Classic Poem

You'll recall, if you're strong on historical stuff,
The name of that highly deluded old fluff
Who chartered a schooner and sailed o'er the sea—
Long after Columbus, but long before me—
Through primeval forests he went on a quest
Of the fountain of youth lying far to the west;
For it seems that a sailor, who knew how to string,
Had told this old man of a magical spring,
Which would change any withered emeritus prof
To a lusty and vigorous freshman or soph.
So he came and he searched—oh, you must know his name,
The text-books have boomed him and given him fame;
Was it Balboa? No. Or De Soto? Great Scott!
All the Ridpath I studied I quickly forgot.
No matter—he firmly believed in the myth—
It was not Hendrik Hudson or Captain John Smith—
Hold on! Ponce de Leon! I knew it would come—
He thought that this fountain of youth would help some;
So he landed and built on the Jacksonville line
A high-priced hotel that is still doing fine.
Then he said to his followers, “Boys, on your way;
I must run down that fountain without much delay,
For I'm just about in—I'm a thing of the past,
And unless I'm patched up, I'm afraid I can't last.”
Now the histories tell that his search was in vain
And instead of returning in triumph to Spain,
A cocky young blade of about twenty-three;
He got lost in the mountains of east Tennessee;
Got stung by mosquitoes—which gave him the shakes—
Got shot at by Injuns and hissed at by snakes;
Got tired and disgusted; got most everything
Except the address of that wonderful spring.
So he took the back trail through the jungle and brake,
Convinced that the mariner's yarn was a fake;
And he died in the orthodox manner, we're told,
Which is often the finish of those who grow old.

PART SECOND

The sequel, I'm certain, you never have heard.
It is mystical, fanciful, never occurred;
It is supposititious—a very good word—
It is purely fictitious—but still it's a bird .
They buried the shell of this doughty old don,
But his resolute spirit kept marching right on;
The ghostly, intangible knight of Castile
Continued the search with persistence and zeal.
Through years and through decades and centuries too,
He roamed through the hemisphere still known as new,
And sought, with Diogenes' patience, the spring
Where Methusaleh might, as a giddy young thing
Have continued to bloom for a thousand years more
Until old Father Time would get tired keeping score.
He was kept rather busy, for ev'ry few days
He would read in a folder the unstinted praise
Of this or that spring with a five-dollar rate,
Which would cure almost any disease while you wait.
Each one, from Mt. Clemens to far Manitou
Guaranteed to make old people look just like new.
So he tested them all, and at every resort,
He found people drinking the stuff by the quart;
But at Hot Springs, Arkansas, and even French Lick
They were old and shot-up and disabled and sick;
Not one of them happy and hearty and young;
All lean and dyspeptic—with fur on the tongue.
Can you blame him for doubting the absolute truth
Of the legend regarding the fountain of youth?
Wherever he journeyed, this rule seemed to hold:
That the young must be young and the old must be old.
In nineteen-ought-seven he came to a spot
Way down in Virginia—the weather was hot—
The time was midsummer; the flags were unfurled.
And tourists were flocking from half of the world.
There were strange foreign people of most every race,
And Ponce thought he'd struck a new watering-place:
Though he judged from the hurrah and laughter and fun
That twenty “resorts” had been rolled into one.
He sought the headquarters for all of the noise
And there he discovered a great crowd of boys,
All seated at tables and whooping it up
While quenching their thirst from a big loving-cup,
Which never ran empty, though score upon score
Drank deep and drank often and clamored for more.
And strange to relate, as the cup went around,
The old boys began to get up and expound;
They laughed at the jokes and they joined in each song
And if trouble was started they helped it along.
For would you believe it, though some in that room
Seemed old and decrepit and marked for the tomb,
The magical cup took them back to their teens
By some supernatural method or means;
Until doctor, professor and lawyer and sage,
Arrived at a most irresponsible age.
The traveler came to our most worthy “C”
And politely requested the prize recipe:
“Pray tell me what fluid your flagon may hold,
That brings crimson youth to the weary and old.”
The consul gave answer: “To tell you the truth,
We're simply imbibing the Spirit of Youth;
Our own preparation, we keep it on tap
And furnish it freely to ev'ry good chap;
He drinks, and his boyhood returns on the fly,
It's a pure food concoction, and called ‘Sigma Chi.’”