The Best of Archy and Mehitabel by Don Marquis Page A

yet
    i will try any kind of marriage once
    you look like a gentleman to me percy
    well archy i was wrong as usual
    i wont go into details for i aint
    any tabloid newspaper
    but the way it worked out was i rustled
    grub for that low lived bum for two
    months and when the kittens came
    he left me flat and he says these
    offsprings dissolves the wedding
    i am always the lady archy
    i didn t do anything vulgar
    i removed his left eye with one claw
    and i says to him if i wasn t an
    aristocrat id rip you
    from gehenna to duodenum
    the next four flusher that
    says marriage to me
    i may really lose my temper
    trial marriage or companionate
    marriage or old fashioned american
    plan three meals a day marriage
    with no thursdays off
    they are all the same thing
    marriage is marriage
    and you cant laugh that curse off
    archy

archy turns revolutionist
    if all the bugs
    in all the worlds
    twixt earth and betelgoose
    should sharpen up
    their little stings
    and turn their feelings loose
    they soon would show
    all human beans
    in saturn
    earth
    or mars
    their relative significance
    among the spinning stars
    man is so proud
    the haughty simp
    so hard for to approach
    and he looks down
    with such an air
    on spider
    midge
    or roach
    the supercilious silliness
    of this poor wingless bird
    is cosmically comical
    and stellarly absurd
    his scutellated occiput
    has holes somewhere inside
    and there no doubt
    two pints or so
    of scrambled brains reside
    if all the bugs
    of all the stars
    should sting him on the dome
    they might pierce through
    that osseous rind
    and find the brains at home
    and in the convolutions lay
    an egg with fancies fraught
    which
    germinating rapidly
    might turn into a thought
    might turn into the thought
    that men
    and insects are the same
    both transient flecks
    of starry dust
    that out of nothing came
    the planets are
    what atoms are
    and neither more nor less
    man s feet have grown
    so big that he
    forgets his littleness
    the things he thinks
    are only things
    that insects always knew
    the things he does
    are stunts that we
    don t have to think to do
    he spent a score
    of centuries
    in getting feeble wings
    which we instinctively
    acquired
    with other trivial things
    the day is coming
    very soon
    when man and all his race
    must cast their silly
    pride aside
    and take the second place
    i ll take the bugs
    of all the stars
    and tell them of my plan
    and fling them with
    their myriad stings
    against the tyrant man
    dear boss this outburst
    is the result
    of a personal insult
    as so much verse always is
    maybe you know how
    that is yourself
    i dropped into an irish
    stew in a restaurant

    the waiter plucked me out
    the other evening
    for a warm bath and a bite
    to eat and a low browed
    waiter plucked me out
    and said to me
    if you must eat i will
    lead you to the
    food i have especially prepared
    for you and he took me
    to the kitchen
    and tried to make me
    fill myself with
    a poisonous concoction
    known cynically as roach food
    can you wonder
    that my anger
    against the whole human
    race has blazed forth in
    song when the revolution
    comes i shall
    do my best to save
    you you have so many
    points that are far
    from being human
    archy

as it looks to archy
    ants go on their cheerful way
    merrily from day to day
    building cities out of sand
    and they seem to understand
    dwelling therein peacefully
    disciplined and orderly
    and the much lauded bee contrives
    for to fill his thundering hives
    with a ranked society
    based on work and honesty
    and a thousand neat examples
    could i cite of insect lives
    free from much that tears and tramples
    human beings and their wives
    even the coral in the ocean
    throughout his dim and damp existence
    scorns political commotion
    and labors with a glad persistence
    worthy of large commendations
    to erect his naval stations
    man the universal simp
    follows lagging with a limp
    treading on his neighbors toes
    the way the little insect goes
    in a million years or more
    man may learn the simple