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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WHISKERS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I often cry, 'oh, goodness gracious! My
Last Line: "cry, till he's dejected, ""come from behind the hedge!"
Subject(s): Mowing And Mowers


I OFTEN cry, "Oh, goodness gracious! My whiskers, rank, apocynaceous, grow
faster every year; it takes so much of toil and trouble, to mow away the doggone

stubble—I still must shear and shear." I'm shaving, with the lather
foaming, at early morn and in the gloaming, and by the midnight lamp; I'm
shaving when I should be earning some coin to keep the fires a-burning, till I
have barber's cramp. The time men waste, their whiskers mowing, if it were spent

in useful sowing, would renovate the earth; why, ask the Innocent Bystanders, do

faces run to oleanders, which have no price or worth? It must be great to be a
woman, upon whose face, so fair and bloomin', alfalfa doesn't grow; she doesn't,

with her sisters, gather, at barbershops, the taste of lather she doesn't ever
know. But man must always be a-stropping; to mow away the new outcropping, his
tools must have an edge; and if his whiskers are neglected, his friends will
cry, till he's dejected, "Come from behind the hedge!"





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