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Fables for the Frivolous

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<h2> THE PATRICIAN PEACOCKS AND THE OVERWEENING JAY </h2>   Once a flock of stately peacocks     Promenaded on a green,   There were twenty-two or three cocks,     Each as proud as seventeen,   And a glance, however hasty,     Showed their plumage to be tasty;   Wheresoever one was placed, he     Was a credit to the scene.   Now their owner had a daughter     Who, when people came to call,   Used to say, "You'd reelly oughter     See them peacocks on the mall."   Now this wasn't to her credit,     And her callers came to dread it,   For the way the lady said it     Wasn't recherché at all.   But a jay that overheard it     From his perch upon a fir   Didn't take in how absurd it     Was to every one but her;   When they answered, "You don't tell us!"     And to see the birds seemed zealous   He became extremely jealous,     Wishing, too, to make a stir.   As the peacocks fed together     He would join them at their lunch,   Culling here and there a feather     Till he'd gathered quite a bunch;   Then this bird, of ways perfidious,     Stuck them on him most fastidious   Till he looked uncommon hideous,     Like a Judy or a Punch.   But the peacocks, when they saw him,     One and all began to haul,   And to harry and to claw him     Till the creature couldn't crawl;   While their owner's vulgar daughter,     When her startled callers sought her,   And to see the struggle brought her,     Only said, "They're on the maul."   It was really quite revolting     When the tumult died away,   One would think he had been moulting     So dishevelled was the jay;   He was more than merely slighted,     He was more than disunited,   He'd been simply dynamited     In the fervor of the fray.   And THE MORAL of the verses     Is: That short men can't be tall.   Nothing sillier or worse is     Than a jay upon a mall.   And the jay opiniative     Who, because he's imitative,   Thinks he's highly decorative     Is the biggest jay of all. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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