aesop revised by archy

Donald Robert Perry Marquis (Jul 1878-Dec 1937) | American | Published: 1927 from archy & mehitabel

archy is a cockroach who lives in a place where a typewriter with inserted paper is left at night. with his friend, a cat, he types out all sorts of versions of poems. the collections are collected in a book called archy & mehitabel

a wolf met a spring lamb
drinking at a stream
and said to her
you are a lamb
that muddied this stream
all last year
so that i could not get
a clean fresh drink
i resolve that
this outrage
shall not be enacted again
this season
i am going to kill you
just a moment
said the lamb
i was not born last year
so it could not
have been i
the wolf then pulled
a number of other
arguments as to why the lamb
should die
but in each case the lamb
pretty innocent that she was
easily proved herself guiltless
well well said the wolf
enough of argument
you are right and i am wrong
but i am going to eat
you any how
because i am hungry
stop exclamation point
cried a human voice
and a man came over
the slope of the ravine
vile lupine marauder
you shall not kill that
beautiful innocent lamb
for i shall save her
exit the wolf
left upper entrance
snarling

poor little lamb
continued our human hero
sweet tender little thing
it is well that I appeared just
when I did
it makes my blood boil
to think of the fright
to which you have been
subjected in another
moment i would have been
too late come home with me
and the lamb frolicked
about her new found friend
gamboling as to the sound
of a wordsworthian tabor
and leaping for joy
as if propelled by a stanza
from william blake
these vile and bloody wolves
went on our hero
in hones indignation
they must be bleared out
of the country
the meads must be made safe
for sheepocracy
and so follying her along
with the usual human
he led her to his home
and the son of a gun
did not even blush
when they passed the mint bed
gently he cut her throat
all the while inveigling
against the inhuman wolf
and the injustice of
the universe
which allows them to harry
poor innocent lambs
and wondering if he
had not better write to
the papers for as he said
for god s sake cant
something be done about it