Shapes of Clay

Hear me sing of Sally Larkin who, I'd have you understand,

Played accordions as well as any lady in the land;

And I've often heard it stated that her fingering was such

That Professor Schweinenhauer was enchanted with her touch;

And that beasts were so affected when her apparatus rang

That they dropped upon their haunches and deliriously sang.

This I know from testimony, though a critic, I opine,

Needs an ear that is dissimilar in some respects to mine.

She could sing, too, like a jaybird, and they say all eyes were wet

When Sally and the ranch-dog were performing a duet—

Which I take it is a song that has to be so loudly sung

As to overtax the strength of any single human lung.

That, at least, would seem to follow from the tale I have to tell,

Which (I've told you how she flourished) is how Sally Larkin fell.

One day there came to visit Sally's dad as sleek and smart

A chap as ever wandered there from any foreign part.

Though his gentle birth and breeding he did not at all obtrude

It was somehow whispered round he was a simon-pure Dude.

Howsoe'er that may have been, it was conspicuous to see

That he was a real Gent of an uncommon high degree.

That Sally cast her tender and affectionate regards

On this exquisite creation was, of course, upon the cards;

But he didn't seem to notice, and was variously blind

To her many charms of person and the merits of her mind,

And preferred, I grieve to say it, to play poker with her dad,

And acted in a manner that in general was bad.

One evening—'twas in summer—she was holding in her lap

Her accordion, and near her stood that melancholy chap,

Leaning up against a pillar with his lip in grog imbrued,

Thinking, maybe, of that ancient land in which he was a Dude.

Then Sally, who was melancholy too, began to hum

And elongate the accordion with a preluding thumb.

Then sighs of amorosity from Sally L. exhaled,

And her music apparatus sympathetically wailed.

"In the gloaming, O my darling!" rose that wild impassioned strain,

And her eyes were fixed on his with an intensity of pain,

Till the ranch-dog from his kennel at the postern gate came round,

And going into session strove to magnify the sound.

He lifted up his spirit till the gloaming rang and rang

With the song that to his darling he impetuously sang!

Then that musing youth, recalling all his soul from other scenes,

Where his fathers all were Dudes and his mothers all Dudines,

From his lips removed the beaker and politely, o'er the grog,

Said: "Miss Larkin, please be quiet: you will interrupt the dog."