| I often think I'll take a day and have some jolly
times, I long to lay this pen away and quit these silly rhymes; I want to take my line and hook and go down to the creek And seek the most inviting hole and fish for near a week. But yet I know this impulse wild I must not carry out For by it I am oft beguiled to paths of pain and doubt. Because when I go out to fish I rarely get a bite But sit there all day long and wish, then wander home at night. The turtles always get my bait as soon as I begin, They gather round in droves and wait to watch me throw it in; And when I go to hunt some more and delve around and toil, The insects all have locked their door and gone down in the soil. I might dig down to bedrock firm and never get a one, I do not think I'd find a worm to hunt from sun to sun; But if there's any poison oak, I'll meet with that in- stead And then my face I have to soak in acetate of lead. Mosquitoes come and buzz and sing and prod me with their bills, And yet I wonder every spring what makes me have the chills. So perish, fond delusion, no longer will I dream Of quiet and seclusion along the babbling stream. |
Verdigris Valley Verse
Albert Stroud
(Coffeyville, Kansas: The Journal Press. 1917)
Page 76-77
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