Page 52 - Poetry-Whimsy

A Variation of Hood*

I remember, I remember
That boarding house forlorn,
The little window where the smell
Of hash came in the morn.
I mind the broken looking-glass,
The mattress like a rock,
The servant girl from County Clare,
Whose face would stop a clock.

I remember, I remember
The gutta percha hen
They used to serve for chick of spring
To thirteen hungry men.
We blasted it with dynamite,
We vexed its bones full sore,
In vain; ‘twas served up fricasseed
For two or three days more.
I remember, I remember
The next room’s fiendish wight,
Who practiced the B flat cornet
From early morn till night.
We stood his dreary “Peak-a-Boo,”
“Sweet Violets,” and more;
But when he tried “We Never Speak”
We wallowed in his gore.

I remember, I remember
The lengthy weekly bill
Received by me with shudders, and
The symptoms of a chill.
I also call to mind the night
When no one was about,
When into space I dropped my trunk,
And through the dark skipped out.

—(The Chicago Herald, ca. 1886)

*Thomas Hood [1799-1845] was the author of the well-known poem “I
Remember, I Remember”.

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