At first they called us a “game of dice.” We were drab as a dead man’s hand: We lolled at ease ’neath the dripping trees, Or trailed thru the mud and sand. Sextette-sided, with corners round, Writing a language dumb; While fingers snapped and cash exchanged On bets that we wouldn’t “come.”
Later they labeled us “African Golf.” And they gave us a spin once more. Our forms were rolled in the clinging mold Of the Terra Firma shore. The aeons came, and the aeons fled, But the hand that held us fast, Was sure to hold us a bit too long, We tried hard, but—couldn’t “pass.”
Then light and swift thru the jungle trees Swung the white men in their flights; And they heard the darkies plead “Come little Joe”! In the hush of policeless nights. And, Oh! What improvement the white man made! For us there were no bounds! We were riven away by a newer day, And no longer rolled on the ground.
Thus point by point, and “pass” by “pass,” Onward thru cycles strange, We “sevened,” “elevened,” “nined,” and “fived,” And followed the chain of change; ’Till there came a time in Gambledom ’Midst many a weal and woe— They changed the name of this plucky game To “Bounding Domino.”
Long were the “rolls” on the table-top. When the game would once begin; Longer the howls of the “folks-of-chance” When “hard-luck” came trooping in. O’er gold, and silver, and paper notes, They’d fight, and claw, and tear; And cheek by jowl—with words quite foul They’d soil the clothes they’d wear.
We were discovered so long ago In a time that no man knows; Yet here tonight, in the mellow light, Near the race-track at Pamlico, Our eyes are dotted with half-carat stones That shine like the Devon Springs; And cute Flappers display us in public Quite as proudly as diamond rings.
It makes no difference if we are rolled For a dollar, five, or ten. Our love is cold, our game is old, And the “sucker” our kith and kin. Tho cities have sprung above the graves Where the crook-boned-men made war, Let us drink anew to the time when you Found the hardest point was “Four.”
REMEMBER, He who operates a barber-shop is not barbaric; He that studies the lunar system is not a lunatic; He who exists on a stew is not always a student; He who thinks that One Broadway makes New York has “muchly” to learn; And—He that caresseth the Uneasy Ivories is hastily disconnected from his dough.