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1849–1916

AN IMPROMPTU ON ROLLER SKATES

James Whitcomb Riley

Rumble, tumble, growl, and grate! Skip, and trip, and gravitate! Lunge, and plunge, and thrash the planks With your blameless, shameless shanks:

In excruciating pain, Stand upon your head again, And, uncoiling kink by kink, Kick the roof out of the rink!

In derisive bursts of mirth, Drop ka-whop and jar the earth! Jolt your lungs down in your socks, Oh! tempestuous equinox

Of dismembered legs and arms! Strew your ways with wild alarms; Fameward skoot and ricochet On your glittering vertebrae!

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AN IMPROMPTU ON ROLLER SKATES · James Whitcomb Riley · Poetry Cove