An Earthworm Elegy 



Albert W. Smith 

 Dean of Sibley College, Cornell University 



I'm just a worm! 

 My sole resource to show my zeal, 

 Or make emotional appeal, 



Is just to squirm. 

 The thrills I feel 

 I can't express in dulcet tones 

 With flashing eyes or sighs or groans; 

 I lack the organs these require; 

 And though I burn with passion's fire, 

 I'm just a worm; 

 I only squirm. 



When April came, 

 And showers soft 

 Drenched sidewalks with delicious wet, 

 By thrills of spring I was beset, 

 And impulses to pirouette 

 Ran through me oft, 

 When April came. 



I'm just a worm! 

 Alas, I lack 

 The lavish legs of millepedes, 

 Required for grace and springlike deeds. 

 What boots it then that I should yet 

 Burn with this rage to pirouette? 

 I'm just a worm, 

 Alas, alack! 



In ecstacy 

 With springlike squirm, 

 O'er concrete on this April day 

 In pride I shaped my wiggly way. 

 When I launched forth in full career 

 I learned, alas, that men tread here. 

 Now half of me is just a smear ! 



Who started whole with hopeful squirm 

 In ecstacy. 



I'm half a worm! 

 With shortened squirm, 

 Alas, though locomotion fails, 

 Yet here a crushed and smeary thing 

 My swansong squirming I will sing 

 With half a squirm, 

 A dying worm. 



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