Seen you down at chu’ch las’ night,
Nevah min’, Miss Lucy.
What I mean? Oh, dat’s all right,
Nevah min’, Miss Lucy.
You was sma’t ez sma’t could be,
But you couldn’t hide f’om me.
Ain’t I got two eyes to see!
Nevah min’, Miss Lucy.
Guess you thought you’s awful keen;
Nevah min’, Miss Lucy.
Evahthing you done, I seen;
Nevah min’, Miss Lucy.
Seen him tek yo’ ahm jes’ so,
When he got outside de do’—
Oh, I know dat man’s yo’ beau!
Nevah min’, Miss Lucy.
Say now, honey, wha’d he say?—
Nevah min’, Miss Lucy.
Keep yo’ secrets—dat’s yo’ way—
Nevah min’, Miss Lucy,
Won’t tell me an’ I’m yo’ pal!
I’m gwine tell his othah gal,—
Know huh, too, huh name is Sal.
Nevah min’, Miss Lucy.
_Guy Wetmore Carryl_
Guy Wetmore Carryl, son of Charles Edward Carryl (see page 34), was
born in New York City, March 4, 1873. He graduated from Columbia
University in 1895, was editor of _Munsey’s Magazine_, 1895–6, and,
during the time he lived abroad (from 1897 to 1902), was the foreign
representative of various American publications.
As a writer of prose he was received with no little acclaim; his
stories _The Transgression of Andrew Vane_ (1902) and _Zut and Other
Parisians_ (1903) held the attention of a restless reading public.
But it was as a writer of light verse that Carryl was preëminent.
Inheriting a remarkable technical gift from his father, young Carryl
soon surpassed him as well as all other rivals in the field of
brilliantly rhymed, brilliantly turned burlesques. Although he wrote
several serious poems (the best of which have been collected in the
posthumously published _The Garden of Years_, 1904), Carryl’s most
characteristic work is to be found in his perversions of the
parables of Æsop, _Fables for the Frivolous_ (1898), the topsy-turvy
interpretations of old nursery rhymes, _Mother Goose for Grownups_
(1900) and the fantastic variations on the fairy tales in _Grimm
Tales Made Gay_ (1903)—all of them with a surprising (and punning)
Moral attached.
This extraordinary versifier died, before reaching the height of his
power, at the age of thirty-one, in the summer of 1904.