Death-poet Pickering sat at his desk,
Wrapped in appropriate gloom;
His posture was pensive and picturesque,
Like a raven charming a tomb.
Enter a party a-drinking the cup
Of sorrow — and likewise of woe:
“Some harrowing poetry, Mister, whack up,
All wrote in the key of O.
“For the angels has called my old woman hence
From the strife ( where she fit mighty free ).
It's a nickel a line? Cond — n the expense!
For wealth is now little to me.”
The Bard of Mortality looked him through
In the piercingest sort of a way:
“It is much to me though it's little to you —
I've taken a wife to-day.”
So he twisted the tail of his mental cow
And made her give down her flow.
The grief of that bard was long-winded, somehow —
There was reams and reamses of woe.
The widower man which had buried his wife
Grew lily-like round each gill,
For she turned in her grave and came back to life —
Then he cruel ignored the bill!
Then Sorrow she opened her gates a-wide,
As likewise did also Woe,
And the death-poet's song, as is heard inside,
Is sang in the key of O.