Listen hard and Long fellows, to these barks and these bellows
of bards and writers dear.
An evangelist’s ride 'cross the countryside
of American lit I revere.
Forget evermore the bleak Poets of yore,
or their deaths, both the scarlet and raven,
whose meters ushered the fall of their houses
to pendulant pits of the craven.
'Twain princes and paupers, a tramp and a broad,
and betwixt every Tom, Sam and Huck,
I smile when putting headwheels on
by steamboat or by truck.
So forsake those thoreauly walled-in ponds
of our moderns, simplify!
It sounds uncivil, disobedient,
but only until you try.
Oh, moo, ye cattle, and chat, ye chattel,
great wights wailing over your lot.
For the budding pell-mel villeanry
is all that this wide world has bought.
What wit, man! My whit man, pray don't have a fit, man,
and smoke not those green leaves of grass:
you'll think your body electric,
but they will knock you on your ass.
When done with this thing we'll fill steins and sing,
a rose is a rose is a rose,
Alas, betoke less, ‘cause your brain is a mess
like my grand and repetitive pose.
For whom the belt holds a good stiff drink,
I can see the old man also rises.
Farewell to harmful and hemming-
ways of speech, it'll serve him surprises.
If your stein becks for beer, don't think it too queer,
just drink down the rest of your grapes; if rath--
er, man or a mouse, you'll do nothing but grouse
to follow that East Eden path.
From the sound of your fury, you folk seem to worry!
But you faulk nervous never should be.
Have a rosé for Emily, a Bud Light for August,
and a wild palm whiskey on me.
A wilder bunch at a milder lunch
never heard here in our town before
artichoke hearts of darkness, secret shadows of cress
Con radishes, turnips and more.
O neill, ye lads, and feel these pads
when nicemen cometh to fall
The salesman's dead, but don't worry your head,
little mourning will become us all.
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