Filterting

This is an age of filtering,

     We’re filtered to the death;

And by and by I ween we’ll have

     To breathe a filtered breath.

It’s filter this and filter that,

     All food and liquid stuff;

And everything tho’ filtered is

     Is filtered not enough.

We must not kiss a maiden’s lips;

     Nor hold her dimpled hand;

We must not do things in the way

     Which God and nature planned.

The filter craze is spreading fast –

     O what will hap to me,

If editors should e’er demand

     Some filtered poetree.

Sep. 16, 1899