A Spring Song about Nothing

Oh, it's pleasant to sing
With the coming of Spring
Of pickles or peaches,
Or any old thing
Which the average bard
Will never regard
As things to be sung
In a song about Spring.

I'd far rather chortle
(Not being immortal)
Of cabbage or carrots or corn.
Such things are among
The subjects unsung,
And poets e'er treat them with scorn.

I'd sing about glue
Or plain washing blue
Or sealingwax, cinders or fat.
But it's never the fashion
To treat with rare passion
Poor things so deserving as that.

One never can throttle
The songs of the wattle,
The gums and the grass and the
    birds!
And sunlight ablaze
They incessantly praise
With loud and extravagant words,
They rave of the skies;
And the day, as it dies,
Infallibly moves them to weep,
But such subjects grow stale,
And where poets all fail
Is in not praising soapuds or sheep.

I would lift up my voice,
And I'd loudly rejoice
Over artichokes, aprons or rags;
I'd say what I think
About engines or ink,
Or telephones, turnips or tags.
I would highly exalt
Tinned salmon and salt;
I'd praise pickled eggs to the sky;
I would fervently sing
Of such things in the Spring
For a most fervent singer am I.

But I haven't the time
For such elegant rhyme;
Tho' the Spring has got into my
    blood.
I should need quite a week
To write lines to a leek,
Or rhyme a refrain on a spud.
But I sternly refuse
To express any views
On crumpets, sea-birds or shoes,
Or "the sweet of the year,"
Or lambkins—and here
The Spring-song regretably dies.