The Best of Archy and Mehitabel

by Don Marquis

  put the cough

  into sarcophagus

  dear boss as i scurry about

  i hear of a great many

  tragedies in our midsts

  personally i yearn

  for some dear friend to pass over

  and leave to me

  a boot legacy

  yours for the second coming

  of gambrinus

  archy

  a spider and a fly

  i heard a spider

  and a fly arguing

  wait said the fly

  do not eat me

  i serve a great purpose

  in the world

  you will have to

  show me said the spider

  i scurry around

  gutters and sewers

  and garbage cans

  said the fly and gather

  up the germs of

  typhoid influenza

  and pneumonia on my feet

  and wings

  then i carry these germs

  into the households of men

  and give them diseases

  all the people who

  have lived the right

  sort of life recover

  from the diseases

  and the old soaks who

  have weakened their systems

  with liquor and iniquity

  succumb it is my mission

  to help rid the world

  of these wicked persons

  i am a vessel of righteousness

  scattering seeds of justice

  and serving the noblest uses

  it is true said the spider

  that you are more

  useful in a plodding

  material sort of way

  than i am but i do not

  serve the utilitarian deities

  i serve the gods of beauty

  look at the gossamer webs

  i weave they float in the sun

  like filaments of song

  if you get what i mean

  i do not work at anything

  i play all the time

  i am busy with the stuff

  of enchantment and the materials

  of fairyland my works

  transcend utility

  i am the artist

  a creator and a demi god

  it is ridiculous to suppose

  that i should be denied

  the food i need in order

  to continue to create

  beauty i tell you

  plainly mister fly it is all

  damned nonsense for that food

  to rear up on its hind legs

  and say it should not be eaten

  you have convinced me

  said the fly say no more

  and shutting all his eyes

  he prepared himself for dinner

  and yet he said i could

  have made out a case

  for myself too if i had

  had a better line of talk

  of course you could said the spider

  clutching a sirloin from him

  but the end would have been

  just the same if neither of

  us had spoken at all

  boss i am afraid that what

  the spider said is true

  and it gives me to think

  furiously upon the futility

  of literature

  archy

  the merry flea

  the high cost of

  living isn t so bad if you

  don t have to pay for it i met

  a flea the other day who

  was grinning all over

  himself why so merry why so

  merry little bolshevik i asked him

  i have just come from a swell

  dog show he said i have

  been lunching off a dog that was

  worth at least one hundred

  dollars a pound you should be

  ashamed to brag about it i said with so

  many insects and humans on

  short rations in the world today the

  public be damned he said i

  take my own where i find it those are

  bold words i told him i am a bold

  person he said and bold words are

  fitting for me it was

  only last thursday that i marched

  bravely into the zoo

  and bit a lion what did he do i asked

  he lay there and took it said

  the flea what else could he do he knew i

  had his number and it was

  little use to struggle some day i said

  even you will be conquered terrible as

  you are who will do it he

  said the mastodons are all dead and i

  am not afraid of any mere

  elephant i asked him how about a microbe and

  he turned pale as he thought it

  over there is always some

  little thing that is too

  big for us every

  goliath has his david and so on ad finitum

  but what said the flea is the

  terror of the smallest microbe of all

  he i said is afraid of a vacuum what is

  there in a vacuum to make one afraid

  said the flea there is nothing in it

  i said and that is what makes one

  afraid to contemplate it a person

  can t think of a place with nothing at

  all in it without going nutty and if he

  tries to think that nothing is

  something after all he gets nuttier you are

  too subtle for me said the

  flea i never took much stock in being

  scared of hypodermic propositions or

  hypothetical injections i am

  going to have dinner off a

  man eating tiger if a vacuum gets

  me i will try and send you word

  before the worst comes to

  the worst some people i told him inhabit

  a vacuum all their lives and

  never know it then he said it don t

  hurt them any no i said it don t but it

  hurts people who have to associate

  with them and with these words

  we parted each feeling

  superior to the other and is not that

  feeling after all one of the great

  desiderata of social intercourse

  archy

  especially planned for his personal shelter

  warty bliggens, the toad

  i met a toad

  the other day by the name

  of warty bliggens

  he was sitting under

  a toadstool

  feeling contented

  he explained that when the cosmos

  was created

  that toadstool was especially

  planned for his personal

  shelter from sun and rain

  thought out and prepared

  for him

  do not tell me

  said warty bliggens

  that there is not a purpose

  in the universe

  the thought is blasphemy

  a little more

  conversation revealed

  that warty bliggens

  considers himself to be

  the center of the said

  universe

  the earth exists

  to grow toadstools for him

  to sit under

  the sun to give him light

  by day and the moon

  and wheeling constellations

  to make beautiful

  the night for the sake of

  warty bliggens

  to what act of yours

  do you impute

  this interest on the part

  of the creator

  of the universe

  i asked him

  why is it that you

  are so greatly favored

&nbs
p; ask rather

  said warty bliggens

  what the universe

  has done to deserve me

  if i were a

  human being i would

  not laugh

  too complacently

  at poor warty bliggens

  for similar

  absurdities

  have only too often

  lodged in the crinkles

  of the human cerebrum

  archy

  mehitabel has an adventure

  back to the city archy

  and dam glad of it

  there s something about the suburbs

  that gets on a town lady s nerves

  fat slick tabbies

  sitting around those country clubs

  and lapping up the cream

  of existence

  none of that for me

  give me the alley archy

  me for the mews and the roofs

  of the city

  an occasional fish head

  and liberty is all i ask

  freedom and the garbage can

  romance archy romance is the word

  maybe i do starve sometimes

  but wotthehell archy wotthehell

  i live my own life

  i met a slick looking torn

  out at one of these long island

  spotless towns

  he fell for me hard

  he slipped me into the

  pantry and just as we had got

  the icebox door open and were

  about to sample the cream

  in comes his mistress

  why fluffy she says to this slicker

  the idea of you making

  friends with a horrid creature like that

  and what did fluffy do

  stand up for me like a gentleman

  make good on all the promises

  freedom and –

  with which he had lured me

  into his house

  not he the dirty slob

  he pretended he did not know me

  he turned upon me and attacked me

  to make good with his boss

  you mush faced bum i said

  and clawed a piece out of his ear

  i am a lady archy

  always a lady

  but an aristocrat will always

  resent an insult

  the woman picked up a mop and made

  for me well well madam i said

  it is unfortunate for you that

  you have on sheer silk stockings

  and i wrote my protest

  on her shin it took reinforcements

  in the shape of the cook

  to rauss me archy and as i went

  out the window i said to the fluffy person

  you will hear from me later

  he had promised me everything archy

  that cat had

  he had practically abducted me

  and then the cheap crook threw me down

  before his swell friends

  no lady loves a scene archy

  and i am always the lady no matter

  what temporary disadvantages

  i may struggle under

  to hell with anything unrefined

  has always been my motto

  violence archy always does something

  to my nerves

  but an aristocrat must revenge

  an insult i owe it to my family

  to protect my good name

  so i laid for that slob

  for two days and nights and finally

  i caught the boob in the shrubbery

  pretty thing i said

  it hurts me worse than it does you

  to remove that left eye of yours

  but i did it with one sweep of my claws

  you call yourself a gentleman do you

  i said as i took a strip out of his nose

  you will think twice after this before

  you offer an insult

  to an unprotected young tabby

  where is the little love nest you spoke

  of i asked him

  you go and lie down there i said

  and maybe you can incubate another ear

  because i am going to take one of

  yours right off now

  and with those words i made ribbons

  out of it you are the guy

  i said to him that was going to give

  me an easy life sheltered from all

  the rough ways of the world

  fluffy dear you don t know what the

  rough ways of the world are

  and i am going to show you

  i have got you out here

  in the great open spaces

  where cats are cats

  and im gonna make you understand

  the affections of a lady ain t to be

  trifled with by any slicker like you

  where is that red ribbon with the

  silver bells you promised me

  the next time you betray the trust

  of an innocent female

  reflect on whether she may

  carry a wallop little fiddle strings

  this is just a mild lesson i am giving

  you tonight i said as i took

  the fur off his back and you oughta

  be glad you didn t make me really

  angry my sense of dignity is all that

  saves you a lady little sweetness

  never loses her poise and i thank god

  i am always a lady even if i do

  live my own life and with that i

  picked him up by what was left of

  his neck like a kitten and laid him

  on the doormat slumber gently and

  sweet dreams fluffy dear i said and

  when you get well make it a rule of

  your life never to trifle with another

  girlish confidence i have been

  abducted again and again by a dam

  sight better cats than he ever was

  or will be

  well archy the world is full of ups

  and downs but toujours gai is my motto

  cheerio my deario

  archy

  the wail of archy

  damned be this transmigration

  doubledamned be the boob pythagoras

  the gink that went and invented it

  i hope that his soul for a thousand

  turns of the wheel of existence

  bides in the shell of a louse

  dodging a fine toothed comb

  i once was a vers libre poet

  i died and my spirit migrated

  into the flesh of a cockroach

  gods how i yearn to be human

  neither a vers libre poet

  nor yet the inmate of a cockroach

  a six footed scurrying cockroach

  given to bastard hexameters

  longfellowish sprawling hexameters

  rather had i been a starfish

  to shoot a heroic pentameter

  gods i am pent in a cockroach

  i with the soul of a dante

  am mate and companion of fleas

  i with the gift of a homer

  must smile when a mouse calls me pal

  tumble bugs are my familiars

  this is the punishment meted

  because i have written vers libre

  here i abide in the twilight

  neither a man nor an insect

  and ghosts of the damned that await

  a word from the core of the cosmos

  to pop into bodies grotesque

  are all the companions i have

  with intellect more than a bug s

  ghosts of the damned under sentence

  to crawl into maggots and live there

  or work out a stretch as a rat

  cheerful companions to pal with

  i with the brain of a milton

  fell into the mincemeat at christm
as

  and was damned near baked in a pie

  i with the touch of a chaucer

  to be chivvied out of a sink

  float through a greasy drain pipe

  into the hell of a sewer

  i with the tastes of a byron

  expected to live upon garbage

  gods what a charnel existence

  curses upon that pythagoras

  i hope that he dwells for a million

  turns of the wheel of life

  deep in an oyster crab s belly

  stewed in the soup of gehenna

  i with the soul of a hamlet

  doomed always to wallow in farce

  yesterday maddened with sorrow

  i leapt from the woolworth tower

  in an effort to dash out my brains

  gods what a wretched pathetic

  and anti climactic attempt

  fell into the mincemeat at christmas

  i fluttered i floated i drifted

  i landed as light as a feather

  on the top of a bald man s head

  whose hat had blown off at the corner

  and all of the hooting hundreds

  laughed at the comic cockroach

  not mine was the suicide s solace

  of a dull thud ending it all

  gods what a terrible tragedy

  not to make good with the tragic

  gods what a heart breaking pathos

  to be always doomed to the comic

  o make me a cockroach entirely

  or make me a human once more

  give me the mind of a cockroach

  or give me the shape of a man

  if i were to plan out a drama

  great as great shakespeare s othello

  it would be touched with the cockroach

  and people would say it was comic

  even the demons i talk with

  ghosts of the damned that await

  vile incarnation as spiders

  affect to consider me comic

  wait till their loathsome embodiment

  wears into the stuff of the spirit

  and then let them laugh if they can

  damned be the soul of pythagoras

  who first filled the fates with this notion

  of transmigration of spirits

  i hope he turns into a flea

  on the back of a hound of hell

  and is chased for a million years

  with a set of red hot teeth

  exclamation point

  archy

  mehitabel and her kittens

  well boss

  mehitabel the cat

  has reappeared in her old

  haunts with a

  flock of kittens

  three of them this time