  O FOR a lodge in a garden of cucumbers! O for an iceberg or two at control! O for a vale which at mid-day the dew cumbers! O for a pleasure-trip up to the pole! O for a little one-story thermometer, With nothing but zeroes all ranged in a row! O for a big double-barreled hygrometer, To measure this moisture that rolls from my brow! O that this cold world were twenty times colder! (That’s irony red-hot, it seemeth to me); O for a turn of its dreaded cold shoulder! O what a comfort an ague would be! O for a grotto frost-lined and rill-riven, Scooped in the rock under cataract vast! O for a winter of discontent even! O for wet blankets judiciously cast! O for a soda-fount spouting up boldly From every hot lamp-post against the hot sky! O for proud maiden to look on me coldly, Then O for a draught from a cup of cold pizen, And O for a resting-place in the cold grave! With a bath in the Styx where the thick shadow lies on And deepens the chill of its dark-running wave. Rossiter Johnson. |
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