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From The Wit and Humor of America, edited by Marshall P. Wilder, Volume III, New York and London: Funk and Wagnalls and Company, 1911; pp. 567-568.


567

IN PHILISTIA

BY BLISS CARMAN

Of all the places on the map,

Some queer and others queerer,

Arcadia is dear to me,

Philistia is dearer.

There dwell the few who never knew

The pangs of heavenly hunger

As fresh and fair and fond and frail

As when the world was younger.

If there is any sweeter sound

Than bobolinks or thrushes,

It is the frou-frou of their silks — 

The roll of their barouches.

I love them even when they’re good,

As well as when they’re sinners — 

When they are sad and worldly wise

And when they are beginners.

(I say I do; of course the fact,

For better or for worse, is,

My unerratic life denies

My too erotic verses.)

I dote upon their waywardness,

Their foibles and their follies.

If there’s a madder pate than Di’s,

Perhaps it may be Dolly’s.

568

They have no “problems” to discuss,

No “theories” to discover;

They are not “new”; and I — I am

Their very grateful lover.

I care not if their minds confuse

Alastor with Aladdin;

And Cimabue is far less

To them than Chimmie Fadden.

They never heard of William Blake,

Nor saw a Botticelli;

Yet one is, “Yours till death, Louise,”

And one, “Your loving Nelly.”

They never tease me for my views,

Nor tax me with my grammar;

Nor test me on the latest news,

Until I have to stammer.

They never talk about their “moods,”

They never know they have them;

The world is good enough for them,

And that is why I love them.

They never puzzle me with Greek,

Nor drive me mad with Ibsen;

Yet over forms as fair as Eve’s

They wear the gowns of Gibson.











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