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Title: The Faddist
Author: Harry Graham [
More Titles by Graham]
Gentle Reader, is your bosom filled with loathing
At the mention of the "Simple Life" brigade?
Do you shudder at their Jaeger underclothing,
Which is "fearfully and wonderfully made"?
Though in manner they resemble "poor relations,"
Or umbrellas which their owners have forgot,
They contribute to the gaiety of nations,
Do they not?
They are harmless little people, tame and quiet,
Who will feed out of a fellow-creature's hand,
If he happens to provide them with a diet
Of a temperance and vegetable brand.
They can easily subsist--a thing to brag of--
In the draughtiest of sanitary huts,
On a "mute inglorious Stilson" and a bag of
Monkey-nuts.
Ev'ry faddist is, of course, an early riser;
When he leaves his couch (at 6 a. m. perhaps)
He will struggle with some patent "Exerciser,"
Until threatened with a physical collapse.
He wears collars made of cellular materials,
And sandals in the place of leather boots,
And his victuals are composed of either cereals
Or roots.
[Illustration: The Faddist]
He believes in drinking quantities of water,
Undiluted by the essence of the grape;
And he deprecates the universal slaughter
Of dumb animals in any form or shape.
So his breakfast-food (a patent, too, of course), is
Made of oats which he monotonously chews,
Mixed with chaff which any self-respecting horses
Would refuse.
He discovers fatal microbes that are hiding
In the liquids that his fellow creatures drink;
Fell bacilli that are stealthily residing
In our carpets, in our kisses, in our ink!
In his eagerness such parasites to smother,
He will keep himself so sterilised and aired,
That one fancies he would disinfect his mother,
If he dared.
In a vegetarian restaurant you'll find him,
Where he feeds, like any other anthropoid,
Upon dishes which must certainly remind him
Of the cocoanuts his ancestors enjoyed.
As he masticates his monkeyfood, you wonder
If his humour is as meagre as his fare,
And you look to see his tail depending under-
-Neath his chair.
To his friends he never wearies of explaining
The exact amount of times they ought to chew,
The advantages of "totally abstaining,"
And the joys of walking barefoot in the dew;
How that slumber must be summoned circumspectly,
In an attitude conducive to repose,
And that breathing should be carried on correctly
Through the nose.
A pathetic little figure is my hero,
With a sparse and wizened beard, and straggly hair,
Upon which is perched a sort of a sombrero
Such as operatic brigands love to wear.
He may eat the nuts his prehistoric sires ate,
He may flourish upon sawdust mixed with bran,
But he looks more like a Nonconformist pirate
Than a man!
[The end]
Harry Graham's poem: Faddist
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