The Iconoclastic Rustic and the Apropos Acorn

Guest Blogger Dept.: Let’s welcome back my favorite light versifier, Guy Wetmore Carryl, with another of his Fables for the Frivolous.

                                                                            

"An acorn fell abruptly."
Drawing by Peter Newell

REPOSING ‘NEATH SOME spreading trees,
A populistic bumpkin
Amused himself by offering these
Reflections on a pumpkin:
“I would not, if the choice were mine,
Grow things like that upon a vine,
For how imposing it would be
If pumpkins grew upon a tree.”

Like other populists, you’ll note,
Of views enthusiastic,
He’d learned by heart, and said by rote
A creed iconoclastic;
And in his dim, uncertain sight
Whatever wasn’t must be right,
From which it follows he had strong
Convictions that what was, was wrong.

As thus he sat beneath an oak
An acorn fell abruptly
And smote his nose: whereat he spoke
Of acorns most corruptly.
“Great Scott!” he cried. “The Dickens!” too,
And other authors whom he knew,
And having duly mentioned those,
He expeditiously arose.

Then, though with pain he nearly swooned,
He bathed his organ nasal
With arnica, and soothed the wound
With extract of witch hazel;
And surely we may well excuse
The victim if he changed his views:
“If pumpkins fell from trees like that,”
He murmured, “Where would I be at?”

Of course it’s wholly clear to you
That when these words he uttered
He proved conclusively he knew
Which side his bread was buttered;
And, if this point you have not missed,
You’ll learn to love this populist,
The only one of all his kind
With sense enough to change his mind.

THE MORAL: In the early spring
A pumpkin-tree would be a thing
Most gratifying to us all,
But how about the early fall?