Edwin C. Ranck

May the day that gave Christ birth
    Bring you boundless joy and mirth,
Fill the golden hours with gladness,
    Raise no thought to cause you sadness.

In days gone by, the poets wrote
    Sweet verses to the ladies fair;
Described the nightingale's clear note,
    Or penned an Ode to Daphne's hair.

To dare all for a woman's smile
    Or breathe one's heart out in a rose--
Such trifles now are out of style,
    The scented manuscript must close.

Yet Villon wrote his roundelays,
    And that sweet singer Horace;
But I will sing of other days
    In praise of Clara Morris.

Youth is but the joy of life,
    Not the eternal moping;
We get no happiness from strife
    Nor yet by blindly groping.

All the world's a stage you know
    The men and women actors;
A little joy, a little woe--
    These are but human factors.

The mellow days still come and go,
    The...

I never saw a purple cow,
    You say you never saw one;
But this I'll tell you anyhow,
    I know that I can draw one.

You lived in a land horror-haunted,
    And wrote with a pen half-divine;
You drank bitter sorrow, undaunted
    And cast precious pearls before swine.

What is transcendentalism?
    Merely sentimentalism
With a dash of egotism
    Somewhat mixed with mysticism.
Not at all like Socialism,
    Nor a bit like Atheism,
Hinges not on pessimism,
    Treats of man's asceticism,
Quite opposes anarchism.
    Can't you name another "Ism?"
Yes, it's transcendentalism.

A young girl stands
    Upon the sands,
And waves her hands--
    Flirtation.

A fresh young man
    With shoes of tan,
Looks spick and span--
    Expectation.

They walk the beach,
    She seems a peach
Just out of reach--
    Vexation.

Ah what is this?
    A sound of bliss
A kiss, a kiss--
    Elation.

A father lean
    Upon the scene,
Looks awful mean--
    (Curtain.)

They were seated there in silence
    Each one busy with a frown,
It was midnight in the city,
    And the lid was on the town.
They had all been playing poker
    'Mid the rattle of the chink,
When a gloom fell o'er the party,
    For they couldn't buy a drink,
But a little fellow whispered
    As he held a poker hand,
"Can't we get as drunk on water
    As we can upon the land?"
Then we kicked the little rascal,
    And we spoke without a frown,
And we anchored safe in harbor
    When the lid was on the town.

In days gone by, when cows could fly
    And goblins rode on bears;
When fairies danced upon the green
    And giants moped in lairs,
There lived alone upon a shelf
    A tinsie, winsie little elf.

Just when the stars came out at night
    And moonbeams filled the earth with light,
Down from his perch this little elf
    Would jump and wander by himself.
He wore a pair of little wings
    Tied in their place by golden strings.

One day he took a kind of notion
    To take a trip upon the ocean.
He combed his hair and washed his face
    And put his little wings in place,
Then from his shelf he softly stole
    And went to see his friend the mole
Who gave to him a pea-green boat
    And guaranteed that it would float.

A funn...

There was a girl in our town
    Who dearly loved to flirt,
But the home folks never noticed it at all.
    The women in the neighborhood
All said she was too pert,
    But she never even noticed them at all.

One night a young man came to call
    Who was considered slow,
But when he got alone with her,
    He turned the lights down low.
He begged her for a little kiss,
    She softly murmured "No,"
But you couldn't hardly notice it at all.