Current Verse.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXII, Issue XIV, 2 April 1904, Page 48

Current Verse.

The Grinning Photograph. She trad a picture taken with her wedding barnew on— It surely did look good enough to eat; It made a splendid half tune for the eommon herd to con; They cried, “Who e’er saw anything so sweet?” They had a stunning carbon made and hung it on the wall Of what they culled the parlour, In their cosy little nest. And there it hung and grinned at them and never stopped at all — It grew to be a regulation, trouble breeding pest. It grinned when they were angry and it grinned when they were sad; It grinned when they were worried or distraught; It grinned when they were pious and it grinned when they were bad; It grinned when all the air seemed trouble fraught. It seemed to grin the hardest when dear wifey looked the worst— Dark mornings, when her frowzy hair and sullen eyes were frights; And when her fiery temper made her feel as though she’d burst. It grinned and grinned ten thousand devilish delights. ’Twas awful. In the centre of a bad old fam’ly fuss, To have her hubby point at her and sneer; ’Twas awful, when her feelings were all tangled in a mass, To have him call that photograph a dear. So one day in his? absence she got busy with an axe; She jerked that picture off the wall where it so long had been; She chopped it Into slivers with some well directed whacks — She’ll never have another picture taken with a grinl S. W. GIDLILAN.