The Re-echo Club. Wells Carolyn

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      "I never saw a Purple Cow,

      I never hope to see one;

      But I can tell you, anyhow,

      I'd rather see than be one."

      Hence, vain, deluding cows.

      The herd of folly, without color bright,

      How little you delight,

      Or fill the Poet's mind, or songs arouse!

      But, hail! thou goddess gay of feature!

      Hail! divinest purple creature!

      Oh, Cow, thy visage is too bright

      To hit the sense of human sight.

      And though I'd like, just once, to see thee,

      I never, never, never'd be thee!

      Hail to thee, blithe spirit!

      Cow thou never wert;

      But in life to cheer it

      Playest thy full part

      In purple lines of unpremeditated art.

      The pale purple color

      Melts around thy sight

      Like a star, but duller,

      In the broad daylight.

      I'd see thee, but I would not be thee if I might.

      We look before and after

      At cattle as they browse;

      Our most hearty laughter

      Something sad must rouse.

      Our sweetest songs are those that tell of Purple Cows.

      She dwelt among the untrodden ways

      Beside the springs of Dee;

      A Cow whom there were few to praise

      And very few to see.

      A violet by a mossy stone

      Greeting the smiling East

      Is not so purple, I must own,

      As that erratic beast.

      She lived unknown, that Cow, and so

      I never chanced to see;

      But if I had to be one, oh,

      The difference to me!

      The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

      The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea;

      I watched them slowly wend their weary way,

      But, ah, a Purple Cow I did not see.

      Full many a cow of purplest ray serene

      Is haply grazing where I may not see;

      Full many a donkey writes of her, I ween,

      But neither of these creatures would I be.

      There, little Cow, don't cry!

      You are brindle and brown, I know.

      And with wild, glad hues

      Of reds and blues,

      You never will gleam and glow.

      But though not pleasing to the eye,

      There, little Cow, don't cry, don't cry.

      Ask me no more. A cow I fain would see

      Of purple tint, like to a sun-soaked grape—

      Of purple tint, like royal velvet cape—

      But such a creature I would never be—

      Ask me no more.

      All that I know

      Of a certain Cow

      Is it can throw,

      Somewhere, somehow,

      Now a dart of red,

      Now a dart of blue

      (That makes purple, 'tis said).

      I would fain see, too,

      This Cow that darkles the red and the blue!

      A cow of purple is a joy forever.

      Its loveliness increases. I have never

      Seen this phenomenon. Yet ever keep

      A brave lookout; lest I should be asleep

      When she comes by. For, though I would not be one,

      I've oft imagined 'twould be joy to see one.

      The Purple Cow strayed in the glade;

      (Oh, my soul! but the milk is blue!)

      She strayed and strayed and strayed and strayed

      (And I wail and I cry Wa-hoo!)

      I've never seen her—nay, not I;

      (Oh, my soul! but the milk is blue!)

      Yet were I that Cow I should want to die.

      (And I wail and I cry Wa-hoo!)

      But in vain my tears I strew.

      Somewhere in some faked nature place,

      In Wonderland, in Nonsense Land,

      Two darkling shapes met face to face,

      And bade each other stand.

      "And who are you?" said each to each;

      "Tell me your title, anyhow."

      One said, "I am the Papal Bull,"

      "And I the Purple Cow."

      Open then I flung a shutter,

      And, with many a flirt and flutter,

      In there stepped a Purple Cow which gayly tripped around my floor.

      Not the least obeisance made she,

      Not a moment stopped or stayed she,

      But with mien of chorus lady perched herself above my door.

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