Poetry of Kansas

House Cleaning Time

Backward, turn backward, O, time, in your flight
And give me the house that I slept in last night,
My bed in the corner so cozy and snug,
The chair and the couch and the beautiful rug.
 
They are vanished and gone like a tale that is told,
And the floor of the room looks so cheerless and cold.
For bedding I have but a thin gunny sack
And I shudder to move lest I step on a tack.
 
My dinner was cold and my supper was raw,
But I know it is useless to grumble and jaw;
For the house cleaning season has come once again
To wear out the patience of poor, helpless men.
 
I think every year I'll flee to some clime
And miss all the horrors of house cleaning time;
I long to go off for a dash to the pole
Or be sent to the pen and allowed to dig coal.
 
I fain would abide in some cannibal's camp
Or sleep in the jungles so darksome and damp;
To mountainous heights with delight I would climb
And stay there contented through house cleaning
        time.
 

Verdigris Valley Verse
Albert Stroud
(Coffeyville, Kansas: The Journal Press. 1917)
Page 87

 
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March 8, 2003 / John & Susan Howell / Wichita, Kansas / howell@kotn.org

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