Mother Goose for Grownups/The Admirable Assertiveness of Jilted Jack

The Admirable Assertiveness of Jilted Jack
by Guy Wetmore Carryl

This poem was published in Carryl’s 1900 anthology Mother Goose for Grownups, which poems are parodies of Mother Goose nursery rhymes.

118557The Admirable Assertiveness of Jilted JackGuy Wetmore Carryl

A noble and generous mind
            Was Jack’s;
Folks knew he would not talk behind
            Their backs:
      But when some maiden fresh and young,
      At Jack a bit of banter flung,
      She soon discovered that his tongue
            Was sharp as any ax.

A flirt of most engaging wiles
            Was Jill;
On Jack she lavished all her smiles,
            Until
      Her slave (and he was not the first)
      Of lovesick swains became the worst,
His glance a strong box might have burst,
            His sighs were fit to kill.

One April morning, clear and fair,
            When both
Of staying home and idling there
            In sloth
      Were weary, Jack remarked to Jill:
      “Oh, what’s the sense in sitting still?
      Let’s mount the slope of yonder hill.”
            And she was nothing loth

But as she answered: “What’s the use?”
            The gruff
Young swain replied: “Oh, there’s excuse
            Enough.
      Your doting parents water lack;
      We’ll fill a pail and bring it back.”
      (The reader will perceive that Jack
            Was putting up a bluff.)

Thus hand in hand the tempting hill
            They scaled,
And Jack proposed a kiss to Jill,
            And failed!
      One backward start, one step too bold,
      And down the hill the couple rolled,
      Resembling, if truth be told,
            A luggage train derailed.

With eyes ablaze with anger, she
            Exclaimed:
“Well, who’d have thought! You’d ought to be
            Ashamed!
      You quite forget yourself, it’s plain,
      So I’ll forget you too. Insane
      Young man, I’ll say oafweederzane.”
            (Her German might be blamed.)

But Jack, whose linguist’s pride was pricked,
            To shine,
Asked: “Meine königin will nicht
            Be mine?”
      And when she answered: “Nein” in spleen,
      He cried: “Then in the soup tureen
      You’ll stay. You’re not the only queen
            Discarded for a nein!”

The moral’s made for maidens young
            And small:
If you would in a foreign tongue
            Enthrall,
      Lead off undaunted in a Swede
      Or Spanish speech, and you’ll succeed,
      But they who in a German lead
            No favor win at all.