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.

December 5, 1869

September 13, 1937

English

Ellis Parker Butler

Page 1 of 5

A Culinary Puzzle

In our dainty little kitchen,
Where my aproned wife is queen
Over all the tin-pan people,
In a realm exceeding clean,
Oft I like to loiter, watching
While she mixes things for tea;
And she tasks me, slyly smiling,
Now just guess what this will be!

Hidden in a big blue apron,
Her dimpled arms laid bare,
And the love-smiles coyly mingling
With a housewifes frown of care
See her beat a golden batter,
Pausing but to ask of me,
As she adds a bit of butter,
Now just guess what this will be!

Then I bravely do my duty,
Guess it, pudding, cake or pie,
Dumplings, waffles, bread or muffins;
But no matter what I try,
This provoking witch just answers:
Never mind, just wait and see!
But I think you should be abl...

Ellis Parker Butler

A Lost Angel

When first we met she seemed so white
    I feared her;
As one might near a spirit bright
    I neared her;
An angel pure from heaven above
    I dreamed her,
And far too good for human love
    I deemed her.
A spirit free from mortal taint
    I thought her,
And incense as unto a saint
    I brought her.

Well, incense burning did not seem
    To please her,
And insolence I feared shed deem
    To squeeze her;
Nor did I dare for that same why
    To kiss her,
Lest, shocked, shed cause my eager eye
    To miss her.
I sickened thinking of some way
    To win her,
When lo! she asked me, one fine day,
    To dinner!

Twas thus that made of common flesh
    I found her,
And in a mortal lovers mesh

Ellis Parker Butler

A Minute

She plucked a blossom fair to see;
Upon my coat I let her pin it;
And thus we stood beneath the tree
    A minute.

She turned her smiling face to me;
I saw a roguish sweetness in it;
I kissed her once; it took, maybe,
    A minute.

The time was paltry, youll agree;
It took but little to begin it;
But since my heart has not been free
    A minute.

Ellis Parker Butler

A Parisian Episode

Upon Bottle Miche the autre day
While yet the nuit was early,
Je met a homme whose barbe was grey,
Whose cheveaux long and curly.


"Je am a poete, sir," dit he,
"Je live where tres grande want teems
I'm faim, sir. Sil vous plait give me

Un franc or cinquatite centimes."

I donne him vingt big copper sous
But dit, "You moderne rhymers
The sacre poet name abuse

Les poets were old timers."

"Je know! I know!" he wept, contrite;
"The bards no more suis mighty:
Ils rise no more in eleve flight,
Though some are beaucoup flighty.


...

Ellis Parker Butler

A Pastoral

Just as the sun was setting
Back of the Western hills
Grandfather stood by the window
Eating the last of his pills.

And Grandmother, by the cupboard,
Knitting, heard him say:
I ought to have went to the village
To fetch some more pills today.

Then Grandmother snuffled a teardrop
And said. It is jest like I suz
T th parsonGrandfathers liver
Aint what it used to was:

Its gittin torpid and dormant,
It dont function like of old,
And even them pills he swallers
Dont seem no more t catch hold;

They used to grab it and shake it
And joggle it up and down
And turn dear Grandfather yaller
Except when they turned him brown;

I remember when we was married
His liver was lively and gay,
A kickin an...

Ellis Parker Butler

A Question

Wheneer I feed the barnyard folk
My gentle soul is vexed;
My sensibilities are torn
And I am sore perplexed.

The rooster so politely stands
While waiting for his food,
But when I feed him, what a change!
He then is rough and rude.

He crowds his gentle wives aside
Or pecks them on the head;
Sometimes I think it would be best
If he were never fed.

And so I often stand for hours
Deciding which is right
To impolitely have enough,
Or starve and be polite.

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.

But the...

Ellis Parker Butler

A Scotchman Whose Name Was Isbister

A Scotchman whose name was Isbister
Had a maiden giraffe he called sister
When she said Oh, be mine,
Be my sweet Valentine!
He just shinned up her long neck and kissed her.

Ellis Parker Butler

A St. Valentine's Day Tragedy

Oh! Montmorency Vere de Vere,
To think that one I held so dear
Should use a base deceivers art
To trifle with my loving heart.

A brand new ten-cent valentine
With lace and hearts and verses fine,
I sent to show my love for thee
And in return you send to me
The one I sent to you last year,
Oh! Montmorency Vere de Vere.

Ellis Parker Butler

A Study In Feeling

To be a great musician you must be a man of moods,
You have to be, to understand sonatas and etudes.
To execute pianos and to fiddle with success,
With sympathy and feeling you must fairly effervesce;
It was so with Paganini, Remenzi and Cho-pang,
And so it was with Peterkin Von Gabriel OLang.

Monsieur OLang had sympathy to such a great degree.
No virtuoso ever lived was quite so great as he;
He was either very happy or very, very sad;
He was always feeling heavenly or oppositely bad;
In fact, so sympathetic that he either must enthuse
Or have the dumps; feel ecstacy or flounder in the blues.

So all agreed that Peterkin Von Gabriel OLang
Was the greatest violinist in the virtuoso gang.
The ladies bought his photographs and put them on the shelves
In ...

Ellis Parker Butler

An Exception

In all romances, old and new,
And in all lovers rhymes
I find one rule that has held true
Since prehistoric times.

The lover must, if he indeed
Be hit by Cupids dart,
Grow pale, sigh much, neglect his food,
And wholly lose his heart.

Now fain would I abide this rule
But I, forsooth, grow red
And hot, and stammer like a fool,
And only lose my head.

Ellis Parker Butler

An Old-fashioned Garden

Strange, is it not? She was making her garden,
    Planting the old-fashioned flowers that day
Bleeding-hearts tender and bachelors-buttons
    Spreading the seeds in the old-fashioned way.

Just in the old fashioned way, too, our quarrel
    Grew until, angrily, she set me free
Planting, indeed, bleeding hearts for the two of us,
    Ordaining bachelors buttons for me.

Envoi

Strange, was it not? But seeds planted in anger
    Sour in the earth and, ere long, a decay
Withered the bleeding hearts, blighted the buttons,
    And, we were wed, in the old-fashioned way.

Ellis Parker Butler

Anticipation

I hold her letter as I stand,
    Nor break the seal; no need to guess
What dainty little female hand
    Penned this most delicate address.

The scented seal, I break it not,
    But stand in stormy revery;
I tremble as I wonder what
    She who penned this will say to me.

I wonder what my wife will say
    If so it be she eer shall know
I only mailed her note today
    It should have gone two weeks ago!

Ellis Parker Butler

At Variance

When with me the play she goes,
I much admire the buds and bows
And all that on Kates headgear grows.
But when some other night I see
That hat between the stage and me,
My taste and Kates do not agree.

Ellis Parker Butler

Bird Nesting

O wonderful! In sport we climbed the tree,
Eager and laughing, as in all our play,
To see the eggs where, in the nest, they lay,
But silent fell before the mystery.

For, one brief moment there, we understood
By sudden sympathy too fine for words
That we were sisters to the brooding birds
And part, with them, in Gods great motherhood.

Ellis Parker Butler

Circumstantial Evidence

She does not mind a good cigar
(The kind, that is, I smoke);
She thinks all men quite stupid are,
(But laughs wheneer I joke).

She says she does not care for verse
(But praises all I write);
She says that punning is a curse,
(But then mine are so bright!)

She does not like a big moustache
(You see that mine is small);
She hates a man with too much dash,
(I scarcely dash at all!)

She simply dotes on hazel eyes
(And mine, you note, are that);
She likes a man of portly size;
(Gad! I am getting fat!)

She says champagne is made to drink;
(In this we quite agree!)
And all these symptoms make me think
Sweet Kates in love with me.

Ellis Parker Butler

Cupid Caught Napping

Cupid on a summer day,
Wearied by unceasing play,
In a rose heart sleeping lay,
While, to guard the tricksy fellow,
Close above the fragrant bed
Back and forth a gruff bee sped,
And, to lull the sleepy head,
Played Zoom! Zoom! upon his cello.

Little did the god surmise
That sweet Annas cerule eyes
Gazed on him with glad surprise,
Or that he was in such danger;
But the watchman bee, in haste,
Left his post that he might taste
of the honey nature placed
On the lips of that fair stranger.

Thus unwatched, from Cupids side
Anna stole the boy gods pride,
All his love darts, and then hied
Far away from captures chances
And today she wields the prize;
For Loves quiver still supplies
Darts that speed from Annas eyes

Ellis Parker Butler

Djolan

Soft was the night, the eve how airy,
When through the big, fat dictionary
I wandered on in careless ease,
And read the a's, b's, c's and d's!

But stop! What is this form I see,
Beginning with a hump-backed d?
I pause! I gasp! I falter there!
It is the djolan, I declare!

It is the djolan, wond'rous word!
The Buceros plicatus bird!
Ne'er, ne'er before had I the bliss
To meet a djolly word like this!

'Twas djust before my dinner hour,
Well, let the djuicy djoint go sour!
Djoyful I read. I djust must see
What this strange djolan word may be!

Ah! ha! It is a noun! A noun!
(A ''name word" as we say in town)
"E. Ind. The native name of the
Year bird." These are the words I see.

"A hornbill with a white tail and,"

Ellis Parker Butler

Page 1 of 5