Written by
Gelett Burgess |
I'm Sure every Word that you say is Absurd;
I Say it's All Gummidge and Twaddle;
You may Argue away till the 19th of May,
But I don't like the Sound of the Moddle!
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Written by
Mother Goose |
Hickery, dickery, 6 and 7,Alabone, Crackabone, 10 and 11,Spin, spun, muskidun,Twiddle 'em, twaddle 'em, 21.
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Written by
Edgar Lee Masters |
At four o'clock in late October
I sat alone in the country school-house
Back from the road 'mid stricken fields,
And an eddy of wind blew leaves on the pane,
And crooned in the flue of the cannon-stove,
With its open door blurring the shadows
With the spectral glow of a dying fire.
In an idle mood I was running the planchette --
All at once my wrist grew limp,
And my hand moved rapidly over the board,
Till the name of "Charles Guiteau" was spelled,
Who threatened to materialize before me.
I rose and fled from the room bare-headed
Into the dusk, afraid of my gift.
And after that the spirits swarmed --
Chaucer, Caesar, Poe and Marlowe,
Cleopatra and Mrs. Surratt --
Wherever I went, with messages, --
Mere trifling twaddle, Spoon River agreed.
You talk nonsense to children, don't you?
And suppose I see what you never saw
And never heard of and have no word for,
I must talk nonsense when you ask me
What it is I see!
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Written by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
A CHILD refused to go betimes
To church like other people;
He roam'd abroad, when rang the chimes
On Sundays from the steeple.
His mother said: "Loud rings the bell,
Its voice ne'er think of scorning;
Unless thou wilt behave thee well,
'Twill fetch thee without warning."
The child then thought: "High over head
The bell is safe suspended--"
So to the fields he straightway sped
As if 'twas school-time ended.
The bell now ceas'd as bell to ring,
Roused by the mother's twaddle;
But soon ensued a dreadful thing!--
The bell begins to waddle.
It waddles fast, though strange it seem;
The child, with trembling wonder,
Runs off, and flies, as in a dream;
The bell would draw him under.
He finds the proper time at last,
And straightway nimbly rushes
To church, to chapel, hastening fast
Through pastures, plains, and bushes.
Each Sunday and each feast as well,
His late disaster heeds he;
The moment that he bears the bell,
No other summons needs he.
1813.
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Written by
Paul Laurence Dunbar |
You kin talk about yer anthems
An' yer arias an' sich,
An' yer modern choir-singin'
That you think so awful rich;
But you orter heerd us youngsters
In the times now far away,
A-singin' o' the ol' tunes
In the ol'-fashioned way.
There was some of us sung treble
An' a few of us growled bass,
An' the tide o' song flowed smoothly
With its 'comp'niment o' grace;
There was spirit in that music,
An' a kind o' solemn sway,
A-singin' o' the ol' tunes
[Pg 54]In the ol'-fashioned way.
I remember oft o' standin'
In my homespun pantaloons—
On my face the bronze an' freckles
O' the suns o' youthful Junes—
Thinkin' that no mortal minstrel
Ever chanted sich a lay
As the ol' tunes we was singin'
In the ol'-fashioned way.
The boys 'ud always lead us,
An' the girls 'ud all chime in
Till the sweetness o' the singin'
Robbed the list'nin' soul o' sin;
An' I used to tell the parson
'T was as good to sing as pray,
When the people sung the ol' tunes
In the ol'-fashioned way.
How I long ag'in to hear 'em
Pourin' forth from soul to soul,
With the treble high an' meller,
An' the bass's mighty roll;
But the times is very diff'rent,
An' the music heerd to-day
Ain't the singin' o' the ol' tunes
In the ol'-fashioned way.
Little screechin' by a woman,
Little squawkin' by a man,
Then the organ's twiddle-twaddle,
Jest the empty space to span,—
An' ef you should even think it,
'T is n't proper fur to say
That you want to hear the ol' tunes
In the ol'-fashioned way.
But I think that some bright mornin',
When the toils of life air o'er,
An' the sun o' heaven arisin'
Glads with light the happy shore,
I shall hear the angel chorus,
In the realms of endless day,
A-singin' o' the ol' tunes
In the ol'-fashioned way.
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