Official Edgar Rice Burroughs Tribute Site Since 1996 ~ Over 15,000 Webpages in Archive Presents Volume 6225 The Many Worlds of  |
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Official Edgar Rice Burroughs Tribute Site Since 1996 ~ Over 15,000 Webpages in Archive Presents Volume 6225 The Many Worlds of |
"Skunk in Defeat,"
This poem that was composed on January 15, 1941,
proceeds without restraint to describe how revolting
the Nazis are:
The skunk came out and looked
about and waved his gorgeous tail;
The people ran, each ev'ry
man; the bravest there did quail.
The skunk would strut and
wave his butt; a chesty skunk was he.
He looked around that well
known ground to see what he might see;
Then from on high up in
the sky there came a horrid stench;
The skunk did quail and
lower his tail, and e'en his face did blench
He held his nose with little
toes and ran away from there,
For who could hope to fairly
cope the stink that filled the air?
He beat it then to hidden
den to lay him down and die;
And what, you think, that
awful stink? 'Twas a Nazi flying by!
Ed's ardent patriotism and his antiunion sentiments were
revealed in the poem
"A War-Job Striker To A Soldier."
The worker's complaints about the long hours,
and how tired he is at night are contrasted ironically
with the soldier's fate.
The worker grumbles:
I have to pay a lot of silly taxes
So guys like you can fight the bally Axis.
You, soldier, only have to die.
In the four-stanza poem, the last line sounds a dirgelike
refrain,
with the soldier's death made inevitable:
A WARJOB STRIKER TO A SOLDIER
I have to work for all
the coin I get.
My gas and hootch are rationed,
yet
I do not ever grouse, not
I.
If things aren't run exactly
as I like,
Believe me, brother, I
can always strike.
You, soldier, only have
to die.
Hard as my lot, my friend,
I feel, alas,
That you are just a . .
. silly ass
Who must have let his chance
pass by
To get a cushy job with
lots of jack
Instead of one from which
you won't come back;
For, soldier, you are going
to die.
But if, perchance, you should
survive the strife
And come back to your kiddies
and your wife,
I promise you that I will
try
To force you in the union
that I'll run;
And then your one regret
will be, my son,
That in the fray you did
not die.
In another poem, of a lighter nature, "Mud in
your Ai, or May 1940,"
he makes an amusing attack on the supposedly idyllic
Hawaiian setting.
The poem was sent to Hulbert on the twenty-fourth;
it contained some footnotes defining Hawaiian words
— mauka, meaning inland, toward the mountains; makai,
toward the sea; and
buffo, "a repulsive toad that swarms over our yard nights."1038
MUD IN YOUR AI
On the beach at Lanikai,
lovely, lovely Lanikai,
Where the mud comes down
from mauka, from mauka to makai;
Where the piebald fishes
ply through the mud at Lanikai;
There's where I love to
be beside the yellow sea
With my water-wings and
slicker, and umbrella over me.
Where the liquid sunshine
tumbles and the thunder rumbles, rumbles
And a cloud-burst is a
sun-shower on the beach at Lanikai.
I love the buffo buffo
and the rain upon my roof, oh!
And the mildew and the
rust and the typhoon's throaty gust
And the roaches, and the
ants that have crawled into my pants.
I love it! oh, I love it!
I cannot tell a lie,
From Kalama and Kailua
all the way to Lanikai.
California.
Once
there was a man who thought himself quite grand
There
was a dagger in his belt and pistol in each hand
But
when he saw a poor blind mole
He
climbed far up a very tall pole
But
before he reached halfway to the top
One
of his pistols he had to drop.
But
at the bottom it hit the pole
And
going off shot dead the mole.
Then
this grand man came sliding down.
And
carried the mole in to the town
And
told the people (the wicked knave)
That
he was good, and strong, and brave
He
told them too he killed the mole,
But
never mentioned climbing the pole.
At the bottom of the page beneath
the poem Ed illustrates the remainder of the incident.
The buildings of the town are
outlined in a skillful perspective
to provide a background for
the cowboy who now stands,
mustaches pointed, with a gun
dangling from his right hand.
His left hand, held out, also
clutches a gun, and extending from it is a stick
— on which the dead mole is
draped.
A careful observer, Ed missed
no details.
In both drawings of the man,
the dagger is shown at his waist,
and his blouse, pants, and long
heavy boots are clearly sketched.
Ed addressed another letter to
"My Highly Educated Brothers"
and drew comical cartoons representing
George and Harry, one on each side of the page.
They are shown with top hats,
canes, and formal coats.
One has an enormous handlebar
mustache while the other wears both mustache and beard.
Ed has printed in large letters
"89 S.S.S.!"
The S's stand for "Senior."
His original poem then follows:
89
S.S.S.!
In
eight teen hundred and eighty nine
For
my brothers to be seniors it will be time
And
then you bet their hats will shine,
In
eight teen hundred and eighty nine.
From
September eighty seven to September eighty eight,
Will
be the first and last of their Junior date.
On the other side of the page he offers a poem titled "Chicago":
CHICAGO
The
snow is falling thick and fast
In
Chicago
And
I hope every gust will be the last
In
Chicago
And
it falls on every side walk
In
Chicago
And
the lazy folks talk
In
Chicago
How
tired they will get
Before
it will melt,
In
Chicago.
Poems which may not have been
contained in letters to his brothers
include one about a certain
Mr. Roach who "will be the next mayor of Chicago."
Ed ends by stating, "And
when Roach has the key/No more red flags will you see."
He goes on to write
"Dear Reader if you want
to be killed just turn over
and read what is on the back
of this paper."
He has composed a poem titled
"Horses and Dogs":
HORSES AND DOGS
Horses
are large
And
horses are small
Some
horses kick
But
hurrah for them all.
Dogs
are good,
And
dogs are bad.
Dogs
are solom,
And
dogs are sad,
Some
dogs snarl,
And
some dogs bite,
Some
dogs are play full
And
their all right.
The "Local Brevities," as compiled by Dale R. Broadhurst, include numerous other publicity items about the store:
You
can rent a camera by the day or week at E. R. Burroughs'. (August 10, 1898)
E.
R. Burroughs, the stationer, spent a couple of days in Salt Lake on business
this week. (August 27, 1898)
They
are Dead Right! Junius Brutus 10c Havanna cigars, Burroughs sells them.
(August 27, 1898)
Many of these were repeated;
the last one, according to Broadhurst, was dated October 22, 1898.
Quoted from a letter
to Herbert Hungerford, editor, The American News Trade Journal, February
12, 1921. This recollection was published in the Trade Journal of April
1921, within a long article which offered suggestions to the bookdealers.
Kipling's poem and the
parody, fastened together in ERB's scrapbook, were evidently printed in
the same newspaper, probably the Pocatello Tribune, at the same time, to
enable the reader to make comparisons. The complete poems follow:
(The following clever lines, in
imitation of a recent very celebrated_ poem, are the composition of one
of the well-known young men of Pocatello. — Ed.)
|
[A Parody] Take up the white man's burden, The yoke ye sought to spurn; And spurn your father's customs; Your fathers' temples burn. 0 learn to love and honor The white God's favored sons. Forget the white-haired fathers Fast lashed to mouths of guns. Take
up the white man's burden,
Take
up the white man's burden;
Take
up the white man's burden;
Take
up the white man's burden;
Take
up the white man's burden;
Take
up the white man's burden
Take
up the white man's burden;
|
by Rudyard Kipling Take up the White Man's burden — Send forth the best ye breed — Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild — Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child. Take
up the White Man's burden —
Take
up the White Man's burden —
Take
up the White Man's burden —
Take
up the White Man's burden —
Take
up the White Man's burden —
Take
up the White Man's burden —
|
This and other references to
Yale are of course because George and Harry attended Yale and were oarsmen
on the crew.
Another poem and series
of cartoons concerning the Idaho days tell the story of Waupi,
a small town where all the miners
and cowboys went for a good time:
MAMMA'S
LULLABY
Bye
Baby, bye, bye;
Papa's
gone to Waupi
He'll
get a skate
And
come home late;
Mamma'll
meet him at the gate;
To
run a flat-iron at his pate;
Bye
Baby, bye, bye.
To "get a skate" means to be
liquored up.
A cartoon showing Grandfather
(Major George Burroughs, Sr.)
on a bicycle refers to the occasion
when he did purchase a bicycle
with resulting humorous comment
by the family.
Ed's poem is beneath his cartoon:
Words
fail us at a sight like this;
No
verses come to save
When
we behold Grandfather
Scorching
down the pave.
In
a poem and cartoon dated September 12, 1895,
Ed
jokes about Grand-father's change in attitude toward boats. Presumably
WHAT
ARE THE WILD WAVES SAYING?
AN
EVENING LULLABY FOR THE CHILDREN
The
sad sea waves rolled in upon
The
Oyster's feather bed.
"We'd
like to can the mush faced man
"Who's
asking what we said.
"We
yearn to serve him in a jug
"Or
frizzled on a red hot mug,
"Or
fried in grease instead.
"He
is too soft for any good
"Excepting,
as a breakfast food,
"The
Sea Cow may be fed."
2
The
Sea Cow oped her lanthern jaw
And
guppled in her spacious maw
The
man, without ado.
She
fraggled out his squirming hair
And
gapped his teeth beside her there.
She
left his bones all raw and bare,
But,
0, it made her blue.
It
made her blue to glean and think,
This
sploshy man, so gue and pink,
Was
of the Corbi's crew.
3
The
Corbi, that ill fated craft,
By
noxious, noisome breezes waft,
As
loaded down with dead and daft
She
cruises round for blood.
Her
master sabers all who come
Except
the lordly Borogum,
Who
dines and wines on mud.
The
ghersters lark aboard this bark,
With
hingling skulls and eyeballs stark,
The
Slaves of Great God Crud.
4
The
Knockers god, and those who wail
His
flaming eye and flabble tail
Pursue
them round the world.
He
shageth him of syphon head
Puts
hunch backed bugs upon his bed,
As
wailing wails he fills with dread
The
hushful one and surled.
With
sink-hole eye he passes by
And
in his wake they writhe and die,
All
withered, choked, and curled.
5
And
so the lordly Borogum
With
Crud and hearsesome ghersters come
All
down the center aisle,
And
pick their bones as white as stone
Till
every snarling skull, with moans,
And
ghastly groans, each sin atones.
Then
all shoot craps awhile,
Until
a merry little crap
Gets
sore at being that, mayhap,
And
googers with a smile.
1161
The poem was printed on
February 3, 1914. Ed, after his yearning appeal for "A Line-O'-Type or
Two," his Chicago "Wailing Place" and one he evidently missed in California,
was offered reassurance, presumably, in Taylor's title — "Nay, It Hath
Not Gone." Beneath his original poem, following an asterisk, Ed had typed
"Help!"
The second San Diego poem, again
humorously critical of Southern California, was printed in "A Line-O'-Type
or Two" on March 30, 1914, and titled The
Climate and the View
THE CLIMATE AND THE VIEW
When
one first comes to southern Cal
And
gloms the cloudless blue,
One
swallows nearly everything
While
listening to the natives sing
The
Climate and the View.
And
when one's robbed and bilked and bled
And
flimflammed through and through,
The
native tries to ease the pain
By
bleating loudly and amain
Of
Climate and the View.
The
lean and hungry realty man
Adheres
to one like glue,
He
has not eaten for a year,
Yet
still one hears him bravely cheer
The
Climate and the View.
And
when one comes to leave for home,
And
bids the south adieu,
One
must admit, would one be fair,
That
Sunny Southern Cal is there
With
Climate and with View.*
Normal Bean *
* And nothing else.
These two poems, printed in "A Line-O'-Type or Two," are without any author's name and are titled "Musca Domestica" and "The Martyrs." The first one, composed of four eight-line stanzas and a final rhyming couplet, presents a vivid picture of the disgusting fly:
Baby
bye, here's a fly.
We
will watch him, you and I;
Lest
he fall in Baby's mouth,
Bringing
germs from north and south.
The
fly's filthy habits are described: "I believe with six such legs/ You or
I could walk on eggs;/ But he'd rather crawl on meat/ With his microbe-laden
feet." At the end of the poem the fly is about to be swatted. "Musca Domestica"
is marked beneath its title "Republished by request" and asterisked "Of
the International Anti-Fly Association."
"The
Martyrs," printed October 23, 1909, is a humorous poem criticizing the
C. B. and Q. Railroad. Those who wait "in the shed of the C.B. and Q."
are the real martyrs:
Its
menagerie air is the natural lair
Of
the germs of pneumonia and grip,
Of
pellagra, bronchitis, and ev'ry old 'itis,
Of
peevishness, pimples, and pip.
They
swarm on the people who come to this place.
Which
smells like a gym or a zoo
The
martyrs who wait for the ump-umpty-eight
In
the shed of the C., B and Q.
Whether
this poem, consisting of three eight-line stanzas, and the "Musca Domestica"
were written by Ed is not known; they may have been the work of B.L.T.
The tone and language are typical of Ed's verse. The fact that they were
saved in his scrapbook may or may not be of significance.
Other
poems saved in his scrapbook, also from "The Line" but undated, are titled
"The Clark Street Cable," described as the ballad of "the guy with the
fishy eye" whose work is "to watch the beautiful botch/ That's known as
the Clark Street rope"; a poem titled "Decorative Therapeutics" that tells
of the effects of environment upon health — the importance of choosing
furniture and bric-a-brac properly; and a short poem titled "Be Careful
How You Say It," concerning the pronunciation of "volplane."
The
poem "Hooks for Men!" by Normal Bean was printed, but column and date are
unknown. It consists of five four-line stanzas and describes how both he
and the dog have been dispossessed, with the two babies, "two tiny towheads"
taking over all the belongings and closets. Of course he admits that he
doesn't mind this "servitude."
A
poem titled "A Warning and a Plea to Beachey," dated November 20, 1913,
was written by Ed at Coronado. A typed copy is saved in his scrapbook;
it is not known whether the poem was printed. Ed has noted on one side:
"Written after watching Lincoln Beachey practicing for several days before
he looped the first loop looped in an aeroplane." Hulbert Burroughs has
recalled the incident in a note to Stanley Vinson, September 20, 1965,
explaining that in this California period, although he was only four years
old, he could remember having seen "the earlier flier Lincoln Beachey make
what we called then a loop-the-loop... .
Ed's
poem protests about the fact that he can't write and that he finds himself
standing at the back window all day, "boob-like," watching Beachey circle
over the house:
My
labors for my daily bread
Have
lately gone to pot.
My
children clamor to be fed;
But
I can hear them not.
................
Half
bathed, the baby squawks amain,
Exposed
the while to croup,
While
friend wife hugs the window pane
To
glom the loop-the-loop.
My
spacing bar and key board beck;
My
pants are out behind;
My
editors weep on my neck;
But
I am deaf and blind.
At
the end Ed implores Beachey to "go otherwhere" and says, "Or, Beachey,
list! On bended knee/ A supplicating goop/ Beats his bald pate and begs
of thee;/ For Pete's sake loop-the-loop,/ And then beat it."
A
poem addressed to B.L.T., dated June 11, 1914, a typed carbon, humorously
develops the idea that to make "The Line," one has to write poetry, not
prose: "Though worlds may pause in cosmic flight/ To hear what I would
say; You let them keep on pausing as/ You turn my prose away"; in closing
Ed writes, "So I am now constrained to think/ The prose stuff that I wrote/
Was sadly utilized by you/ As brain food for the goat." The poem is signed
Normal Bean; Ed's protest indicated that he had been sending prose to "The
Wake," but no copies of this have been found.
A
lengthy poem of eleven four-line stanzas, in typed form, signed Normal
Bean, again offers a defense of sports; its setting is in heaven with St.
Peter confronting a would-be entrant. St. Peter asks the "old party with
saucy side-whiskers" what he has done to deserve a place in heaven. The
old man replies:
I
have ruined a hundred good fight games
Besides
closing a race track or two,
And
forced the unwilling ten thousands
To
do as I liked them to do.
And
whenever I've seen a new pastime
That
I thought wouldn't interest me
I've
hollered and shouted and bellered
'Til
I've frightened the same up a tree.
St. Peter rejects the old man's application for entrance, commenting sarcastically:
You
have overlooked tennis and bowling;
Likewise,
checkers and golf and croquette,
And
also some wicked old ladies
Who
sit and drink tea and crochet.
And
I'm sure there are several millions
Whose
pleasures in life you've not crabbed;
And
there's oodles of cush in reforming
That
an A.1. reformer'd have grabbed.
I'm
afraid you can't play in the finals;
You've
foozled too dinged much by far,
And
Im sure they don't want you in hades
So
you'd better go sit on a star.
For
putting the kibosh on pleasure
Because
it's not pleasure to you
Doesn't
give you the high-sign to heaven,
Or
an oar on the heavenly crew.
Ed
here reveals not only his partiality for sports but his distaste for narrow-minded
reformers. It is not known whether the poem was printed.
A
four-line poem, evidently used to autograph a book presented to Bert Leston
Taylor — in this case probably a copy of the first edition of Tarzan of
the Apes — was preserved in Ed's scrapbook:
You
may not read it, B.L.T. —
This
book what I have wrote —
But
if you throw it on the floor
I
hope it gets your goat.
The verse is signed with Ed's nom de plume; with the receipt of the book, Taylor obviously knew that Burroughs was Normal Bean. Other verses designed for book autographs, saved by Ed, are ones to Bert Weston and his family and to the Chicago Press Club. The verse to the Westons reads:
I'm
trying to think of something bright
Upon
this fly leaf to indite
To
make the Western Tribe concieve me
To
be some witty gink, believe me!
But
now, at last, I must, forsooth,
Reveal
to Bert and Mag the truth.
And
why, indeed, should I delay it?
With
naught to say, I haste to say it.
To the Press Club, in presenting a book, probably Tarzan of the Apes, Ed wrote as an autograph:
Wend,
magnum opus, to the Press Club shelves,
Rewarding
who for greater knowledge delves.
Upon
they way — a gift to them from me,
Since
Led'rer says they will not pay for thee.
Lederer
had remarked that he once wanted to make a cartoonist of Ed. Lederer, evidently
an official, is referred to in The Scoop of November 7, 1914, when Ed was
admitted as a new member.
A
brief printed reference to Normal Bean, probably in "A Line-O'-Type or
Poetry by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Poems
I
Poems
II
Genghis
Khan
ERB
The Poet
Two
More Rare ERB Poems
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