Tar and Feathers
Oh! the circus swooped down
On the Narrabri town,
For the Narrabri populace moneyed are;
And the showman he smiled
At the folk he beguiled
To come all the distance from Gunnedah.
But a juvenile smart,
Who objected to “part”,
Went in on the nod, and to do it he
Crawled in through a crack
In the tent at the back,
For the boy had no slight ingenuity.
And says he with a grin,
“That’s the way to get in;
But I reckon I’d better be quiet or
They’ll spiflicate me,”
And he chuckled, for he
Had the loan of the circus proprietor.
But the showman astute
On that wily galoot
Soon dropped you’ll be thinking he leathered him
Not he; with a grim
Sort of humourous whim,
He took him and tarred him and feathered him.
Says he, “You can go
Round the world with a show,
And knock every Injun and Arab wry;
With your name and your trade
On the posters displayed,
The feathered what-is-it from Narrabri.
Next day for his freak
By a Narrabri Beak,
He was jawed with a deal of verbosity;
For his only appeal
Was “professional zeal”
He wanted another monstrosity.
Said his Worship, “Begob!
You are fined forty bob,
And six shillin’s costs to the clurk!” he says.
And the Narrabri joy,
Half bird and half boy.
Has a “down” on himself and on circuses.
Related poetry:
- They called me to the Window, for They called me to the Window, for ” ‘Twas Sunset” Some one said I only saw a Sapphire Farm And just a Single Herd Of Opal Cattle feeding far Upon so vain a Hill As even while I looked dissolved Nor Cattle were nor Soil But in their stead a Sea displayed And Ships of […]...
- She staked her Feathers Gained an Arc She staked her Feathers Gained an Arc Debated Rose again This time beyond the estimate Of Envy, or of Men And now, among Circumference Her steady Boat be seen At home among the Billows As The Bough where she was born...
- Lift it with the Feathers Lift it with the Feathers Not alone we fly Launch it the aquatic Not the only sea Advocate the Azure To the lower Eyes He has obligation Who has Paradise...
- The Lockless Door It went many years, But at last came a knock, And I though of the door With no lock to lock. I blew out the light, I tip-toed the floor, And raised both hands In prayer to the door. But the knock came again. My window was wide; I climbed on the sill And descended […]...
- An Arab Shepherd Is Searching For His Goat On Mount Zion An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion And on the opposite hill I am searching for my little boy. An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father Both in their temporary failure. Our two voices met above The Sultan’s Pool in the valley between us. Neither of us wants the boy or […]...
- "Hope" is the thing with feathers “Hope” is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all And sweetest in the Gale is heard And sore must be the storm That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm I’ve heard it in the chillest land And […]...
- The drum I’m a beautiful red, red drum, And I train with the soldier boys; As up the street we come, Wonderful is our noise! There’s Tom, and Jim, and Phil, And Dick, and Nat, and Fred, While Widow Cutler’s Bill And I march on ahead, With a r-r-rat-tat-tat And a tum-titty-um-tum-tum – Oh, there’s bushels of […]...
- The Headliner And The Breadliner Moko, the Educated Ape is here, The pet of vaudeville, so the posters say, And every night the gaping people pay To see him in his panoply appear; To see him pad his paunch with dainty cheer, Puff his perfecto, swill champagne, and sway Just like a gentleman, yet all in play, Then bow himself […]...
- The Meehoo with an Exactlywatt Knock knock! Who’s there? Me! Me who? That’s right! What’s right? Meehoo! That’s what I want to know! What’s what you want to know? Me, WHO? Yes, exactly! Exactly what? Yes, I have an Exactlywatt on a chain! Exactly what on a chain? Yes! Yes what? No, Exactlywatt! That’s what I want to know! I […]...
- The Death Of Autumn When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes, And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind Like aged warriors westward, tragic, thinned Of half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes, Stripped of its secret, open, stark and bleak, Blackens afar the half-forgotten creek,- Then leans on me the weight of the year, […]...
- May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
- The Apartment House Severe against the pleasant arc of sky The great stone box is cruelly displayed. The street becomes more dreary from its shade, And vagrant breezes touch its walls and die. Here sullen convicts in their chains might lie, Or slaves toil dumbly at some dreary trade. How worse than folly is their labor made Who […]...
- Modern Love XXXIII: In Paris, at the Louvre ‘In Paris, at the Louvre, there have I seen The sumptuously-feathered angel pierce Prone Lucifer, descending. Looked he fierce, Showing the fight a fair one? Too serene! The young Pharsalians did not disarray Less willingly their locks of floating silk: That suckling mouth of his, upon the milk Of heaven might still be feasting through […]...
- My Future “Let’s make him a sailor,” said Father, “And he will adventure the sea.” “A soldier,” said Mother, “is rather What I would prefer him to be.” “A lawyer,” said Father, “would please me, For then he could draw up my will.” “A doctor,” said Mother, “would ease me; Maybe he could give me a pill.” […]...
- Night Stuff LISTEN a while, the moon is a lovely woman, a lonely woman, lost in a silver dress, lost in a circus rider’s silver dress. Listen a while, the lake by night is a lonely woman, a lovely woman, circled with birches and pines mixing their green and white among stars shattered in spray clear nights. […]...
- Cruisers As our mother the Frigate, bepainted and fine, Made play for her bully the Ship of the Line; So we, her bold daughters by iron and fire, Accost and decoy to our masters’ desire. Now, pray you, consider what toils we endure, Night-walking wet sea-lanes, a guard and a lure; Since half of our trade […]...
- The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
- At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
- How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
- Ambition They brought the mighty chief to town; They showed him strange, unwonted sights; Yet as he wandered up and down, He seemed to scorn their vain delights. His face was grim, his eye lacked fire, As one who mourns a glory dead; And when they sought his heart’s desire: “Me like’um tooth same gold,” he […]...
- Trade Winds IN the harbor, in the island, in the Spanish Seas, Are the tiny white houses and the orange trees, And day-long, night-long, the cool and pleasant breeze Of the steady Trade Winds blowing. There is the red wine, the nutty Spanish ale, The shuffle of the dancers, the old salt’s tale, The squeaking fiddle, and […]...
- In The Old Theatre, Fiesole I traced the Circus whose gray stones incline Where Rome and dim Etruria interjoin, Till came a child who showed an ancient coin That bore the image of a Constantine. She lightly passed; nor did she once opine How, better than all books, she had raised for me In swift perspective Europe’s history Through the […]...
- Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
- No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
- The Trade They bear, in place of classic names, Letters and numbers on their skin. They play their grisly blindfold games In little boxes made of tin. Sometimes they stalk the Zeppelin, Sometimes they learn where mines are laid, Or where the Baltic ice is thin. That is the custom of “The Trade.” Few prize-courts sit upon […]...
- Hawker, the Standard Bearer The grey gull sat on a floating whale, On a floating whale sat he, And he told his tale of the storm and the gale, And the ships that he saw with steam and sail, As he flew by the Northern Sea. “I have seen a sign that is strange and new, That I never […]...
- Three Songs To The One Burden I The Roaring Tinker if you like, But Mannion is my name, And I beat up the common sort And think it is no shame. The common breeds the common, A lout begets a lout, So when I take on half a score I knock their heads about. From mountain to mountain ride the fierce […]...
- Sonnet 38 – First time he kissed me, he but only kissed First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And ever since, it grew more clean and white, Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ‘Oh, list,’ When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss. […]...
- Adventure just as the dusk comes hooting Down through the shivering black leaves Of the swinging trees we (the brave ones Swaggering like marshalls through a lynch-mob) Crash-bang our way to the door Of the so-called haunted house Knock knock – kick in a pane of glass And the dusk hoots louder in our ears And […]...
- I had a daily Bliss I had a daily Bliss I half indifferent viewed Till sudden I perceived it stir It grew as I pursued Till when around a Height It wasted from my sight Increased beyond my utmost scope I learned to estimate....
- The Naked And The Nude For me, the naked and the nude (By lexicographers construed As synonyms that should express The same deficiency of dress Or shelter) stand as wide apart As love from lies, or truth from art. Lovers without reproach will gaze On bodies naked and ablaze; The Hippocratic eye will see In nakedness, anatomy; And naked shines […]...
- Village in Late Summer LIPS half-willing in a doorway. Lips half-singing at a window. Eyes half-dreaming in the walls. Feet half-dancing in a kitchen. Even the clocks half-yawn the hours And the farmers make half-answers....
- These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
- The Spider holds a Silver Ball The Spider holds a Silver Ball In unperceived Hands And dancing softly to Himself His Yarn of Pearl unwinds He plies from Nought to Nought In unsubstantial Trade Supplants our Tapestries with His In half the period An Hour to rear supreme His Continents of Light Then dangle from the Housewife’s Broom His Boundaries forgot...
- His Mind like Fabrics of the East His Mind like Fabrics of the East Displayed to the despair Of everyone but here and there An humble Purchaser For though his price was not of Gold More arduous there is That one should comprehend the worth Was all the price there was...
- Some one prepared this mighty show Some one prepared this mighty show To which without a Ticket go The nations and the Days Displayed before the simplest Door That all may witness it and more, The pomp of summer Days....
- Sam Hookey I ran away from home with the circus, Having fallen in love with Mademoiselle Estralada, The lion tamer. One time, having starved the lions For more than a day, I entered the cage and began to beat Brutus And Leo and Gypsy. Whereupon Brutus sprang upon me, And killed me. On entering these regions I […]...
- Roc All feathered things yet ever known to men, From the huge Rucke, unto the little Wren; From Forrest, Fields, from Rivers and from Pons, All that have webs, or cloven-footed ones; To the Grand Arke, together friendly came, Whose several species were too long to name...
- The Dam that Keele Built This is the dam that Keele built. This is the stream that brought the water to fill the dam that Keele built; This is the Water and Sewer Brigade, That measured the stream that brought the water to fill the dam that Keele built; This is the Engineer by Trade Head of the Water and […]...
- Skipper Ireson's Ride Of all the rides since the birth of time, Told in story or sung in rhyme, – On Apuleius’ Golden Ass, Or one-eyed Calendar’s horse of brass, Witch astride of a human back, Islam’s prophet on Al-Borak, – The strangest ride that ever was sped Was Ireson’s, out from Marblehead! Old Floyd Ireson, for his […]...