Read Online The Best of Archy and Mehitabel by Don Marquis - Free Book Online

finer sensibilities
    revolt at the idea i jumped out
    the fourth story window and
    a wind caught me and blew
    me into the eighth story i
    tried to hang myself with a
    thread and i am so light i
    just swung back and forth and
    didnt even choke myself shooting
    is out of the question and poison
    is not within
    my reach i might drown myself
    in the ink well but if
    you ever got a mouthful of it you
    would know it was a
    thing no refined person could go
    on with boss i am going to
    end it all before long and i
    want to go easy have you
    any suggestion yours
    for transmigration
    archy

archygrams

    the wood louse sits on a splinter
    and sings to the rising sap
    aint it awful how winter
    lingers in springtimes lap

    it is a good
    thing not to be too
    aristocratic
    the oldest and
    most pedigreed
    families in this
    country are the
    occupants of various sarcophagi
    in the museums
    but it is dull associating
    with mummies no
    matter how royal their
    blood used to be when
    they had blood
    it is like living in
    philadelphia

    honesty is a good
    thing but
    it is not profitable to
    its possessor
    unless it is
    kept under control
    if you are not
    honest at all
    everybody hates you
    and if you are
    absolutely honest
    you get martyred.

    as i was crawling
    through the holes in
    a swiss cheese
    the other
    day it occurred to
    me to wonder
    what a swiss cheese
    would think if
    a swiss cheese
    could think and after
    cogitating for some
    time i said to myself
    if a swiss cheese
    could think
    it would think that
    a swiss cheese
    was the most important
    thing in the world
    just as everything that
    can think at all
    does think about itself

    these anarchists that
    are going to
    destroy organized
    society and civilization
    and everything remind
    me of an ant i
    knew one time
    he was a big red ant a
    regular bull of an
    ant and he came bulging down a
    garden path and ran
    into a stone gate post curses on
    you said the ant to the
    stone gate post get out of my
    way but the stone never budged
    i will kick you over
    said the ant and he kicked but
    it only hurt his hind legs
    well then said
    the ant i will eat you down and
    he began taking little bites
    in a great rage maybe i said
    you will do it in
    time but it will
    spoil your digestion first

    a good many
    failures are happy
    because they don t
    realize it many a
    cockroach believes
    himself as beautiful
    as a butterfly
    have a heart o have
    a heart and
    let them dream on

    boss i believe
    that the
    millennium will
    get here some day
    but i could
    compile quite a list
    of persons
    who will have
    to go
    first

    tis very seldom i have felt
    drawn to a scallop or a smelt
    and still more rarely do i feel
    love for the sleek electric eel

    the oyster is useful in his fashion
    but has little pride or passion

    when the proud ibexes start from sleep
    in the early alpine morns
    at once from crag to crag they leap
    alighting on their horns
    and may a dozen times rebound
    ere resting haughty on the ground
    i do not like their trivial pride
    nor think them truly dignified

    did you ever
    notice that when
    a politician
    does get an idea
    he usually
    gets it all wrong

the artist always pays
    boss i visited mehitabel last night
    at her home in shinbone alley
    she sat on a heap of frozen refuse
    with those strange new kittens she has
    frolicking around her
    and sang a little song at the cold moon
    which went like this
    i have had my ups i have had my downs
    i never was nobodys pet
    i got a limp in my left hind leg
    but theres life in the old dame yet
    my first boy friend was a maltese tom
    quite handsomely constructed
    i trusted him but the first thing i knew
    i was practically abducted
    then i took up with a persian prince
    a cat by no means plain
    and that exotic son of a gun
    abducted me again
    what chance has an innocent kitten got
    with the background of a lady
    when feline blighters betray her trust
    in ways lowlifed and shady
    my next boy friend was a yellow bum
    who loafed down by the docks
    i rustled that