Written by
Robert William Service |
The Men of Seville are, they say,
The laziest of Spain.
Consummate artists in delay,
Allergical to strain;
Fr if you have a job for them,
And beg them to be spry,
They only look at you with phlegm:
"Mañana," they reply.
The Men of gay Madrid, I'm told,
Siesta's law revere;
The custom is so ages old,
And to tradition dear;
So if you want a job done soon,
And shyly ask them: "When?"
They say: "Come back this afternoon:
We'll hope to do it them."
The Men of Barcelona are
Such mostly little caps,
That when you see them from afar
They make you think of Japs;
Yet they can take life on the run,
Quite peppy, I'll allow,
For when there's something to be done,
They shout: "We'll do it NOW."
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Written by
Robert Louis Stevenson |
YOU, Charidemus, who my cradle swung,
And watched me all the days that I was young;
You, at whose step the laziest slaves awake,
And both the bailiff and the butler quake;
The barber's suds now blacken with my beard,
And my rough kisses make the maids afeared;
But with reproach your awful eyebrows twitch,
And for the cane, I see, your fingers itch.
If something daintily attired I go,
Straight you exclaim: "Your father did not so."
And fuming, count the bottles on the board
As though my cellar were your private hoard.
Enough, at last: I have done all I can,
And your own mistress hails me for a man.
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Written by
Paul Laurence Dunbar |
Oh the breeze is blowin' balmy
An the sun is in a haze;
There's a cloud jest givin' coolness
To the laziest of days.
There are crowds upon the lakeside,
But the fish refuse to bite,
So I'll wait and go a-fishin'
When the wind gets right.
Now my boat tugs at her anchor,
Eager now to kiss the spray,
While the little waves are callin'
Drowsy sailor come away,
There's a harbor for the happy,
And its sheen is just in sight,
But I won't set sail to get there,
Till the wind gets right.
That's my trouble, too, I reckon,
I've been waitin' all too long,
Tho' the days were always
Still the wind is always wrong.
An' when Gabriel blows his trumpet,
In the day o' in the night,
I will still be found waitin',
Till the wind gets right.
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