Polyphemus

’Twas a sick young man with a face ungay
  And an eye that was all alone;
And he shook his head in a hopeless way
  As he sat on a roadside stone.

“O, ailing youth, what untoward fate
  Has made the sun to set
On your mirth and eye?” “I’m constrained to state
  I’m an ex-West Point cadet.

“ ’Twas at cannon-practice I got my hurt
  And my present frame of mind;
For the gun went off with a double spurt⁠—
  Before it, and also behind!

“How sad, how sad, that a fine young chap,
  When studying how to kill,
Should meet with so terrible a mishap
  Precluding eventual skill.

“Ah, woeful to think that a weapon made
  For mowing down the foe
Should commit so dreadful an escapade
  As to turn about to mow!”

No more he heeded while I condoled:
  He was wandering in his mind;
His lonely eye unconsidered rolled,
  And his views he thus defined:

“ ’Twas O for a breach of the peace⁠—’twas O
  For an international brawl!
But a piece of the breech⁠—ah no, ah no,
  I didn’t want that at all.”