Long ago in Liverpool | 1 |
lived an occidental little man | 2 |
who ran his life by an odd plan | 3 |
of vivid colour—oh just one— | 4 |
a yellow rule he used for truthing | 5 |
beneath a sooted yellow roofing. | 6 |
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He married tints and tucked inside | 7 |
a dainty foot-bound Chinese bride | 8 |
and kept one dog and later two | 9 |
(Labradors run yellow too). | 10 |
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By nights for days he watched and summed | 11 |
the rising and the setting suns | 12 |
accounting that if each were gold | 13 |
he'd grasp for either that—or soul. | 14 |
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The little man aged on enriched | 15 |
on yellow stuff to quell an itch— | 16 |
propounding from his life's lapels | 17 |
where thumbs on those flaps | 18 |
hooked his yell | 19 |
"Lo! It is sage to age | 20 |
all seasons saffron." | 21 |
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His height increased | 22 |
but only sideways | 23 |
on suet with admixed annatto | 24 |
until his yellow Nile ran blue | 25 |
(that is to say his liver's liquor | 26 |
pooled and sank him ever sicker). | 27 |
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"When bile quits one must quit life" | 28 |
he scratched to then-near-parchment wife. | 29 |
"Yellow isn't and it was never | 30 |
a brave man's hue for last retreats. | 31 |
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By God I won't | 32 |
go ever. Not | 33 |
till my humours turn | 34 |
g r e e n c h e e s e | 35 |
—or the moon returns in—oh! | 36 |
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suddenly I see. At last | 37 |
the only colour true is | 38 |
b-blue" | 39 |
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coughed | 40 |
as he turned that shade and passed. | 41 |
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____________________ | 42 |