Twas a sick young man with a face
And an eye that was all alone;
And he shook his head in a hopeless
As he sat on a roadside stone."O, ailing youth, what untoward
Has made the sun to
On your mirth and eye?" "I'm constrained to stateI'm an ex-West Point cadet."'Twas at cannon-practice I got my
And my present frame of mind;
For the gun went off with a double spurt—Before it, and also behind!""How sad, how sad, that a fine young chap,
When studying how to kill,
Should meet with so terrible a
Precluding eventual skill."Ah, woful to think that a weapon
For mowing down the
Should commit so dreadful an
As to turn about to mow!"No more he heeded while I condoled:
He was wandering in his mind;
His lonely eye unconsidered rolled,
And his views he thus defined:"'Twas O for a breach of the peace—'twas
For an international brawl!
But a piece of the breech—ah no, ah no,
I didn't want that at all."
