Page:Captain Craig; a book of poems.djvu/51

And after that, if you propitiate
Gambrinus, I shall play you that Andante
As the world has never heard it played before.'
So saying, he produced a piece of paper,
Unfolded it, and read, 'Sonnet Unique
De Pretzel von Wurzburger, dit L'Obscéne:—

"’Carmichael had a kind of joke-disease,
And he had queer things fastened on his wall.
There are three green china frogs that I recall
More potently than anything, for these
Three frogs have demonstrated, by degrees,
What curse was on the man to make him fall:
"They are not ordinary frogs at all,
They are the Frogs of Aristophanes."

"’God! how he laughed whenever he said that;
And how we caught from one another's eyes
The flash of what a tongue could never tell!
We always laughed at him, no matter what
The joke was worth. But when a man's brain dies,
We are not always glad . . . Poor Carmichael!’

"’I am a sowbug and a necrophile,'
Said Pretzel, 'and the gods are growing old;
The stars are singing Golden hair to gray,