The Lives and Times of Archy and Mehitabel

by Don Marquis

go to the country and become

  grasshoppers if

  living in town and being

  cockroaches is getting

  too difficult for you

  i was astonished

  at the simplicity of the

  solution but as i

  thought it over it occurred

  to me that

  perhaps it sounded more

  statesmanlike than it

  really was

  how i asked him are

  cockroaches to become

  grasshoppers

  that is a mere

  detail he said which i

  leave to you for

  solution i have outlined

  the general scheme for your

  salvation so do not ask

  me to settle the mere

  details i trust to you for

  that you must do

  something for yourself

  we philosophers cannot do it all

  for you unaided you

  must learn self help

  but alas i fear that

  your inherent stupidity will

  balk all efforts

  to improve your condition

  boss i offer you

  this little story

  for what it is worth

  if you are able to

  find in it something

  analogous to a number

  of easy schemes

  for the improvement of the

  human race you

  may do immense good by

  printing it

  yours for reform

  archy

  a ragout where i may drop in for a warm bath and a bite to eat

  spring

  i get about

  a good deal

  among the insects

  especially when

  spring arrives

  and yesterday

  i heard an

  argument between

  an early cricket

  and a busy bee

  the cricket spoke

  in part as follows

  the harps of spring

  are in the air

  the blackbird

  sings

  i do not care

  a damn if school

  keeps in

  or not

  the jonquil says

  all work is rot

  the pollywog

  has hours to spare

  let us rejoice

  and from us tear

  in glee

  our winter

  underwear

  and let us

  dance

  and let us

  swat

  the harps of spring

  considering

  the lilies there

  how do the wicked

  ploughmen dare

  to lard

  their fields with sweav

  and plot

  increase of gear

  by toil begot

  we scorn them

  we that dance

  and bear

  the harps of spring

  to which the

  little busy bee

  retorted hummingly

  you bards and birds

  make such a din

  when april s

  heedless days begin

  flouting

  all honest industry

  all providence

  and husbandry

  from every

  flower thatched

  wayside inn

  though heaven

  may forgive your sin

  of mockery

  yet none may win

  earth s pardon

  for such levity

  you bards

  and birds

  when winter s

  sleets

  pierce plume and skin

  then comes

  the ploughman s turn

  to grin

  by hearth logs

  blazing merrily

  and feasting burghers

  laugh to see

  such piping tune fools

  cold and thin

  you bards and birds

  the argument

  is one that

  does not touch me

  personally

  no matter what

  the season

  i can always find

  a ragout

  where i may drop in

  for a warm bath

  and a bite to eat

  archy the cockroach

  the author s desk

  i climbed upon my boss his desk

  to type a flaming ballad

  and there i found a heap grotesque

  of socks and songs and salad

  some swedenborgian dope on hell

  with modernistic hunches

  remnants of plays that would not jell

  and old forgotten lunches

  a plate once flushed with pride and pie

  now chill with pallid verses

  a corkless jug of ink hard by

  sobbed out its life with curses

  six sad bedraggled things lay there

  inertly as dead cats

  three sexless rhymes that could not pair

  and three discouraged spats

  the feet of song be tender things

  like to the feet of waiters

  and need when winter bites and stings

  sesquipedalian gaiters

  peter the pup sprawled on the heap

  disputing all approaches

  or growled and grumbled in his sleep

  or waked and snapped at roaches

  i found a treatise on the soul

  which bragged it undefeated

  and a bill for thirteen tons of coal

  by fate left unreceipted

  books on the modern girl s advance

  wrapped in a cutey sark

  with honi soit qui mal y pense

  worked for its laundry mark

  mid broken glass the spider slinks

  while memories stir and glow

  of olden happy far off drinks

  and bottles long ago

  such is the litter at the root

  of song and story rising

  or noisome pipe or cast off boot

  feeding and fertilizing

  as lilies burgeon from the dirt

  into the golden day

  dud epic and lost undershirt

  survive times slow decay

  still burrowing far and deep i found

  a razor coldly soapy

  and at the center of the mound

  some most surprising opi

  some modest pages chaste and shy

  for pocket poke or sporran

  written by archy published by

  doubleday and doran

  archy the cockroach

  what the ants are saying

  dear boss i was talking with an ant

  the other day

  and he handed me a lot of

  gossip which ants the world around

  are chewing over among themselves

  i pass it on to you

  in the hope that you may relay it to other

  human beings and hurt their feelings with it

  no insect likes human beings

  and if you think you can see why

  the only reason i tolerate you is because

  you seem less human to me than most of them

  here is what the ants are saying

  it wont be long now it wont be long

  man is making deserts of the earth

  it wont be long now

  before man will have used it up

  so that nothing but ants

  and centipedes and scorpions

  can find a living on it

  man has oppressed us for a million years

  but he goes on steadily

  cutting the ground from under

  his own feet making deserts deserts deserts

  we ants remember

>   and have it all recorded

  in our tribal lore

  when gobi was a paradise

  swarming with men and rich

  in human prosperity

  it is a desert now and the home

  of scorpions ants and centipedes

  what man calls civilization

  always results in deserts

  man is never on the square

  he uses up the fat and greenery of the earth

  each generation wastes a little more

  of the future with greed and lust for riches

  north africa was once a garden spot

  and then came carthage and rome

  and despoiled the storehouse

  and now you have sahara

  sahara ants and centipedes

  toltecs and aztecs had a mighty

  civilization on this continent

  but they robbed the soil and wasted nature

  and now you have deserts scorpions ants and centipedes

  and the deserts of the near east

  followed egypt and babylon and assyria

  and persia and rome and the turk

  the ant is the inheritor of tamerlane

  and the scorpion succeeds the caesars

  america was once a paradise

  of timberland and stream

  but it is dying because of the greed

  and money lust of a thousand little kings

  who slashed the timber all to hell

  and would not be controlled

  and changed the climate

  and stole the rainfall from posterity

  and it wont be long now

  it wont be long

  till everything is desert

  from the alleghenies to the rockies

  the deserts are coming

  the deserts are spreading

  the springs and streams are drying up

  one day the mississippi itself

  will be a bed of sand

  ants and scorpions and centipedes

  shall inherit the earth

  men talk of money and industry

  of hard times and recoveries

  of finance and economics

  but the ants wait and the scorpions wait

  for while men talk they are making deserts all the time

  getting the world ready for the conquering ant

  drought and erosion and desert

  because men cannot learn

  rainfall passing off in flood and freshet

  and carrying good soil with it

  because there are no longer forests

  to withhold the water in

  the billion meticulations of the roots

  it wont be long now it won’t be long

  till earth is barren as the moon

  and sapless as a mumbled bone

  dear boss i relay this information

  without any fear that humanity

  will take warning and reform

  archy