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 2 of 5

Golden Silence

I told her I loved her and begged but a word,
One dear little word, that would be
For me by all odds the most sweet ever heard,
But never a word said she!

I raged at her then, and I said she was cold;
I swore she was nothing to me;
I prayed her the cause of her silence unfold,
But never a word said she!

I covered with kisses her delicate hand,
But she only glanced down where the sea
Low murmured in ripples of love on the sand,
And never a word said she!

I cast her hand from me with rage unsuppressed,
And she turned her blue eyes up to me
And smiled as she laid her fair head on my breast;
What need of a word? asked she.

Ellis Parker Butler

Good - Better - Best

When young, in tones quite positive
I said, "The world shall see
That I can keep myself from sin;
A good man I will be."

But when I loved Miss Kate St. Clair
'Twas thus my musing ran:
"I cannot be compared with her;
I'll be a better man."

'Twas at the wedding of a friend
(He married Kate St. Clair)
That I became superlative,
For I was "best man" there.

Ellis Parker Butler

How'd You Like It?

Well, then! Howd you like to bear the name of Butler
As an honor badge eight centuries at least,
And then have the Prohibitionists inform you
That a butler is a sort of outlawed beast?

Ellis Parker Butler

Immortality

I bowed my head in anguish sore
When Life made Death his bride;
Soul, we are lost forever more!
Unto my soul I cried.

Nay, waste in wailing not thy breath,
My soul replied to me,
Behold! The child of Life and Death
Is Immortality!

Ellis Parker Butler

Jabed Meeker, Humorist

Twain? Oh, yes, Ive heard Mark Twain
Heard him down to Pleasant Plain;
Funny? Yes, I guess so. Folks
Seemed to laugh loud at his jokes,
Laughed to beat the band; but I
Couldnt rightly make out why.
Guess his humor aint refined.
Quite enough to suit my mind.
Marks all right, right clever speaker,
But he cant touch Jabed Meeker;
And one thing that makes it queer
Is that Jabed lives right here.

You aint met him? Son, youve missed
The most funniest humorist
Ive met with in my born days,
Funniest talker, anyways,
When it comes to repartee,
Thats the humor catches me!

Like a specimen? Huh! Well,
Take, for instance, his umbrell;
Wouldnt think, until he spoke,
He could turn that to a joke;
Mark Twain couldnt, bet yo...

Ellis Parker Butler

Judgment Day

Saint Peter stood, at Heaven's gate,
All souls claims to adjudicate
Saying to some souls, "Enter in!"
"Go to Hell," to others, "you are steeped in sin."
When up from earth, with a great hubbub,
Came all the members of the Tuscarora Club.
The angel Gabriel, peering out,
Said, "What, the devil, is this noise about?"
"Gabe," said Peter, "There's always lots of noise,
At any get-together of the Tuscarora boys,
Those are anglers and they all tell lies
About the trout that got away, their fierceness and their size,
They want to enter Heaven, for our brooks are full of trout,
But I won't have any liars, and I'll keep the whole gang out;
No liars enter Heaven, and I'll most distinctly tell
The whole danged Tuscarora Club, it has to go to Hell."
Then, at a little dista...

Ellis Parker Butler

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

King Joris was a kind-eyed king,
A dear old, gentle, smiling thing;
But though by nature meek and mild,
Two things could drive him raving wild,
Dishonesty, its naughty ways; Ingratitude, its sting.

Now, in his court there was a man,
Jones, Royal Court Historian,
Whom Joris, the compassionate,
Had raised from very low estate,
Jones drove for movers, once, a van.

The king supplied all Jones could use:
Pens, ink and paper, clothing, shoes,
Food, money, facts, a desk all fixed,
Five hundred thousand words, well mixed,
And, what Id like to have, a Muse.

Jones set to work, but, poking round,
A package in his desk he found
Marked Punctuations, Use with Care,
And, looking in, discovered there
Of marks, best grade and mixed, a poun...

Ellis Parker Butler

Little Ballads Of Timely Warning; II: On Malicious Cruelty To Harmless Creatures

The cruelty of P. L. Brown
(He had ten toes as good as mine)
Was known to every one in town,
And, if he never harmed a noun,
He loved to make verbs shriek and whine.

The To be familys just complaints
(Brown had ten toes as good as mine)
Made Brown cast off the last restraints:
He smashed the Is nots into Aints
And kicked both mood and tense supine.

Infinitives were Browns dislike
(Brown, as I said, had ten good toes)
And he would pinch and shake and strike
Infinitives, or, with a pike,
Prod them and then laugh at their woes.

At length this Brown more cruel grew
(Ten toes, all good ones, then had Brown)
And to his woodshed door he drew
A young infinitive and threw
The poor, meek creature roughly down,

And whi...

Ellis Parker Butler

Little Ballads Of Timely Warning; III: On Laziness And Its Resultant Ills

There was a man in New York City
(His name was George Adolphus Knight)
So soft of heart he wept with pity
To see our language and its plight.

He mourned to see it sorely goaded
With silent letters left and right;
These from his own name he unloaded
And wrote it Georg Adolfus Nit.

Six other men in that same city
Who longed to see a Spelling Heaven
Formed of themselves a strong committee
And asked Georg Nit to make it seven.

He joined the other six with pleasure,
Proud such important men to know,
Agreeing that their first great measure
Should be to shorten the word though.

But G. Adolfus Nit was lazy;
He dilly-dallied every day;
His life was dreamy, slow and hazy,
And indolent in every way.

On Monday morn at nine...

Ellis Parker Butler

Mary Had A Little Frog

Mary had a little frog
And it was water-soaked,
But Mary did not keep it long
Because, of course, it croaked!

Ellis Parker Butler

Merry Christmas And Happy New Year!

Little cullud Rastus come a-skippin down de street,
A-smilin and a-grinnin at every one he meet;
My, oh! He was happy! Boy, but was he gay!
Wishin Merry Chrismus an Happy New-Years Day!
Wishin that his wishes might every one come true,
And, bless your dear heart, honey, I wish the same to you!

Ellis Parker Butler

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 ...

Ellis Parker Butler

Mouths Of Hippopotami And Some Recent Novels

(with apologies to Frederic Taber Cooper)

I well recall (and who does not)
The circus bill-board hippopotamus,
whose wide distended jaws
For fear and terror were good cause.

That month, that vasty carmine cave,
Could munch with ease a Nubian slave;
In fact, the bill-board hippopot-
amus could bolt a house and lot!

Wide opened, that tremendous mouth
Obscured three-quarters of the south
Side of Schmidts barn, and promised me
Thrills, shocks, delights and ecstasy.

And then, alas! what sad non plus
The living hippopotamus!
Twas but a stupid, sodden lump
As thrilling as an old elm stump.

Its mouth, unreasonably small,
The hippo opened not at all,
Or, if it did, it was about
As thrilling as a teapot spout.

Ellis Parker Butler

New England Magazine

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,
Im 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.

Vous wonder why Je weep this way,
Pour quoi these tears and blubbers?
It is mon fault les bards today
Helas! suis mere earth-grubbers.

There was a time when tout might see
My grande fli...

Ellis Parker Butler

Night In the City

The sluggish clouds hang low upon the town,
And from yon lamp in chilled and sodden rays
The feeble light gropes through the heavy mist
And dies, extinguished in the stagnant maze.

From moisty eaves the drops fall slowly down
To strike with leaden sound the walk below,
And in dark, murky pools upon the street
The water stands, as lacking life to flow.

With hopeless brain, oppressed and sad at heart,
Toil's careworn slave turns out his flickering light
And treads in dreams his dulling round again,
Where weary day succeeds to dismal night.

Ellis Parker Butler

No Beer, No Work

The shades of night was fallin slow
As through New York a guy did go
And nail on evry barroom door
A card that this here motter bore:
No beer, no work.

His brow was sad, his mouth was dry;
It was the first day of July,
And where, all parched and scorched it hung,
These words was stenciled on his tongue:
No beer, no work.

Oh, stay, the maiden said, and sup
This malted milk from this here cup.
A shudder passed through that there guy,
But with a moan he made reply:
No beer, no work.

At break of day, as through the town
The milkman put milk bottles down,
Onto one stoop a sort of snore
Was heard, and then was heard no more,
No beer, no work.

The poor old guy plumb dead was found
And planted in the buryi...

Ellis Parker Butler

October

The forest holds high carnival to-day,
And every hill-side glows with gold and fire;
Ivy and sumac dress in colors gay,
And oak and maple mask in bright attire.

The hoarded wealth of sober autumn days
In lavish mood for motley garb is spent,
And nature for the while at folly plays,
Knowing the morrow brings a snowy Lent.

Ellis Parker Butler

Outbid

When Cupid held an auction sale,
I hastened to his mart,
For I had heard that he would sell
The blue-eyed Doras heart.

I brought a wealth of truest love,
The most that I could proffer,
Because, forsooth, of stocks or bonds
I had not one to offer.

When Cupid offered Doras heart,
I bid my whole hearts love,
A love that reached from sea to sea
And to the sky above;

And When Sir Cupid called for more,
I bid my hands and life,
That should be hers for servitude
If she became my wife.

Then Going! going! Cupid cried;
The silence was intense
Until old Goldbags said, I bid
My stocks and four per cents!

Then Cupid cried, Fair Doras heart,
That neer was sold before!
Does anybody raise the bid?
Will...

Ellis Parker Butler

Page 2 of 5