Read "Carlsbad" by Eugene Field online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
DEAR Palmer, just a year ago we did the Carlsbad cure, / Which, though it be exceeding slow, is as exceeding sure; / To corpulency you were prone, dyspepsia bothered me, -- / You tipped the beam at twenty stone and I at ten stone three! / The cure, they told us, works both ways: it makes the fat man lean; / The thin man, after many days, achieves a portly mien; / And though it's true you still are fat, while I am like a crow, -- / All skin and feathers, -- what of that? The cure takes time, you know.
The Carlsbad scenery is sublime, -- that's what the guide-books say; / We did not think so at that time, nor think _I_ so to-day! / The bluffs that squeeze the panting town permit no pleasing views, / But weigh the mortal spirits down and give a chap the blues.