TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

The contractions ’t and n’t for “it” and “not” have a space before and after them, so we see “is n’t” and “wer n’t” and “’t is” in the original text. These spaces are retained in this etext. The consistent exceptions in both the text and the etext are “don’t” “can’t” and “won’t”.

Other contractions such as “they’re” and “you’re” have a half-space in the original text; these words are closed up in the etext.

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources. All misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.

If this little world to-night

Suddenly should fall thro’ space

In a hissing, headlong flight,

Shrivelling from off its face,

As it falls into the sun,

In an instant every trace

Of the little crawling things—

Ants, philosophers, and lice,

Cattle, cockroaches, and kings,

Beggars, millionaires, and mice,

Men and maggots all as one

As it falls into the sun—

Who can say but at the same

Instant from some planet far

A child may watch us and exclaim:

“See the pretty shooting star!”

If this little world to-night

Suddenly should fall thro’ space

In a hissing, headlong flight,

Shrivelling from off its face,

As it falls into the sun,

In an instant every trace

Of the little crawling things—

Ants, philosophers, and lice,

Cattle, cockroaches, and kings,

Beggars, millionaires, and mice,

Men and maggots all as one

As it falls into the sun—

Who can say but at the same

Instant from some planet far

A child may watch us and exclaim:

“See the pretty shooting star!”

The Bashful
Earthquake

& Other FABLES
and VERSES by
OLIVER HERFORD
with many pictures
by the Author

New York: Published by Charles Scribner’s Sons in the Autumn of MDCCCXCVIII

Copyright, 1898,
By Oliver Herford.

University Press:

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.

TO THE ILLUSTRATOR

IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS AMIABLE CONDESCENSION IN LENDING HIS EXQUISITELY DELICATE ART TO THE EMBELLISHMENT OF THESE POOR VERSES FROM HIS SINCEREST ADMIRER

THE AUTHOR

CONTENTS.

THE BASHFUL EARTHQUAKE

Crime, Wickedness, Villany, Vice,
And Sin only misery bring;

If you want to be Happy and Nice,

Be good and all that sort of thing.

The Bashful Earthquake

The Earthquake rumbled

And mumbled

And grumbled;

And then he bumped,

And everything tumbled—

Bumpyty-thump!

Thumpyty-bump!—

Houses and palaces all in a lump!

“Oh, what a crash!

Oh, what a smash!

How could I ever be so rash?”

The Earthquake cried.

“What under the sun

Have I gone and done?

I never before was so mortified!”

Then away he fled,

And groaned as he sped:

“This comes of not looking before I tread.”

Out of the city along the road

He staggered, as under a heavy load,

Growing more weary with every league,

Till almost ready to faint with fatigue.

He came at last to a country lane

Bordering upon a field of grain;

And just at the spot where he paused to rest,

In a clump of wheat, hung a Dormouse nest.

The sun in the west was sinking red,

And the Dormouse had just turned into bed,

Dreaming as only a Dormouse can,

When all of a sudden his nest began

To quiver and shiver and tremble and shake.

Something was wrong, and no mistake!

In a minute the Dormouse was wide awake,

And, putting his head outside his nest,

Cried: “Who is it dares disturb my rest?”

His voice with rage was a husky squeak.

The Earthquake by now had become so weak

He’d scarcely strength enough to speak.

He even forgot
the rules of
grammar;
All he could
do was to
feebly stammer:

He even forgot the rules of grammar;

All he could do was to feebly stammer:

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid it’s me.

Please don’t be angry. I’ll try to be—”

No one will know what he meant to say,

For all at once he melted away.

The Dormouse, grumbling, went back to bed,

“Oh, bother the Bats!” was all he said.

The Lovesick Scarecrow

A scarecrow in a field of corn,

A thing of tatters all forlorn,

Once felt the influence of Spring

And fell in love—a foolish thing,

And most particularly so

In his case—for he loved a crow!

“Alack-a-day! it’s wrong, I know,

It’s wrong for me to love a crow;

An all-wise man created me

To scare the crows away,” cried he;

“And though the music of her ‘Caw’

Thrills through and through this heart of straw,

“My passion I must put away

And do my duty, come what may!

Yet oh, the cruelty of fate!

I fear she doth reciprocate

My love, for oft at dusk I hear

Her in my cornfield hovering near.

“And once I dreamt—oh, vision blest!

That she alighted on my breast.

’T is very, very hard, I know,

But all-wise man decreed it so.”

He cried and flung his arm in air,

The very picture of despair.

Poor Scarecrow, if he could but know!

Even now his lady-love, the Crow,

Sits in a branch, just out of sight,

With her good husband, waiting night,

To pluck from out his sleeping breast

His heart of straw to line her nest.

The Music of the Future

The politest musician that ever was seen

Was Montague Meyerbeer Mendelssohn Green.

So extremely polite he would take off his hat

Whenever he happened to meet with a cat.

“It’s not that I’m partial to cats,” he’d explain;

“Their music to me is unspeakable pain.

There’s nothing that causes my flesh so to crawl

As when they perform a G-flat caterwaul.

Yet I cannot help feeling—in spite of their din—

When I hear at a concert the first violin

Interpret some exquisite thing of my own,

If it were not for cat gut I’d never be known.

And so, when I bow as you see to a cat,

It is n’t to her that I take off my hat;

But to fugues and sonatas that possibly hide

Uncomposed in her—well—in her tuneful inside!”

SONG.

Gather Kittens while you may,

Time brings only Sorrow;

And the Kittens of To-day

Will be Old Cats To-morrow.

THE DOORLESS WOLF.

I saw, one day, when times were very good,

A newly rich man walking in a wood,

Who chanced to meet, all hungry, lean, and sore,

The wolf that used to sit outside his door.

Forlorn he was, and piteous his plaint.

“Help me!” he howled. “With hunger I am faint.

It is so long since I have seen a door—

And you are rich, and you have many score.

When you’d but one, I sat by it all day;

Now you have many, I am turned away.

Help me, good sir, once more to find a place.

Prosperity now stares me in the face.”

The newly rich man, jingling all the while

The silver in his pocket, smiled a smile:

He saw a way the wolf could be of use.

“Good wolf,” said he, “you’re going to the deuce,—

The dogs, I mean,—and that will never do;

I think I’ve found a way to see you through.

I too have worries. Ever since I met

Prosperity I have been sore beset

By begging letters, charities, and cranks,

All very short in gold and long in thanks.

Now, if you’ll come and sit by my front door

From eight o’clock each morning, say, till four,

Then every one will think that I am poor,

And from their pesterings I’ll be secure.

Do you accept?” The wolf exclaimed, “I do!”

The rich man smiled; the wolf smiled; I smiled, too,

And in my little book made haste to scrawl:

“Thus affluence makes niggards of us all!”

The Bold Bad Butterfly

ne day a Poppy, just in play,

Said to a butterfly, “Go ’way,

Go ’way, you naughty thing! Oh, my!

But you’re a bold bad butterfly!”

Of course ’t was only said in fun,

He was a perfect paragon—

In every way a spotless thing

(Save for two spots upon his wing).

ne day a Poppy, just in play,

Said to a butterfly, “Go ’way,

Go ’way, you naughty thing! Oh, my!

But you’re a bold bad butterfly!”

Of course ’t was only said in fun,

He was a perfect paragon—

In every way a spotless thing

(Save for two spots upon his wing).

But tho’ his morals were the best,

He could not understand a jest;

And somehow what the Poppy said

Put ideas in his little head,

And soon he really came to wish

He were the least bit “devilish.”

He then affected manners rough

And strained his voice to make it gruff,

And scowled as who should say “Beware,

I am a dangerous character.

You’d best not fool with me, for I—

I am a bold, bad butterfly.”

He then affected manners rough

And strained his voice to make it gruff,

And scowled as who should say “Beware,

I am a dangerous character.

You’d best not fool with me, for I—

I am a bold, bad butterfly.”

He hung around the wildest flowers,

And kept the most unseemly hours,

With dragonflies and drunken bees,

And learned to say “By Jove!” with ease

Until his pious friends, aghast,

Exclaimed, “He’s getting awf’lly fast!”

He shunned the nicer flowers, and threw

Out hints of shady things he knew

About the laurels, and one day

He even went so far to say

Something about the lilies sweet

I could not possibly repeat!

At length, it seems, from being told

How bad he was, he grew so bold,

This most obnoxious butterfly,

That one day, swaggering ’round the sky,

He swaggered in the net of Mist-

er Jones, the entomologist.

“It seems a sin,” said Mr. J.,

“This harmless little thing to slay,”

As, taking it from out his net,

He pinned it to a board, and set

Upon a card below the same,

In letters large, its Latin name,

Which is—

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but I omit it, lest

Its family might be distressed,

And stop the little sum per year