The Complete Works. O. Henry
Nothing To Say
A Contribution
There came unto ye editor
A poet, pale and wan,
And at the table sate him down,
A roll within his hand.
Ye editor accepted it,
And thanked his lucky fates;
Ye poet had to yield it up
To a king full on eights.
Chanson De Bohême
Lives of great men all remind us
Rose is red and violet’s blue;
Johnny’s got his gun behind us
‘Cause the lamb loved Mary too.
— Robert Burns’ “Hocht Time in the aud Town.”
I’d rather write this, as bad as it is
Than be Will Shakespeare’s shade;
I’d rather be known as an F. F. V.
Than in Mount Vernon laid.
I’d rather count ties from Denver to Troy
Than to head Booth’s old programme;
I’d rather be special for the New York World
Than to lie with Abraham.
For there’s stuff in the can, there’s Dolly and Fan,
And a hundred things to choose;
There’s a kiss in the ring, and every old thing
That a real live man can use.
I’d rather fight flies in a boarding house
Than fill Napoleon’s grave,
And snuggle up warm in my three slat bed
Than be André the brave.
I’d rather distribute a coat of red
On the town with a wad of dough
Just now, than to have my cognomen
Spelled “Michael Angelo.”
For a small live man, if he’s prompt on hand
When the good things pass around,
While the world’s on tap has a better snap
Than a big man under ground.
Drop A Tear In This Slot
He who, when torrid Summer’s sickly glare
Beat down upon the city’s parched walls,
Sat him within a room scarce 8 by 9,
And, with tongue hanging out and panting breath,
Perspiring, pierced by pangs of prickly heat,
Wrote variations of the seaside joke
We all do know and always loved so well,
And of cool breezes and sweet girls that lay
In shady nooks, and pleasant windy coves
Anon
Will in that selfsame room, with tattered quilt
Wrapped round him, and blue stiffening hands,
All shivering, fireless, pinched by winter’s blasts,
Will hale us forth upon the rounds once more,
So that we may expect it not in vain,
The joke of how with curses deep and coarse
Papa puts up the pipe of parlor stove.
So ye
Who greet with tears this olden favorite,
Drop one for him who, though he strives to please
Must write about the things he never sees.
Hard To Forget
I’m thinking tonight of the old farm, Ned,
And my heart is heavy and sad
As I think of the days that by have fled
Since I was a little lad.
There rises before me each spot I know
Of the old home in the dell,
The fields, and woods, and meadows below
That memory holds so well.
The city is pleasant and lively, Ned,
But what to us is its charm?
Tonight all my thoughts are fixed, instead,
On our childhood’s old home farm.
I know you are thinking the same, dear Ned,
With your head bowed on your arm,
For tomorrow at four we’ll be jerked out of bed
To plow on that darned old farm.
Nothing To Say
“You can tell your paper,” the great man said,
“I refused an interview.
I have nothing to say on the question, sir;
Nothing to say to you.”
And then he talked till the sun went down
And the chickens went to roost;
And he seized the collar of the poor young man,
And never his hold he loosed.
And the sun went down and the moon came up,
And he talked till the dawn of day;
Though he said, “On this subject mentioned by you,
I have nothing whatever to say.”
And down the reporter dropped to sleep