How Jack Made The Giants Uncommonly Sore

Of all the ill-fated     Boys ever created     Young Jack was the wretchedest lad:     An emphatic, erratic,     Dogmatic fanatic     Was foisted upon him as dad!     From the time he could walk,     And before he could talk,     His wearisome training began,     On a highly barbarian,     Disciplinarian,     Nearly Tartarean     Plan!     He taught him some Raleigh,     And some of Macaulay,     Till all of "Horatius" he knew,     And the drastic, sarcastic,     Fantastic, scholastic     Philippics of "Junius," too.     He made him learn lots     Of the poems of Watts,     And frequently said he ignored,     On principle, any son's     Title to benisons     Till he'd learned Tennyson's     "Maud."     "For these are the giants     Of thought and of science,"     He said in his positive way:     "So weigh them, obey them,     Display them, and lay them     To heart in your infancy's day!"     Jack made no reply,     But he said on the sly     An eloquent word, that had come     From a quite indefensible,     Most reprehensible,     But indispensable     Chum.     By the time he was twenty     Jack had such a plenty     Of books and paternal advice,     Though seedy and needy,     Indeed he was greedy     For vengeance, whatever the price!     In the editor's seat     Of a critical sheet     He found the revenge that he sought;     And, with sterling appliance of     Mind, wrote defiance of     All of the giants of     Thought.     He'd thunder and grumble     At high and at humble     Until he became, in a while,     Mordacious, pugnacious,     Rapacious. Good gracious!     They called him the Yankee Carlyle!     But he never took rest     On his quarrelsome quest     Of the giants, both mighty and small.     He slated, distorted them,     Hanged them and quartered them,     Till he had slaughtered them     All.     And this is The Moral that lies in the verse:     If you have a go farther, you're apt to fare worse.     (When you turn it around it is different rather:--     You're not apt to go worse if you have a fair father!)