Mouths Of Hippopotami And Some Recent Novels
Ellis Parker Butler 1869 (Muscatine) – 1937 (Williamsville)
(with apologies to Frederic Taber Cooper)
I well recall (and who does not)
The circus bill-board hippopotamus,
whose wide distended jaws
For fear and terror were good cause.
That month, that vasty carmine cave,
Could munch with ease a Nubian slave;
In fact, the bill-board hippopot-
amus could bolt a house and lot!
Wide opened, that tremendous mouth
Obscured three-quarters of the south
Side of Schmidt’s barn, and promised me
Thrills, shocks, delights and ecstasy.
And then, alas! what sad non plus
The living hippopotamus!
’Twas but a stupid, sodden lump
As thrilling as an old elm stump.
Its mouth—unreasonably small—
The hippo opened not at all,
Or, if it did, it was about
As thrilling as a teapot spout.
The Crimson Junk, by Doris Watt,
I’ve read it. Who, I pray, has not?
Bill Wastel, by C. Marrow. The
Plaid Cowslip. And The Hocking Lee.
The Fallow Field, by Sally Loo;
The Rose in Chains. I’ve read that too;
I’ve read them all for promised treat
Of thrills, emotions, tremblings sweet.
The bill-board hippopotamus
It was a wild, uprageous cuss—
The real one? Well—Can you recall
That it had any mouth at all?
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 58 sec read
- 77 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | X ABXX CCAA DDEE BBFF GGHH AAXE IIJJ BBGG |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,113 |
Words | 196 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
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"Mouths Of Hippopotami And Some Recent Novels" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 23 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/11052/mouths-of-hippopotami-and-some-recent-novels>.
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