Millennium

The great millennium is at hand.
Redder apples grow on the tree.
A saxophone is in evry band.
Brandy no longer taints our tea.
Dimples smile in the red-rouged knee.
The dowagers are no longer fat.
Radio now makes safe the sea,
And the Turk has bought him a derby hat.

Even our sauerkraut now is canned.
Verse is a dangsight more than free.
A highboy now is the old dish stand.
Evry flapper has her night key.
Chopin is jazzed into melody.
A child is a kiddie and not a brat.
Bosses and miners at last agree,
And the Turk has bought him a derby hat.

All firewaters are bravely banned.
There is a ballot for every she.
The hairpin now is a contraband.
A New York mayor gets some sympathy.
My dealer brings some coal to me.
The plumber is an aristocrat.
In Miami all millionaires may be,
And the Turk has bought him a derby hat.

Son, the millennium is at hand!
What though Armenians be mashed flat?
The world is getting just perfectly grand,
For the Turk has bought him a derby hat.

Ellis Parker Butler

Ellis Parker Butler was an American author, humorist, and poet, best known for his short story 'Pigs Is Pigs.' Born on December 5, 1869, in Muscatine, Iowa, Butler became a prolific writer, contributing to numerous magazines and books over his career. He is remembered for his wit and humor, which marked his work. Butler passed away on September 13, 1937.

Ellis Parker Butler

A Parisian Episode

Ellis Parker Butler, Simple Poetry

Little Ballads Of Timely Warning; I: On Dishonesty Arising From Ignorance

Ellis Parker Butler, Simple Poetry

Mouths Of Hippopotami And Some Recent Novels

Ellis Parker Butler, Simple Poetry

How'd You Like It?

Ellis Parker Butler, Simple Poetry

English

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The Millionaire.

In the upper circles
    Moves a famous man
Who has had no equal
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    Don't you think it strange?

In his low back office,
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New-Years Address January 1, 1866

Good morning good morning a happy new year!
We greet you, kind friends of the old Pioneer;
Hope your coffee is good and your steak is well done,
And you're happy as clams in the sand and the sun.
The old year's a shadow a shade of the past;
It is gone with its toils and its triumphs so vast
With its joys and its tears with its pleasure and pain
With its shouts of the brave and its heaps of the slain
Gone and it cometh no, never again.
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Let us brush from the picture the visage of care;
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Drop them all at the grave of the silent old year.
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Twopenny Post-Bag, Intercepted Letters, Etc. Letter II.

FROM COLONEL M'MAHON TO GOULD FRANCIS LECKIE, ESQ.


DEAR SIR--
    I've just had time to look
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Wherein--as plain as man can speak.
Whose English is half modern Greek--
You prove that we can ne'er intrench
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Till Royalty in England's made
A much more independent trade;--
In short until the House of Guelph
Lays Lords and Commons on the shelf,
And boldly sets up for itself.

    All that can well be understood
In this said Book is vastly good;
And as to what's incomprehensible,
I dare be sworn 'tis full as sensible.

    But to your work's immortal credit
The Prince, good Sir, the Prince has read it
(The only Book, himself remarks,
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The Ballade Of The Automobile

When our yacht sails seaward on steady keel
And the wind is moist with breath of brine
And our laughter tells of our perfect weal,
We may carol the praises of ruby wine;
But if, automobiling, my woes combine
And fuel gives out in my road-machine
And it's sixteen miles to that home of mine
Then ho! For a gallon of gasoline!

When our coach rides smoothly on iron-shod wheel
With a deft touch guiding each taut drawn line
And the inn ahead holds a royal meal,
We may carol the praises of ruby wine;
But when, on some long and steep incline,
In a manner entirely unforeseen
The motor stops with a last sad whine
Then ho! For a gallon of gasoline!

When the air is crisp and the brooks congeal
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Ellis Parker Butler

A Satisfactory Reform

A merry burgomaster
In a burgh upon the Rhine
Said, Our burghers all are
Far too fond of drinking wine.
So the merry burgomaster,
When the burgomasters met,
Bade them look into the matter
Ere the thing went farther yet.

And the merry burgomasters
Did decide the only way
To alleviate the evil
Without worry or delay
Would be just to call a meeting
Of the burghers, great and small,
And then open every wine cask
And proceed to drink it all.

For, they said, when we have swallowed
Every drop thats in the land,
There can be no more of drinking,
It is plain to understand.
So they called a monster meeting,
And the burghers, small and great,
Drank and drank until they were too
Tipsy to perambulate.

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Ellis Parker Butler

Sanguine

"The clock indicates the hour but what does enternity indicate?"
    Whitman

Imagine, being told cubism isn't painting. That
Beardsley didn't die at 26, unheralded as a boy genius
or Corot didn't come to Paris after all.

Imagine, The Louvre without a rooftop, the
intelligentsia sitting down to a ragged table
surrounded by sawdust intellects, Proust not being
able to write his name.

Now that's splendour    -    that's in-depth "feeling".
That's emotion to pull your socks or catch the bus on
a brittle day.

It's easy. Try to "feel" the event. It's 1896. People are
perturbed (or so we are told) because the century's
getting old. Time's rushing by. There's an alarm clock
set to buzz at eternity's gate, Midnight 1900.

In probing the mal...

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