This extraordinary versifier died, before reaching the height of his power, at the age of thirty-one, in the summer of 1904.
HOW JACK FOUND THAT BEANS MAY GO BACK ON A CHAP
Without the slightest basis For hypochondriasis A widow had forebodings which a cloud around her flung, And with expression cynical For half the day a clinical Thermometer she held beneath her tongue.
Whene’er she read the papers She suffered from the vapors, At every tale of malady or accident she’d groan; In every new and smart disease, From housemaid’s knee to heart disease, She recognized the symptoms as her own!
She had a yearning chronic To try each novel tonic, Elixir, panacea, lotion, opiate, and balm; And from a homeopathist Would change to an hydropathist, And back again, with stupefying calm! She was nervous, cataleptic, And anemic, and dyspeptic: Though not convinced of apoplexy, yet she had her fears. She dwelt with force fanatical Upon a twinge rheumatical, And said she had a buzzing in her ears!
Now all of this bemoaning And this grumbling and this groaning The mind of Jack, her son and heir, unconscionably bored. His heart completely hardening, He gave his time to gardening, For raising beans was something he adored.
Each hour in accents morbid This limp maternal bore bid Her callous son affectionate and lachrymose good-bys. She never granted Jack a day Without some long “Alackaday!” Accompanied by rolling of the eyes.
But Jack, no panic showing, Just watched his beanstalk growing, And twined with tender fingers the tendrils up the pole. At all her words funereal He smiled a smile ethereal, Or sighed an absent-minded “Bless my soul!”
That hollow-hearted creature Would never change a feature: No tear bedimmed his eye, however touching was her talk. She never fussed or flurried him, The only thing that worried him Was when no bean-pods grew upon the stalk!
But then he wabbled loosely His head, and wept profusely, And, taking out his handkerchief to mop away his tears, Exclaimed: “It hasn’t got any!” He found this blow to botany Was sadder than were all his mother’s fears.
_The Moral_ is that gardeners pine Whene’er no pods adorn the vine. Of all sad words experience gleans The saddest are: “It _might_ have beans.” (I did not make this up myself: ’Twas in a book upon my shelf. It’s witty, but I don’t deny It’s rather Whittier than I!)