Polyphemus

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."