Poets' Corner

fond recollections

boss i saw a
pitiful sight yesterday i
was crawling across the
ruins of an old house that
the workmen are tearing
down up town and
i saw a middle
aged man sitting on a
pile of bricks with
his gray hair in his hands he
was weeping and moaning
and i gathered from his
remarks that the place was once
a boarding house where
he had spent
many happy years i caught
a few strophes of his
song of woe as
follows
o workman spare that bathtub o
that bathtub made of zinc
that bathtub in the boarding house
that i lived in for years
fond recollections of
my yourh surge oer
me when i think
upon that bathtub in that
boarding house and i
choke up with tears
when splashing of a sunday
morn a peevish voice and surly
would tell me to make
haste and be
myself again adorning
throughout the week it
had few friends
but on on sunday morning
that bathtub in the
boarding house was
busy bright and early
how well i can remember how
as i tripped down the hall
the boarders heads would
be poked out along the
corridor
the sound of some one singing
upon my ears would fall
and sounds of others waiting
and getting very sore
o workman spare that
bathtub to me it does
bring back
the merry days when i was
young and all the world was pink
o workman spare that bathtub
from ruin and from rack
the bathtub in the
boarding house
the bathtub made of zinc

archy

From: the lives and times of archy and mehitabel, don marquis, doubleday & doran