He paid a Swede twelve bits an hour <br />Just to invent a fancy style <br />To spread the celebration paint <br />So it would show at least a mile. <br /> <br />Some things they did I will not tell. <br />They're not quite proper for a rhyme. <br />But I will say Yim Yonson Swede <br />Did sure invent a sunflower time. <br /> <br />One thing they did that I can tell <br />And not offend the ladies here:— <br />They took a goat to Simp's Saloon <br />And made it take a bath in beer. <br /> <br />That ENTERprise took MANagement. <br />They broke a wash-tub in the fray. <br />But mister goat was bathed all right <br />And bar-keep Simp was, too, they say. <br /> <br />They wore girls' pink straw hats to church <br />And clucked like hens. They surely did. <br />They bought two HOtel frying pans <br />And in them down the mountain slid. <br /> <br />They went to Denver in good clothes, <br />And kept Burt's grill-room wide awake, <br />And cut about like jumping-jacks, <br />And ordered seven-dollar steak. <br /> <br />They had the waiters whirling round <br />Just sweeping up the smear and smash. <br />They tried to buy the State-house flag. <br />They showed the Janitor the cash. <br /> <br />And old Dan Tucker on a toot, <br />Or John Paul Jones before the breeze, <br />Or Indians eating fat fried dog, <br />Were not as happy babes as these. <br /> <br />One morn, in hills near Cripple-creek <br />With cheerful swears the two awoke. <br />The Swede had twenty cents, all right. <br />But Gassy Thompson was clean broke.<br /><br />Vachel Lindsay<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/when-gassy-thompson-struck-it-rich/
