The Wollerperleck or The Legend of the Roads

In the mystical land of the Hours,

In the beautiful valley of Snooze

Lived a Wollerperleck, with a wabbly neck

And a pair of russet shoes.

He resided alone in the valley,

Near a brooklet with murmuring rills,

With the moon, you know, and a tree or so,

And a couple of rustic mills.

The surroundings were simply perfection,

For the scenery on every hand

Was of rarest hue, and even the dew

Was of an imported brand.

And the sunshine which gilded the meadows

And illumined each showery tear,

I’m happy to state, was of triple plate

And warranted for a year.

72And the maidens who passed in the evening

Would incessantly loiter and stand

By the fence near by, and giggle and sigh,

And remark, “He is simply grand!”

And he noted their flattering comments,

And the way that they’d gurgle and gush,

And he entered each look in a leather book,

And credited every blush.

And the maidens, embracing each pretext

(It was all that they had to embrace),

Would cluster together and talk of the weather,

In front of the Wollerp’s place.

And they gave not a thought as they practised

Each alluring and innocent art

And swung on his gate, that as sure as fate

They were breaking that Wollerp’s heart.

And it’s woe to their maidenly graces!

And alas, for each innocent gaze!

Oh, woe and alack and a liberal stack

Of sorrowful welladays!

Oh, alas, that a maiden should flatter!

And alas, that they never could see

73How each ominous word was overheard

By the miserable flatteree!

In the past his young life had been simple,

Unaccustomed to people and news.

He’d sit by the fire for days and admire

His beautiful russet shoes.

But the happiest life can be broken,

And its blessed contentments escape,

Or, like to the neck of the Wollerperleck,

Be twisted all out of shape.

In the mystical land of the Hours,

In the beautiful valley of Snooze

That Wollerperleck, he became a wreck,

And took off his russet shoes.

It was little he cared for their beauty,

And he had no intention to wed,

But a silly desire consumed him like fire

To hear what those maidens said.

When they likened his eyes to the heavens,

And his rippling laugh to a brook,

The Wollerp, concealed by some rock in his field,

Would enter it in his book.

74He would listen in rapt consternation,

And his curious intellect burned

To such an extent that his neck was bent,

And his head completely turned.

When they spoke of him as an Apollo,

In their fervent but innocent way,

He would open his book with a fiendish look,

And enter it under “A.”

And each sigh, and each giggle and simper,

And each sweet exhibition of guile,

And each movement of grace had its regular place

In his patented index file.

But I cannot conceal the finale,

Nor the lesson it’s certain to teach.

How the beautiful neck of the Wollerperleck

Extended beyond his reach.

How it strayed far beyond the intentions

Which Dame Nature had once entertained;

How it first got askew; then rapidly grew

From being incessantly craned.

75How it wound as it slowly meandered;

How its owner would constantly bend

Its unlimited length with all of his strength,

In search of his other end.

How it entered the Minute Hand Forest,

And explored every leaf bordered track;

How he peered here and there, and with utter despair,

Tried to follow its windings back.

How it curled round the trees of the woodland,

While its body in dreadful suspense,

Would stroll out and wait by the ill-omened gate,

Or sit on the fateful fence.

At his beautiful home in the valley,

In the vine covered cottage at Snooze,

The Wollerp repined and endeavoured to find

His beautiful russet shoes.

And he cried from the Minute Hand Forest,

“I would give my existence to see

76Those beautiful shoes in my home at Snooze!

Oh, where is the rest of me?”

So he felt in each corner and closet,

And he looked high and low for a day,

But his absent mind, it was all confined

In the head that had gone away.

And anon, as he groped round undaunted,

All in spite of his wandering head,

Toward the close of the day a voice seemed to say,

“Have you felt at the foot of the bed?”

’Mid the dismal and wind haunted Forest,

Through its trackless and endless expanse,

For a year and a day, on its sorrowful way,

Did that Wollerp’s head advance.

Till his body came forth from the cottage,

And the gathering populace said,

77“He simply can’t wait, for the strain is too great;

He is going to hunt for his head.”

To the beautiful Minute Hand Forest

He proceeded with might and with main,

And he felt all around his neck on the ground,

But the head had gone out again.

So he followed its curious windings,

All bewildered and weary the while,

And came without harm to the mount of “Alarm”

Near the quaint little hamlet of “Dial;”

And along a steep, rock bordered pathway,

From a dizzy and crooked incline,

Came a voice calling shrill from the top of the hill,

Which said, “I am thine, I am thine!”

And the neck, as it lay o’er the mountain,

Seemed to thrill at each love-laden word,

But the Wollerp was still at the foot of the hill,

For the calling was all unheard.

78And the voice wailing out in the darkness,

Said, “My misery now is complete!

With my body in sight at the foot of the height,

And yet we can never meet!”

And advancing from under its shelter,

Came the head of the Wollerperleck,

And he wailed and he cried, as he shortly espied

The extent of his tangled neck.

For it seemed like some wandering mainspring,

As it wound mid the Tockerlore wild,

All twisted and bent to a shocking extent,

Like a spring in the hands of a child.

And it wound, and meandered, and twisted,

And the head of the Wollerp it saw

How it actually went to the whole extent

Of the Land of Tockerlore!

And remarking its limitless windings,

He perceived how absurd it would be

To endeavour to go to his body below,

For there’d be nothing gained, you see.

So he quietly lived on the mountain,

And his brain kept in touch with his heart,

79But his trunk and his head—so the gossips said—

Had agreed to live apart.

But they acted in amiable concert,

Till their earthly existence was o’er,

And he proudly wrote that his delicate throat

Was the Land of Tockerlore.

And the souvenir hunters from Swipo,

They demolished the cottage at Snooze,

And all his estate which went to probate

Was his beautiful russet shoes.

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