledge.
Because, because...
the bigger you get,
the wider you spread,
you gotta depend on me...
... now.
your vision is dead.
The more your dream is dead
Vision's, take yourself from my eyes
Like an eagle's claw

Read more: Janes Addiction - Pig's In Zen Lyrics | MetroLyrics


~Perry Ferrel

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that, for destruction, ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost

Following a night of extraordinary wind and rain (extraordinary for this corner of the county).

Wind

This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet

Till day rose; then under an orange sky
The hills had new places, and wind wielded
Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,
Flexing like the lens of a mad eye.

At noon I scaled along the house-side as far as
The coal-house door. Once I looked up –
Through the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes
The tent of the hills drummed and strained its guyrope,

The fields quivering, the skyline a grimace,
At any second to bang and vanish with a flap:
The wind flung a magpie away and a black-
Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly. The house

Rang like some fine green goblet in the note
That any second would shatter it. Now deep
In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip
Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought,

Or each other. We watch the fire blazing,
And feel the roots of the house move, but sit on,
Seeing the window tremble to come in,
Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons.

Ted Hughes

FTR, this poem is a staple of comprehension/ literacy appreciation exams. I hated it.
I always found Ted Hughes too brutal and disturbing for poetry, his images and comparisons unsettling. Forgive me, I was >15. In my defence it wasn't because I was a Plath fan.

Love to eat them mousies
mousies what I love to eat
bite they little heads off
nibble on they tiny feat

- B. Kliban
from Cat

See now that's the sort of thing that confuses people about poetry.
Like some abstract art, it's so simple it shouldn't count.

But it bloody does, because it's so simple it's a marvel; like finding a glistening piece of cherry that's slipped unchopped into a fruit cake.
Glorious.

'If'
 

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling.

Father in the Railway Buffet

What are you doing here, ghost, among these urns,
These film-wrapped sandwiches and help-yourself biscuits,
Upright and grand, with your stick, hat and gloves,
Your breath of eau-de-cologne?

What have you to say to these head-scarfed tea-ladies,
For whom your expensive vowels are as exotic as Japan?
Stay, ghost, in your proper haunts, the clubland smokerooms,
Where you know the waiters by name.

You have no place among these damp and nameless.
Why do you walk here? I came to say goodbye.
You were ashamed of me for being different.
It didn't matter.

You who never even learned to queue.

U A Fanthorpe.

(my favourite poems of hers always hurt my throat. this even more than most)

Missed this when you posted it. What an awesome poem.

She's an awesome poet.

Well now, guess who replaced her Dragon Book of Verse (which went to the charity shop in a pre-move clearout because Mum thought it was just an old schoolbook - which it was, but one I read fortnightly)

I'll give you a clue. It was someone posting right now in this thread.

I've referenced Timothy Winters before, but searching suggests I've never shared the poem.
It has an easily accessible and consistent rhythm and rhyme scheme, unlike much of the blank verse I often post. Which may be why it comes to mind quite frequently. Then again, I'm a bugger for quotes of any kind, even from sitcoms.

Timothy Winters

Timothy Winters comes to school
With eyes as wide as a football-pool,
Ears like bombs and teeth like splinters:
A blitz of a boy is Timothy Winters.

His belly is white, his neck is dark,
And his hair is an exclamation-mark.
His clothes are enough to scare a crow
And through his britches the blue winds blow.

When teacher talks he won't hear a word
And he shoots down dead the arithmetic bird,
He licks the pattern off his plate
And he's not even heard of the Welfare State.

Timothy Winters has bloody feet
And he lives in a house on Suez Street,
He sleeps in a sack on the kitchen floor
And they say there aren't boys like him anymore.

Old Man Winters likes his beer
And his missus ran off with a bombardier,
Grandma sits in the grate with a gin
And Timothy's dosed with an aspirin.

The Welfare Worker lies awake
But the law's as tricky as a ten-foot snake,
So Timothy Winters drinks his cup
And slowly goes on growing up.

At Morning Prayers the Master helves
For children less fortunate than ourselves,
And the loudest response in the room is when
Timothy Winters roars "Amen!"

So come one angel, come on ten:
Timothy Winters says "Amen
Amen amen amen amen."
Timothy Winters, Lord.
Amen.


Charles Causley

So another favourite poet. Welsh.
Wrote one of my favourite poems of all time, which I have already posted.
Damn I wish Brianna was here.

The Welsh Hill Country

Too far for you to see
The fluke and the foot-rot and the fat maggot
Gnawing the skin from the small bones,
The sheep are grazing at Bwlch-y-Fedwen,
Arranged romantically in the usual manner
On a bleak background of bald stone.

Too far for you to see
The moss and the mould on the cold chimneys,
The nettles growing through the cracked doors,
The houses stand empty at Nant-yr-Eira,
There are holes in the roofs that are thatched with sunlight,
And the fields are reverting to the bare moor.

Too far, too far to see
The set of his eyes and the slow pthisis
Wasting his frame under the ripped coat,
There's a man still farming at Ty'n-y-Fawnog,
Contributing grimly to the accepted pattern,
The embryo music dead in his throat.

R S Thomas

That's awesome.

While I am on a Welsh bent.

Welsh Incident

'But that was nothing to what things came out
From the sea-caves of Criccieth yonder.'
'What were they? Mermaids? dragons? ghosts?'
'Nothing at all of any things like that.'
'What were they, then?'

'All sorts of queer things,

Things never seen or heard or written about,
Very strange, un-Welsh, utterly peculiar
Things. Oh, solid enough they seemed to touch,
Had anyone dared it. Marvellous creation,
All various shapes and sizes, and no sizes,
All new, each perfectly unlike his neighbour,
Though all came moving slowly out together.'
'Describe just one of them.'

'I am unable.'

'What were their colours?'

'Mostly nameless colours,
Colours you'd like to see; but one was puce
Or perhaps more like crimson, but not purplish.
Some had no colour.'
'Tell me, had they legs?'

'Not a leg or foot among them that I saw.'

'But did these things come out in any order?'
What o'clock was it? What was the day of the week?
Who else was present? How was the weather?'
'I was coming to that. It was half-past three
On Easter Tuesday last. The sun was shining.
The Harlech Silver Band played Marchog Jesu
On thrity-seven shimmering instruments
Collecting for Caernarvon's (Fever) Hospital Fund.
The populations of Pwllheli, Criccieth,
Portmadoc, Borth, Tremadoc, Penrhyndeudraeth,
Were all assembled. Criccieth's mayor addressed them
First in good Welsh and then in fluent English,
Twisting his fingers in his chain of office,
Welcoming the things. They came out on the sand,
Not keeping time to the band, moving seaward
Silently at a snail's pace. But at last
The most odd, indescribable thing of all
Which hardly one man there could see for wonder
Did something recognizably a something.'
'Well, what?'

'It made a noise.'

'A frightening noise?'

'No, no.'

'A musical noise? A noise of scuffling?'
'No, but a very loud, respectable noise ---
Like groaning to oneself on Sunday morning
In Chapel, close before the second psalm.'
'What did the mayor do?'

'I was coming to that.'

Robert Graves

Damn, I can't format it properly.
Some of the lines are set in, which breaks the line of the poem up and implies pauses.
I've inserted breaks but it's not the same.

Thoroughly enjoyed that.

Look up The Journey of the Magi.
I always wanted to narrate it to you. It's so wonderful spoken aloud.z

Attachment 46941

~Jonathan

That's very strong, I like the meter.

The illustration matches the poem. Very simple and powerful. No waste. Everything is on message.

I am suspicious.
But I do like it.

Dark and lonely on the summer night.
Kill my landlord, kill my landlord.
Watchdog barking - Do he bite?
Kill my landlord, kill my landlord.
Slip in his window,
Break his neck!
Then his house
I start to wreck!
Got no reason --
What the heck!
Kill my landlord, kill my landlord.
C-I-L-L ...
My land - lord ...

--Tyrone Greene

C-I-L-L ...
 

HA!

I remember that.

Recursive Viscera Intercourse
 

Ramstein in Schtupenburg.
Schtupenburg has deluge.
Deluge of entrails.
Entrails for Ramstein.

Schtupenburg has deluge.
Deluge of entrails.
Entrails for Ramstein.
Ramstein in Schtupenburg.

Deluge of entrails.
Entrails for Ramstein.
Ramstein in Schtupenburg.
Schtupenburg has deluge.

Entrails for Ramstein.
Ramstein in Schtupenburg.
Schtupenburg has deluge.
Deluge of entrails.

Ramstein in Schtupenburg.
Schtupenburg has deluge.
Deluge of entrails.
Entrails for Ramstein.


Ramstein Schtupenburg
Schtupenburg deluge
Deluge entrails
Entrails Ramstein

Schtupenburg deluge
Deluge entrails
Entrails Ramstein
Ramstein Schtupenburg

Deluge entrails
Entrails Ramstein
Ramstein Schtupenburg
Schtupenburg deluge

Entrails Ramstein
Ramstein Schtupenburg
Schtupenburg deluge
Deluge entrails

Ramstein Schtupenburg
Schtupenburg deluge
Deluge entrails
Entrails Ramstein


Ramstein Schtupenburg Schtupenburg deluge deluge entrails entrails Ramstein

Schtupenburg deluge deluge entrails entrails Ramstein Ramstein Schtupenburg

Deluge entrails entrails Ramstein Ramstein Schtupenburg Schtupenburg deluge

Entrails Ramstein Ramstein Schtupenburg Schtupenburg deluge deluge entrails

Ramstein Schtupenburg Schtupenburg deluge deluge entrails entrails Ramstein


Ramstein Schtupenburg deluge entrails Ramstein

Schtupenburg deluge entrails Ramstein Schtupenburg

Deluge entrails Ramstein Schtupenburg deluge

Entrails Ramstein Schtupenburg deluge entrails

Ramstein Schtupenburg deluge entrails Ramstein

Sundae and Me

It's Saturday and Sundae
can sleep in and catch up on the sleep
that Ortho doesn't get
and neither has to listen to
Wake Up to Money

There's another day until the Merkins lose
an hour to Edison's greed

Any day that happens
is a good day
for Sundae and me

Orthodoc

Awesome.

From the net...

Say something I'm giving up on you ...

not mine, but it's bouncing around in my head tonight.
I don't think I'm going to get much sleep.
Bone scan at lunch; instead of lunch. I have to show up at work in 4 hours.
The question is whether to even attempt to go to sleep.
Jury's out.

Bruce,

Where did you find that?

I like it.

Not from my new/ old copy of The Dragon Book of Verse.
But a poem from childhood all the same.

Tarantella
(1929)

Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?
And the tedding and the spreading
Of the straw for a bedding,
And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,
And the wine that tasted of tar?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
(Under the vine of the dark verandah)?
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda,
Do you remember an Inn?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteeers
Who hadn't got a penny,
And who weren't paying any,
And the hammer at the doors and the Din?
And the Hip! Hop! Hap!
Of the clap
Of the hands to the twirl and the swirl
Of the girl gone chancing,
Glancing,
Dancing,
Backing and advancing,
Snapping of a clapper to the spin
Out and in --
And the Ting, Tong, Tang, of the Guitar.
Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?

Never more;
Miranda,
Never more.
Only the high peaks hoar:
And Aragon a torrent at the door.
No sound
In the walls of the Halls where falls
The tread
Of the feet of the dead to the ground
No sound:
But the boom
Of the far Waterfall like Doom.

Hilaire Belloc

Ooooh. That sent a shiver down my spine.

The Lesson

“Your father’s gone,” my bald headmaster said.
His shiny dome and brown tobacco jar
Splintered at once in tears. It wasn’t grief.
I cried for knowledge which was bitterer
Than any grief. For there and then I knew
That grief has uses – that a father dead
Could bind the bully’s fist a week or two;
And then I cried for shame, then for relief.

I was a month past ten when I learnt this:
I still remember how the noise was stilled
in school-assembly when my grief came in.
Some goldfish in a bowl quietly sculled
Around their shining prison on its shelf.
They were indifferent. All the other eyes
Were turned towards me. Somewhere in myself
Pride, like a goldfish, flashed a sudden fin.

Edward Lucie-Smith

That last sentence has helped me get through some tricky times.

Two caught my eye from reddit, the first is 5 posts...

Sounds like a Dr. Seuss rhyme.
One state, two state
Red state, blue state
Will you vote in favor of gay rights?
Or does that give you the frights?

Do you mind if they suck cocks
Do you mind if they lick box
Will you let them buy a house
Will you let them have a spouse

Whether they do it with the poo poo,
Or by rubbing the hoo hoo:
Will you let them wear the ring?
To own that marital bling?

If he offered to give you dome
Would you let him buy a home?
Fishnet shirts and pink toe-socks
Don't mind the rainbow lollipops

Corderoy pants with walking boots,
Tank tops, short hair, power suits,
Packing sausage or packing heat,
The girls are good enough to eat!

The second a single post...

One state, two state
Red state, blue state
Will you support bills for gay rights?
Or does that make your butthole tight?
Will you vote to legalize pot?
Or are your knickers, in a knot?
Do you think the healthcare plan is cool?
How 'bout crippling debt, to go to school?
All in all it's pretty sound,
We're quite nice folk to be around,
Unless of course there's oil found,
Bubbling, oozing, from the ground,
Their cries of protest quickly drowned,
We tout our prowess to be renowned;
I swear on me mum that pound for pound,
I am the greatest, and must be crowned.
So go ahead, gild, me, ask around.

"Bird On The Wire"

Like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.
Like a worm on a hook,
like a knight from some old fashioned book
I have saved all my ribbons for thee.

If I, if I have been unkind,
I hope that you can just let it go by.
If I, if I have been untrue
I hope you know it was never to you.

Like a baby, stillborn,
like a beast with his horn
I have torn everyone who reached out for me.
But I swear by this song
and by all that I have done wrong
I will make it all up to thee.

I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,
he said to me, "You must not ask for so much."
And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door,
she cried to me, "Hey, why not ask for more?"

Oh like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.

Leonard Cohen

Sung best, perhaps, by Katey Sagal

Sherry Belly

I’m celebratin’ bellies,
mine wobbles every day,
it follows me in bed at night,
it just won't go away.

I’ve kneaded and I’ve teased it
but fear it’s not receded
and so I’m drinking Sherry
to make it more appealing.

We old'ns like a Sherry,
it’s good for fadin’ wrinkles
and beats a Lemonade by far
to make our worlds twinkle.

My belly seems to thrive on it,
it’s growin’ all the while
and there’s a perk to all this work,
it makes my hubby smile.

Ruth Walters

An earworm (The Traveling Wilburys) that's been burrowing for a while now...makes a decent poem with the chorus removed.


Hear it in the 'Earworms' thread

Damn, haven't heard that for awhile.

Attachment 47582

Attachment 47583

This is racing through my head tonight as I fight to keep from closing my eyes for I know they wait for me in my sleep. Sometimes, I enjoy the dreams and sometimes not. Tonight I fear there will be no rest for me....... anyway, here is the poem

If you are able,
save them a place
inside of you
and save one backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can
no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say
you loved them,
though you may
or may not have always.
Take what they have left
and what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep it with your own.
And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane,
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.

Major Michael Davis O'Donnell
1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam

Fuckin' A.

That's an amazing poem, Sarge.

I was reminded of this by the "Tuba, Or, Not Tuba" thread:

Thank you for that, Sarge. Beautiful.

I was reminded of this by the "Tuba, Or, Not Tuba" thread.

Aaaand a little Goggling confirmed that Rudyard hisownself wrote a piece on Tubal Cain (and his brother Jubal). (Remember these names the next time you have twins. There was a Jabal, also, in case of triplets.)

From Carruthers' link in the 'What Is This' thread, concerning "Breaking Bad" shooting locations.

'Ozymandias' - as read by Bryan Cranston:

That gave me shivers.

I just knew, when he got to the "My name is" part that he was gonna say "Heisenberg".

It was a great reading, wasn't it?

Awesome. That man has such gravitas.

A Smuggler's Song
 

In another post, I made a reference to 'The Revenue Men' who were responsible for tracking down smugglers and those who sought to avoid duty on illicitly produced alcohol.

It reminded me of a poem that I hadn't read since about the age of twelve.

A Smuggler's Song

IF you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet,
Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,
Them that ask no questions isn't told a lie.
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by.

Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk.
Laces for a lady; letters for a spy,
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by!

Running round the woodlump if you chance to find
Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy-wine,
Don't you shout to come and look, nor use 'em for your play.
Put the brishwood back again - and they'll be gone next day !

If you see the stable-door setting open wide;
If you see a tired horse lying down inside;
If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore;
If the lining's wet and warm - don't you ask no more !

If you meet King George's men, dressed in blue and red,
You be careful what you say, and mindful what is said.
If they call you " pretty maid," and chuck you 'neath the chin,
Don't you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one's been !

Knocks and footsteps round the house - whistles after dark -
You've no call for running out till the house-dogs bark.
Trusty's here, and Pincher's here, and see how dumb they lie
They don't fret to follow when the Gentlemen go by !

'If You do as you've been told, 'likely there's a chance,
You'll be give a dainty doll, all the way from France,
With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood -
A present from the Gentlemen, along 'o being good !

Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk.
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie -
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by !

Rudyard Kipling.


There are one or two renditions on Youtube but none seems to bring out the underlying threat of the piece: 'You'll keep quiet if you know what's good for you'.

Even shorter, and less sweet: Don't be a snitch.

Pretty cool poem.



ETA for no good reason: I'm trying to memorize "Ozymandias", see post #230.

I win.
I bet myself that when I saw Carruthers had posted a poem it would be Kipling.
Yay me.

Grav, I pretty much have Ozymandias. I've gone back to Kubla Khan, but I can't get past the fast thick pants. It makes me snicker like a schoolboy and disrupts my attention.

:):):)

The Shooting of Dan McGrew
 

Robert Service's poetry tends to be looked down upon by purists but I enjoy his narrative style.
Even if you don't read the poem, spend a few minutes listening to Bill Kerr's recitation.
He was ninety-one when he recorded the video and did it without notes or autocue.


The Shooting of Dan McGrew

By Robert W. Service

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.

When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;
But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.

There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;
And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;
With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,
As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.
Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do,
And I turned my head — and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou.

His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,
Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.
The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,
So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands — my God! but that man could play.

Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;
With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars? —
Then you've a haunch what the music meant. . . hunger and night and the stars.

And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans,
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;
For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;
But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman's love —
A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true —
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, — the lady that's known as Lou.)

Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;
But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear;
That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie;
That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.
'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through and through —
"I guess I'll make it a spread misere", said Dangerous Dan McGrew.

The music almost died away ... then it burst like a pent-up flood;
And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood.
The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,
And the lust awoke to kill, to kill ... then the music stopped with a crash,
And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm,
And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a damn;
But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true,
That one of you is a hound of hell. . .and that one is Dan McGrew."

Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark,
And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark.
Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,
While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou.

These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know.
They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch," and I'm not denying it's so.
I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two —
The woman that kissed him and — pinched his poke — was the lady that's known as Lou.

That was wonderful!

Twas.