SHINGLE-SHORT
Look here! It staggers me, how God,
As crams a two-inch bit o’ sod
With littlest leaves, an’ blades o’ grass,
All perfeck, can a-bear let be
This hugger-mugger muddle, Me!
Ay, You could right me, yet You don’t.
You hit too often as You aim
For me to think Your skill’s to blame,
An’, so it must be, ’cause You won’t.
Well, that’s beyond me; let it pass!
P’raps He can see some reason for ’t;
But I’ll be jigger’d if I can!
All I can see is, spilt an’ spoilt,
An’ murder’d to a Shingle-short,
Matter that might ha’ made a Man:—
Better one, maybe, too, than most;
Which is a bite, an’ not a boast—
Just the tip-toppin’ to the curse;
’Cause, bein’ better makes me worse.
Say you’d a shingle off the roof:
Would clappin’ twenty on the side
Make this old wharé weather-proof?
No, make the twenty misapplied.
An’ that’s the very way I am:—
Here I’m a-wantin’, there I’m waste.
First I’m a shortage, then a sham—
Kind of a two ways in the wrong,
Double disgustin’ and disgraced.
Oh, it’s all crazy! it’s all wrong!
Everythin’s cuss’d an’ contrary!
Everythin’ slops, or else comes short,
Or both of ’em at once, like me.
30
