64
BALLADS OF BATTLE
A tale, let's say, both weird and fierce,
By Allan Poe or Ambrose Bierce,[1]
Then Skerry—Peace be to his Shade!—
May play us Gounod's "Serenade,"
And, gazing thro' the broken beams,
Perchance we see the starry gleams.
*****
But "Lights-out!" sounds; "Good nights" are said,
And so we bundle off to bed.
By Allan Poe or Ambrose Bierce,[1]
Then Skerry—Peace be to his Shade!—
May play us Gounod's "Serenade,"
And, gazing thro' the broken beams,
Perchance we see the starry gleams.
*****
But "Lights-out!" sounds; "Good nights" are said,
And so we bundle off to bed.
Sweet dreams infest each drowsy head
And kindly Ghosts that work no harm
Flit round about that old French farm!
And kindly Ghosts that work no harm
Flit round about that old French farm!
- ↑ The greatest compliment I ever received to my power as a story-teller was paid me by a comrade, who, on the morning after the recital of Bierce's "The Middle Toe of the Right Foot," presented me with a small model of a human foot, minus a toe, which he had executed in the wax of a candle!
