Guy Wetmore Carryl: Verses about Envy

Once a flock of stately peacocks
Promenaded on a green,
There were twenty-two or three cocks,
Each as proud as seventeen,
And a glance, however hasty,
Showed their plumage to be tasty;
Wheresoever one was placed, he
Was a credit to the scene.

Now their owner had a daughter
Who, when people came to call,
Used to say, 'You'd reelly oughter
See them peacocks on the mall.'
Now this wasn't to her credit,
And her callers came to dread it,
For the way the lady said it
Wasn't
recherche
at all.

But a jay that overheard it
From his perch upon a fir
Didn't take in how absurd it
Was to every one but her;
When they answered, 'You don't tell us!'
And to see the birds seemed zealous
He became extremely jealous,
Wishing, too, to make a stir.

As the peacocks fed together
He would join them at their lunch,
Culling here and there a feather
Till he'd gathered quite a bunch;
Then this bird, of ways perfidious,
Stuck them on him most fastidious
Till he looked uncommon hideous,
Like a Judy or a Punch.

But the peacocks, when they saw him,
One and all began to haul,
And to harry and to claw him
Till the creature couldn't crawl;
While their owner's vulgar daughter,
When her startled callers sought her,
And to see the struggle brought her,
Only said, 'They're on the maul.'

It was really quite revolting
When the tumult died away,
One would think he had been moulting
So dishevelled was the jay;
He was more than merely slighted,
He was more than disunited,
He'd been simply dynamited
In the fervor of the fray.

And THE MORAL of the verses
Is: That short men can't be tall.
Nothing sillier or worse is
Than a jay upon a mall.
And the jay opiniative
Who, because he's imitative,
Thinks he's highly decorative
Is the biggest jay of all.

A maiden from the Bosphorus,
With eyes as bright as phosphorus,
Once wed the wealthy bailiff
Of the caliph
Of Kelat.
Though diligent and zealous, he
Became a slave to jealousy.
(Considering her beauty,
'T was his duty
To be that!)

When business would necessitate
A journey, he would hesitate,
But, fearing to disgust her,
He would trust her
With his keys,
Remarking to her prayerfully:
'I beg you'll use them carefully.
Don't look what I deposit
In that closet,
If you please.'

It may be mentioned, casually,
That blue as lapis lazuli
He dyed his hair, his lashes,
His mustaches,
And his beard.
And, just because he did it, he
Aroused his wife 's timidity:
Her terror she dissembled,
But she trembled
When he neared.

This feeling insalubrious
Soon made her most lugubrious,
And bitterly she missed her
Elder sister
Marie Anne:
She asked if she might write her to
Come down and spend a night or two,
Her husband answered rightly
And politely:
'Yes, you can!'

Blue-Beard, the Monday following,
His jealous feeling swallowing,
Packed all his clothes together
In a leather-
Bound valise,
And, feigning reprehensibly,
He started out, ostensibly
By traveling to learn a
Bit of Smyrna
And of Greece.

His wife made but a cursory
Inspection of the nursery;
The kitchen and the airy
Little dairy
Were a bore,
As well as big or scanty rooms,
And billiard, bath, and ante-rooms,
But not that interdicted
And restricted
Little door!

For, all her curiosity
Awakened by the closet he
So carefully had hidden,
And forbidden
Her to see,
This damsel disobedient
Did something inexpedient,
And in the keyhole tiny
Turned the shiny
Little key:

Then started hack impulsively,
And shrieked aloud convulsively -
Three heads of girls he'd wedded
And beheaded
Met her eye!
And turning round, much terrified,
Her darkest fears were verified,
For Blue stood behind her,
Come to find her
On the sly!

Perceiving she was fated to
Be soon decapitated, too,
She telegraphed her brothers
And some others
What she feared.
And Sister Anne looked out for them,
In readiness to shout for them
Whenever in the distance
With assistance
They appeared.

But only from her battlement
She saw some dust that cattle meant.
The ordinary story
Is n't gory,
But a jest.
But here 's the truth unqualified.
The husband wasn't mollified
Her head is in his bloody
Little study
With the rest!

The Moral: Wives, we must allow,
Who to their husbands will not bow,
A stern and dreadful lesson learn
When, as you've read, they 're cut in turn.