The Best of Archy and Mehitabel Read Online Free PDF Page A

me a human once more
    give me the mind of a cockroach
    or give me the shape of a man
    if i were to plan out a drama
    great as great shakespeare s othello
    it would be touched with the cockroach
    and people would say it was comic
    even the demons i talk with
    ghosts of the damned that await
    vile incarnation as spiders
    affect to consider me comic
    wait till their loathsome embodiment
    wears into the stuff of the spirit
    and then let them laugh if they can
    damned be the soul of pythagoras
    who first filled the fates with this notion
    of transmigration of spirits
    i hope he turns into a flea
    on the back of a hound of hell
    and is chased for a million years
    with a set of red hot teeth
    exclamation point
    archy

mehitabel and her kittens
    well boss
    mehitabel the cat
    has reappeared in her old
    haunts with a
    flock of kittens
    three of them this time

    what in hell have i done to deserve all these kittens
    archy she said to me
    yesterday
    the life of a female
    artist is continually
    hampered what in hell
    have i done to deserve
    all these kittens
    i look back on my life
    and it seems to me to be
    just one damned kitten
    after another
    i am a dancer archy
    and my only prayer
    is to be allowed
    to give my best to my art
    but just as i feel
    that i am succeeding
    in my life work
    along comes another batch
    of these damned kittens
    it is not archy
    that i am shy on mother love
    god knows i care for
    the sweet little things
    curse them
    but am i never to be allowed
    to live my own life
    i have purposely avoided
    matrimony in the interests
    of the higher life
    but i might just
    as well have been a domestic
    slave for all the freedom
    i have gained
    i hope none of them
    gets run over by
    an automobile
    my heart would bleed
    if anything happened
    to them and i found it out
    but it isn t fair archy
    it isn t fair
    these damned tom cats have all
    the fun and freedom
    if i was like some of these
    green eyed feline vamps i know
    i would simply walk out on the
    bunch of them and
    let them shift for themselves
    but i am not that kind
    archy i am full of mother love
    my kindness has always
    been my curse
    a tender heart is the cross i bear
    self sacrifice always and forever
    is my motto damn them
    i will make a home
    for the sweet innocent
    little things
    unless of course providence
    in his wisdom should remove
    them they are living
    just now in an abandoned
    garbage can just behind
    a made over stable in greenwich
    village and if it rained
    into the can before i could
    get back and rescue them
    i am afraid the little
    dears might drown
    it makes me shudder just
    to think of it
    of course if i were a family cat
    they would probably
    be drowned anyhow
    sometimes i think
    the kinder thing would be
    for me to carry the
    sweet little things
    over to the river
    and drop them in myself
    but a mother s love archy
    is so unreasonable
    something always prevents me
    these terrible
    conflicts are always
    presenting themselves
    to the artist
    the eternal struggle
    between art and life archy
    is something fierce
    yes something fierce
    my what a dramatic
    life i have lived
    one moment up the next
    moment down again
    but always gay archy always gay
    and always the lady too
    in spite of hell
    well boss it will
    be interesting to note
    just how mehitabel
    works out her present problem
    a dark mystery still broods
    over the manner
    in which the former
    family of three kittens
    disappeared
    one day she was talking to me
    of the kittens
    and the next day when i asked
    her about them
    she said innocently
    what kittens
    interrogation point
    and that was all
    i could ever get out
    of her on the subject
    we had a heavy rain
    right after she spoke to me
    but probably that garbage can
    leaks and so the kittens
    have not yet
    been drowned
    archy

    we had a heavy rain

cheerio, my deario
    well boss i met
    mehitabel the cat
    trying to dig a
    frozen lamb chop
    out of a snow
    drift the other day
    a heluva comedown
    that is for me archy
    she says a few
    brief centuries
    ago