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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  William Griffith

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Hadleyburg

William Griffith

From “Woodwinds”

  • Hadleyburg was the most honest and upright town in all the region round about.—Mark Twain.


  • JOHN BARLEYCORN he said the town

    Was half a knave and half a clown,

    Nor saner than the law allowed:

    With all its stiff restraints and prim

    Observances, the place, he vowed,

    Had too much starch in it for him;

    And kept itself upon the jump

    To whip the devil round the stump.

    That crooked souls and crooked knees

    Distinguished men from walking trees,

    Was sagely then and there agreed:

    But, bent on laughing them to scorn,

    Mad John, denying them a creed,

    Resolved to stray amid the corn,

    And eavesdropping from stalk to stalk,

    To hear some goblin money talk.

    And, peeping from behind a bee,

    He fell into a reverie,

    Beholding them so smugly housed;

    And pondered what would happen had

    Some sudden thunder been aroused!

    Thinking of which the silly lad

    Collapsed beside a brawling brook,

    And laughed until the welkin shook.