The Project Gutenberg eBook of Black Beetles in Amber

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Title: Black Beetles in Amber

Author: Ambrose Bierce

Release date: July 21, 2004 [eBook #12977]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Leah Moser and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER ***

BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER

By Ambrose Bierce

1892

CONTENTS

IN EXPLANATION

THE KEY NOTE

CAIN

AN OBITUARIAN

A COMMUTED SENTENCE

A LIFTED FINGER

TWO STATESMEN

MATTER FOR GRATITUDE

THREE KINDS OF A ROGUE

A MAN

SAMUEL SHORTRIDGE

SURPRISED

POSTERITY'S AWARD

AN ART CRITIC

THE SPIRIT OF A SPONGE

ORNITHANTHROPOS

TO E.S. SALOMON

DENNIS KEARNEY

FINIS FTERNITATIS

THE VETERAN

AN "EXHIBIT"

THE TRANSMIGRATIONS OF A SOUL

AN ACTOR

FAMINE'S REALM

THE MACKAIAD

A SONG IN PRAISE

A POET'S FATHER

A COWARD

TO MY LIARS

CODEX HONORIS

TO W.H.L.B.

EMANCIPATION

JOHNDONKEY

HELL

BY FALSE PRETENSES

LUCIFER OF THE TORCH

THE "WHIRLIGIG OF TIME"

A RAILROAD LACKEY

THE LEGATEE

A LITERARY HANGMAN

AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR

A CONTROVERSIALIST

MENDAX

THE RETROSPECTIVE BIRD

THE OAKLAND DOG

THE UNFALLEN BRAVE

A CELEBRATED CASE

COUPLETS

A RETORT

A VISION OF RESURRECTION

MASTER OF THREE ARTS

THERSITES

A SOCIETY LEADER

EXPOSITOR VERITATIS

TO "COLONEL" DAN. BURNS

GEORGE A. KNIGHT

UNARMED

A POLITICAL VIOLET

THE SUBDUED EDITOR

A "SCION OF NOBILITY"

THE NIGHT OF ELECTION

THE CONVICTS' BALL

A PRAYER

TO ONE DETESTED

THE BOSS'S CHOICE

A MERCIFUL GOVERNOR

AN INTERPRETATION

A SOARING TOAD

AN UNDRESS UNIFORM

THE PERVERTED VILLAGE

MR. SHEETS

A JACK-AT-ALL-VIEWS

MY LORD POET

TO THE FOOL-KILLER

ONE AND ONE ARE TWO

MONTAGUE LEVERSON

THE WOFUL TALE OF MR. PETERS

TWIN UNWORTHIES

ANOTHER PLAN

A POLITICAL APOSTATE

TINKER DICK

BATS IN SUNSHINE

A WORD TO THE UNWISE

ON THE PLATFORM

A DAMPENED ARDOR

ADAIR WELCKER, POET

TO A WORD-WARRIOR

A CULINARY CANDIDATE

THE OLEOMARGARINE MAN

GENESIS

LLEWELLEN POWELL

THE SUNSET GUN.

THE "VIDUATE DAME"

FOUR OF A KIND

RECONCILIATION

A VISION OF CLIMATE

A "MASS" MEETING

FOR PRESIDENT, LELAND STANFORD

FOR MAYOR

A CHEATING PREACHER

A CROCODILE

THE AMERICAN PARTY

UNCOLONELED

THE GATES AJAR

TIDINGS OF GOOD

ARBORICULTURE

A SILURIAN HOLIDAY

REJECTED

JUDEX JUDICATUS

ON THE WEDDING OF AN AKRONAUT

A HASTY INFERENCE

A VOLUPTUARY

AD CATTONUM

THE NATIONAL GUARDSMAN

THE BARKING WEASEL

A REAR ELEVATION

IN UPPER SAN FRANCISCO

NIMROD

CENSOR LITERARUM

BORROWED BRAINS

THE FYGHTYNGE SEVENTH

INDICTED

OVER THE BORDER

ONE JUDGE

TO AN INSOLENT ATTORNEY

ACCEPTED

A PROMISED FAST TRAIN

ONE OF THE SAINTS

A MILITARY INCIDENT

SUBSTANCE VERSUS SHADOW

THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC MORALS

CALIFORNIA

DE YOUNG—A PROPHECY

TO EITHER

DISAPPOINTMENT

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF THEFT

DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN

THE LAST MAN

ARBOR DAY

THE PIUTE

FAME

ONE OF THE REDEEMED

A CRITIC

A QUESTION OF ELIGIBILITY

FLEET STROTHER

CALIFORNIAN SUMMER PICTURES

SLANDER

JAMES L. FLOOD

FOUR CANDIDATES FOR SENATOR

A GROWLER

AD MOODIUM

AN EPITAPH

A SPADE

THE VAN NESSIAD

A FISH COMMISSIONER

TO A STRAY DOG

IN HIS HAND

A DEMAGOGUE

IGNIS FATUUS

FROM TOP TO BOTTOM

AN IDLER

THE DEAD KING

A PATTER SONG

THE SHAFTER SHAFTED

THE MUMMERY

THE TWO CAVEES

METEMPSYCHOSIS

SLICKENS

ASPIRANTS THREE

THE BIRTH OF THE RAIL

A BAD NIGHT

ON STONE

A WREATH OF IMMORTELLES

IN EXPLANATION

Many of the verses in this book are republished, with considerable alterations, from various newspapers. The collection includes few not relating to persons and events more or less familiar to the people of the Pacific Coast—to whom the volume may be considered as especially addressed, though, not without a hope that some part of the contents may be found to have sufficient intrinsic interest to commend it to others. In that case, doubtless, commentators will be "raised up" to make exposition of its full meaning, with possibly an added meaning read into it by themselves.

Of my motives in writing, and in now republishing, I do not care to make either defense or explanation, except with reference to those persons who since my first censure of them have passed away. To one having only a reader's interest in the matter it may easily seem that the verses relating to those might more properly have been omitted from this collection. But if these pieces, or, indeed, if any considerable part of my work in literature, have the intrinsic worth which by this attempt to preserve some of it I have assumed, their permanent suppression is impossible, and it is only a question of when and by whom they shall be republished. Some one will surely search them out and put them in circulation.

I conceive it the right of an author to have his fugitive work collected in his lifetime; and this seems to me especially true of one whose work, necessarily engendering animosities, is peculiarly exposed to challenge as unjust. That is a charge that can be best examined before time has effaced the evidence. For the death of a man of whom I may have written what I venture to think worthy to live I am no way responsible; and, however sincerely I may regret it, I can hardly be expected to consent that it shall affect my fortunes. If the satirist who does not accept the remarkable doctrine that while condemning the sin he should spare the sinner were bound to let the life of his work be coterminous with that of his subject his were a lot of peculiar hardship.

Persuaded of the validity of all this, I have not hesitated to reprint even certain "epitaphs" which, once of the living, are now of the dead, as all the others must eventually be. The objection inheres in all forms of applied satire—my understanding of whose laws and liberties is at least derived from reverent study of the masters. That in respect of matters herein mentioned I have but followed their practice can be shown by abundant instance and example.

AMBROSE BIERCE.

THE KEY NOTE

  I dreamed I was dreaming one morn as I lay
    In a garden with flowers teeming.
  On an island I lay in a mystical bay,
    In the dream that I dreamed I was dreaming.

  The ghost of a scent—had it followed me there
    From the place where I truly was resting?
  It filled like an anthem the aisles of the air,
    The presence of roses attesting.

  Yet I thought in the dream that I dreamed I dreamed
    That the place was all barren of roses—
  That it only seemed; and the place, I deemed,
    Was the Isle of Bewildered Noses.

  Full many a seaman had testified
    How all who sailed near were enchanted,
  And landed to search (and in searching died)
    For the roses the Sirens had planted.

  For the Sirens were dead, and the billows boomed
    In the stead of their singing forever;
  But the roses bloomed on the graves of the doomed,
    Though man had discovered them never.

  I thought in my dream 'twas an idle tale,
    A delusion that mariners cherished—
  That the fragrance loading the conscious gale
    Was the ghost of a rose long perished.

  I said, "I will fly from this island of woes."
    And acting on that decision,
  By that odor of rose I was led by the nose,
    For 'twas truly, ah! truly, Elysian.

  I ran, in my madness, to seek out the source
    Of the redolent river—directed
  By some supernatural, sinister force
    To a forest, dark, haunted, infected.

  And still as I threaded ('twas all in the dream
    That I dreamed I was dreaming) each turning
  There were many a scream and a sudden gleam
    Of eyes all uncannily burning!

  The leaves were all wet with a horrible dew
    That mirrored the red moon's crescent,
  And all shapes were fringed with a ghostly blue,
    Dim, wavering, phosphorescent.

  But the fragrance divine, coming strong and free,
    Led me on, though my blood was clotting,
  Till—ah, joy!—I could see, on the limbs of a tree,
    Mine enemies hanging and rotting!

CAIN

  Lord, shed thy light upon his desert path,
    And gild his branded brow, that no man spill
    His forfeit life to balk thy holy will
  That spares him for the ripening of wrath.

  Already, lo! the red sign is descried,
    To trembling jurors visibly revealed:
    The prison doors obediently yield,
  The baffled hangman flings the cord aside.

  Powell, the brother's blood that marks your trail—
    Hark, how it cries against you from the ground,
    Like the far baying of the tireless hound.
  Faith! to your ear it is no nightingale.

  What signifies the date upon a stone?
    To-morrow you shall die if not to-day.
    What matter when the Avenger choose to slay
  Or soon or late the Devil gets his own.

  Thenceforth through all eternity you'll hold
    No one advantage of the later death.
    Though you had granted Ralph another breath
  Would he to-day less silent lie and cold?

  Earth cares not, curst assassin, when you die;
    You never will be readier than now.
    Wear, in God's name, that mark upon your brow,
  And keep the life you purchased with a lie!

AN OBITUARIAN

  Death-poet Pickering sat at his desk,
    Wrapped in appropriate gloom;
  His posture was pensive and picturesque,
    Like a raven charming a tomb.

  Enter a party a-drinking the cup
    Of sorrow—and likewise of woe:
  "Some harrowing poetry, Mister, whack up,
    All wrote in the key of O.

  "For the angels has called my old woman hence
    From the strife (where she fit mighty free).
  It's a nickel a line? Cond—n the expense!
    For wealth is now little to me."

  The Bard of Mortality looked him through
    In the piercingest sort of a way:
  "It is much to me though it's little to you—
    I've taken a wife to-day."

  So he twisted the tail of his mental cow
    And made her give down her flow.
  The grief of that bard was long-winded, somehow—
    There was reams and reamses of woe.

  The widower man which had buried his wife
    Grew lily-like round each gill,
  For she turned in her grave and came back to life—
    Then he cruel ignored the bill!

  Then Sorrow she opened her gates a-wide,
    As likewise did also Woe,
  And the death-poet's song, as is heard inside,
    Is sang in the key of O.

A COMMUTED SENTENCE

  Boruck and Waterman upon their grills
    In Hades lay, with many a sigh and groan,
    Hotly disputing, for each swore his own
  Were clearly keener than the other's ills.
    And, truly, each had much to boast of—bone
  And sinew, muscle, tallow, nerve and skin,
  Blood in the vein and marrow in the shin,
    Teeth, eyes and other organs (for the soul
  Has all of these and even a wagging chin)
    Blazing and coruscating like a coal!
  For Lower Sacramento, you remember,
  Has trying weather, even in mid-December.

  Now this occurred in the far future. All
    Mankind had been a million ages dead,
    And each to her reward above had sped,
  Each to his punishment below,—I call
    That quite a just arrangement. As I said,
  Boruck and Waterman in warmest pain
  Crackled and sizzed with all their might and main.
    For, when on earth, they'd freed a scurvy host
  Of crooks from the State prison, who again
    Had robbed and ravaged the Pacific Coast
  And (such the felon's predatory nature)
  Even got themselves into the Legislature.

  So Waterman and Boruck lay and roared
    In Hades. It is true all other males
    Felt the like flames and uttered equal wails,
  But did not suffer them; whereas they bored
    Each one the other. But indeed my tale's
  Not getting on at all. They lay and browned
  Till Boruck (who long since his teeth had ground
    Away and spoke Gum Arabic and made
  Stump speeches even in praying) looked around
    And said to Bob's incinerated shade:
  "Your Excellency, this is mighty hard on
  The inventors of the unpardonable pardon."

  The other soul—his right hand all aflame,
    For 'twas with that he'd chiefly sinned, although
    His tongue, too, like a wick was working woe
  To the reserve of tallow in his frame—
    Said, with a sputtering, uncertain flow,
  And with a gesture like a shaken torch:
  "Yes, but I'm sure we'll not much longer scorch.
    Although this climate is not good for Hope,
  Whose joyous wing 'twould singe, I think the porch
    Of Hell we'll quit with a pacific slope.
  Last century I signified repentance
  And asked for commutation of our sentence."

  Even as he spoke, the form of Satan loomed
    In sight, all crimson with reflections's fire,
    Like some tall tower or cathedral spire
  Touched by the dawn while all the earth is gloomed
    In mists and shadows of the night time. "Sire,"
  Said Waterman, his agitable wick
  Still sputtering, "what calls you back so quick?
    It scarcely was a century ago
  You left us." "I have come to bring," said Nick,
    "St. Peter's answer (he is never slow
  In correspondence) to your application
  For pardon—pardon me!—for commutation.

  "He says that he's instructed to reply
    (And he has so instructed me) that sin
    Like yours—and this poor gentleman's who's in
  For bad advice to you—comes rather high;
    But since, apparently, you both begin
  To feel some pious promptings to the right,
  And fain would turn your faces to the light,
    Eternity seems all too long a term.
  So 'tis commuted to one-half. I'm quite
    Prepared, when that expires, to free the worm
  And quench the fire." And, civilly retreating,
  He left them holding their protracted meeting.

A LIFTED FINGER

      [The Chronicle did a great public service in whipping
      —— and his fellow-rascals out of office.—M.H. de Young's
      Newspaper.]

  What! you whip rascals?—you, whose gutter blood
  Bears, in its dark, dishonorable flood,
  Enough of prison-birds' prolific germs
  To serve a whole eternity of terms?
  You, for whose back the rods and cudgels strove
  Ere yet the ax had hewn them from the grove?
  You, the De Young whose splendor bright and brave
  Is phosphorescence from another's grave—
  Till now unknown, by any chance or luck,
  Even to the hearts at which you, feebly struck?
  You whip a rascal out of office?—you  Whose leadless weapon once ignobly blew
  Its smoke in six directions to assert
  Your lack of appetite for others' dirt?

  Practice makes perfect: when for fame you thirst,
  Then whip a rascal. Whip a cripple first.
  Or, if for action you're less free than bold—
  Your palms both brimming with dishonest gold—
  Entrust the castigation that you've planned,
  As once before, to woman's idle hand.
  So in your spirit shall two pleasures join
  To slake the sacred thirst for blood and coin.
  Blood? Souls have blood, even as the body hath,
  And, spilled, 'twill fertilize the field of wrath.
  Lo! in a purple gorge of yonder hills,
  Where o'er a grave a bird its day-song stills,
  A woman's blood, through roses ever red,
  Mutely appeals for vengeance on your head.
  Slandered to death to serve a sordid end,
  She called you murderer and called me friend.

  Now, mark you, libeler, this course if you
  Dare to maintain, or rather to renew;
  If one short year's immunity has made
  You blink again the perils of your trade—
  The ghastly sequence of the maddened "knave,"
  The hot encounter and the colder grave;
  If the grim, dismal lesson you ignore
  While yet the stains are fresh upon your floor,
  And calmly march upon the fatal brink
  With eyes averted to your trail of ink,
  Counting unkind the services of those
  Who pull, to hold you back, your stupid nose,
  The day for you to die is not so far,
  Or, at the least, to live the thing you are!

  Pregnant with possibilities of crime,
  And full of felons for all coming time,
  Your blood's too precious to be lightly spilt
  In testimony to a venial guilt.
  Live to get whelpage and preserve a name
  No praise can sweeten and no lie unshame.
  Live to fulfill the vision that I see
  Down the dim vistas of the time to be:
  A dream of clattering beaks and burning eyes
  Of hungry ravens glooming all the skies;
  A dream of gleaming teeth and foetid breath
  Of jackals wrangling at the feast of death;
  A dream of broken necks and swollen tongues—
  The whole world's gibbets loaded with De Youngs!

  1881.

TWO STATESMEN

  In that fair city by the inland sea,
  Where Blaine unhived his Presidential bee,
  Frank Pixley's meeting with George Gorham sing,
  Celestial muse, and what events did spring
  From the encounter of those mighty sons
  Of thunder, and of slaughter, and of guns.
  Great Gorham first, his yearning tooth to sate
  And give him stomach for the day's debate,
  Entering a restaurant, with eager mien,
  Demands an ounce of bacon and a bean.
  The trembling waiter, by the statesman's eye
  Smitten with terror, hastens to comply;
  Nor chairs nor tables can his speed retard,
  For famine's fixed and horrible regard
  He takes for menace. As he shaking flew,
  Lo! the portentous Pixley heaved in view!
  Before him yawned invisible the cell,
  Unheard, behind, the warden's footsteps fell.
  Thrice in convention rising to his feet,
  He thrice had been thrust back into his seat;
  Thrice had protested, been reminded thrice
  The nation had no need of his advice.
  Balked of his will to set the people right,
  His soul was gloomy though his hat was white,
  So fierce his mien, with provident accord
  The waiters swarmed him, thinking him a lord.
  He spurned them, roaring grandly to their chief:
  "Give me (Fred. Crocker pays) a leg of beef!"
  His wandering eye's deluminating flame
  Fell upon Gorham and the crisis came!
  For Pixley scowled and darkness filled the room
  Till Gorham's flashing orbs dispelled the gloom.
  The patrons of the place, by fear dismayed,
  Sprang to the street and left their scores unpaid.
  So, when Jove thunders and his lightnings gleam
  To sour the milk and curdle, too, the cream,
  And storm-clouds gather on the shadowed hill,
  The ass forsakes his hay, the pig his swill.
  Hotly the heroes now engaged—their breath
  Came short and hard, as in the throes of death.
  They clenched their hands, their weapons brandished high,
  Cut, stabbed, and hewed, nor uttered any cry,
  But gnashed their teeth and struggled on! In brief,
  One ate his bacon, t'other one his beef.

MATTER FOR GRATITUDE

      [Especially should we be thankful for having escaped the
      ravages of the yellow scourge by which our neighbors have
      been so sorely afflicted.—Governor Stoneman's Thanksgiving
      Proclamation.]

  Be pleased, O Lord, to take a people's thanks
  That Thine avenging sword has spared our ranks—
  That Thou hast parted from our lips the cup
  And forced our neighbors' lips to drink it up.
  Father of Mercies, with a heart contrite
  We thank Thee that Thou goest south to smite,
  And sparest San Francisco's loins, to crack
  Thy lash on Hermosillo's bleeding back—
  That o'er our homes Thine awful angel spread
  His wings in vain, and Guaymas weeps instead.

  We praise Thee, God, that Yellow Fever here
  His horrid banner has not dared to rear,
  Consumption's jurisdiction to contest,
  Her dagger deep in every second breast!
  Catarrh and Asthma and Congestive Chill
  Attest Thy bounty and perform Thy will.
  These native messengers obey Thy call—
  They summon singly, but they summon all.
  Not, as in Mexico's impested clime,
  Can Yellow Jack commit recurring crime.
  We thank Thee that Thou killest all the time.

  Thy tender mercies, Father, never end:
  Upon all heads Thy blessings still descend,
  Though their forms vary. Here the sown seeds yield
  Abundant grain that whitens all the field—
  There the smit corn stands barren on the plain,
  Thrift reaps the straw and Famine gleans in vain.
  Here the fat priest to the contented king
  Points out the contrast and the people sing—
  There mothers eat their offspring. Well, at least
  Thou hast provided offspring for the feast.
  An earthquake here rolls harmless through the land,
  And Thou art good because the chimneys stand—
  There templed cities sink into the sea,
  And damp survivors, howling as they flee,
  Skip to the hills and hold a celebration
  In honor of Thy wise discrimination.

  O God, forgive them all, from Stoneman down,
  Thy smile who construe and expound Thy frown,
  And fall with saintly grace upon their knees
  To render thanks when Thou dost only sneeze.

THREE KINDS OF A ROGUE

  I

  Sharon, ambitious of immortal shame,
  Fame's dead-wall daubed with his illustrious name—
  Served in the Senate, for our sins, his time,
  Each word a folly and each vote a crime;
  Law for our governance well skilled to make
  By knowledge gained in study how to break;
  Yet still by the presiding eye ignored,
  Which only sought him when too loud he snored.
  Auspicious thunder!—when he woke to vote
  He stilled his own to cut his country's throat;
  That rite performed, fell off again to sleep,
  While statesmen ages dead awoke to weep!
  For sedentary service all unfit,
  By lying long disqualified to sit,
  Wasting below as he decayed aloft,
  His seat grown harder as his brain grew soft,
  He left the hall he could not bring away,
  And grateful millions blessed the happy day!
  Whate'er contention in that hall is heard,
  His sovereign State has still the final word:
  For disputatious statesmen when they roar
  Startle the ancient echoes of his snore,
  Which from their dusty nooks expostulate
  And close with stormy clamor the debate.
  To low melodious thunders then they fade;
  Their murmuring lullabies all ears invade;
  Peace takes the Chair; the portal Silence keeps;
  No motion stirs the dark Lethean deeps—
  Washoe has spoken and the Senate sleeps.

  II

  Lo! the new Sharon with a new intent,
  Making no laws, but keen to circumvent
  The laws of Nature (since he can't repeal)
  That break his failing body on the wheel.
  As Tantalus again and yet again
  The elusive wave endeavors to restrain
  To slake his awful thirst, so Sharon tries
  To purchase happiness that age denies;
  Obtains the shadow, but the substance goes,
  And hugs the thorn, but cannot keep the rose;
  For Dead Sea fruits bids prodigally, eats,
  And then, with tardy reformation—cheats.
  Alert his faculties as three score years
  And four score vices will permit, he nears—
  Dicing with Death—the finish of the game,
  And curses still his candle's wasting flame,
  The narrow circle of whose feeble glow
  Dims and diminishes at every throw.
  Moments his losses, pleasures are his gains,
  Which even in his grasp revert to pains.
  The joy of grasping them alone remains.

  III

  Ring up the curtain and the play protract!
  Behold our Sharon in his last mad act.
  With man long warring, quarreling with God,
  He crouches now beneath a woman's rod
  Predestined for his back while yet it lay
  Closed in an acorn which, one luckless day,
  He stole, unconscious of its foetal twig,
  From the scant garner of a sightless pig.
  With bleeding shoulders pitilessly scored,
  He bawls more lustily than once he snored.
  The sympathetic Comstocks droop to hear,
  And Carson river sheds a viscous tear,
  Which sturdy tumble-bugs assail amain,
  With ready thrift, and urge along the plain.
  The jackass rabbit sorrows as he lopes;
  The sage-brush glooms along the mountain slopes;
  In rising clouds the poignant alkali,
  Tearless itself, makes everybody cry.
  Washoe canaries on the Geiger Grade
  Subdue the singing of their cavalcade,
  And, wiping with their ears the tears unshed,
  Grieve for their family's unlucky head.
  Virginia City intermits her trade
  And well-clad strangers walk her streets unflayed.
  Nay, all Nevada ceases work to weep
  And the recording angel goes to sleep.
  But in his dreams his goose-quill's creaking fount
  Augments the debits in the long account.
  And still the continents and oceans ring
  With royal torments of the Silver King!
  Incessant bellowings fill all the earth,
  Mingled with inextinguishable mirth.
  He roars, men laugh, Nevadans weep, beasts howl,
  Plash the affrighted fish, and shriek the fowl!
  With monstrous din their blended thunders rise,
  Peal upon peal, and brawl along the skies,
  Startle in hell the Sharons as they groan,
  And shake the splendors of the great white throne!
  Still roaring outward through the vast profound,
  The spreading circles of receding sound
  Pursue each other in a failing race
  To the cold confines of eternal space;
  There break and die along that awful shore
  Which God's own eyes have never dared explore—
  Dark, fearful, formless, nameless evermore!

  Look to the west! Against yon steely sky
  Lone Mountain rears its holy cross on high.
  About its base the meek-faced dead are laid
  To share the benediction of its shade.
  With crossed white hands, shut eyes and formal feet,
  Their nights are innocent, their days discreet.
  Sharon, some years, perchance, remain of life—
  Of vice and greed, vulgarity and strife;
  And then—God speed the day if such His will—
  You'll lie among the dead you helped to kill,
  And be in good society at last,
  Your purse unsilvered and your face unbrassed.

A MAN

  Pennoyer, Governor of Oregon,
  Casting to South his eye across the bourne
  Of his dominion (where the Palmiped,
  With leathers 'twixt his toes, paddles his marsh,
  Amphibious) saw a rising cloud of hats,
  And heard a faint, far sound of distant cheers
  Below the swell of the horizon. "Lo,"
  Cried one, "the President! the President!"
  All footed webwise then took up the word—
  The hill tribes and the tribes lacustrine and
  The folk riparian and littoral,
  Cried with one voice: "The President! He comes!"
  And some there were who flung their headgear up
  In emulation of the Southern mob;
  While some, more soberly disposed, stood still
  And silently had fits; and others made
  Such reverent genuflexions as they could,
  Having that climate in their bones. Then spake
  The Court Dunce, humbly, as became him: "Sire,
  If thou, as heretofore thou hast, wilt deign
  To reap advantage of a fool's advice
  By action ordered after nature's way,
  As in thy people manifest (for still
  Stupidity's the only wisdom) thou
  Wilt get thee straight unto to the border land
  To mark the President's approach with such
  Due, decent courtesy as it shall seem
  We have in custom the best warrant for."

  Pennoyer, Governor of Oregon,
  Eyeing the storm of hats which darkened all
  The Southern sky, and hearing far hurrahs
  Of an exulting people, answered not.
  Then some there were who fell upon their knees,
  And some upon their Governor, and sought
  Each in his way, by blandishment or force,
  To gain his action to their end. "Behold,"
  They said, "thy brother Governor to South
  Met him even at the gateway of his realm,
  Crook-kneed, magnetic-handed and agrin,
  Backed like a rainbow—all things done in form
  Of due observance and respect. Shall we
  Alone of all his servitors refuse
  Swift welcome to our master and our lord?"

  Pennoyer, Governor of Oregon,
  Answered them not, but turned his back to them
  And as if speaking to himself, the while
  He started to retire, said: "He be damned!"

  To that High Place o'er Portland's central block,
  Where the Recording Angel stands to view
  The sinning world, nor thinks to move his feet
  Aside and look below, came flocking up
  Inferior angels, all aghast, and cried:
  "Pennoyer, Governor of Oregon,
  Has said, O what an awful word!—too bad
  To be by us repeated!" "Yes, I know,"
  Said the superior bird—"I heard it too,
  And have already booked it. Pray observe."
  Splitting the giant tome, whose covers fell
  Apart, o'ershadowing to right and left
  The Eastern and the Western world, he showed
  The newly written entry, black and big,
  Upon the credit side of thine account,
  Pennoyer, Governor of Oregon.

  Y'E FOE TO CATHAYE

  O never an oathe sweares he,
    And never a pig-taile jerkes;
    With a brick-batte he ne lurkes
  For to buste y'e crust, perdie,
  Of y'e man from over sea,
    A-synging as he werkes.
  For he knows ful well, y's youth,
    A tricke of exceeding worth:
  And he plans withouten ruth
    A conflagration's birth!

SAMUEL SHORTRIDGE

  Like a worn mother he attempts in vain
  To still the unruly Crier of his brain:
  The more he rocks the cradle of his chin
  The more uproarious grows the brat within.

SURPRISED

  "O son of mine age, these eyes lose their fire:
  Be eyes, I pray, to thy dying sire."

  "O father, fear not, for mine eyes are bright—
  I read through a millstone at dead of night."

  "My son, O tell me, who are those men,
  Rushing like pigs to the feeding-pen?"

  "Welcomers they of a statesman grand.
  They'll shake, and then they will pocket; his hand."

  "Sagacious youth, with the wondrous eye,
  They seem to throw up their headgear. Why?"

  "Because they've thrown up their hands until, O,
  They're so tired!—and dinners they've none to throw."

  "My son, my son, though dull are mine ears,
  I hear a great sound like the people's cheers."

  "He's thanking them, father, with tears in his eyes,
  For giving him lately that fine surprise."

  "My memory fails as I near mine end;
  How did they astonish their grateful friend?"

  "By letting him buy, like apples or oats,
  With that which has made him so good, the votes
  Which make him so wise and grand and great.
  Now, father, please die, for 'tis growing late."

POSTERITY'S AWARD

  I'd long been dead, but I returned to earth.
    Some small affairs posterity was making
  A mess of, and I came to see that worth
    Received its dues. I'd hardly finished waking,
  The grave-mould still upon me, when my eye
  Perceived a statue standing straight and high.

  'Twas a colossal figure—bronze and gold—
    Nobly designed, in attitude commanding.
  A toga from its shoulders, fold on fold,
    Fell to the pedestal on which 'twas standing.
  Nobility it had and splendid grace,
  And all it should have had—except a face!

  It showed no features: not a trace nor sign
    Of any eyes or nose could be detected—
  On the smooth oval of its front no line
    Where sites for mouths are commonly selected.
  All blank and blind its faulty head it reared.
  Let this be said: 'twas generously eared.

  Seeing these things, I straight began to guess
    For whom this mighty image was intended.
  "The head," I cried, "is Upton's, and the dress
    Is Parson Bartlett's own." True, his cloak ended
  Flush with his lowest vertebra, but no
  Sane sculptor ever made a toga so.

  Then on the pedestal these words I read:
    "Erected Eighteen Hundred Ninety-seven"
  (Saint Christofer! how fast the time had sped!
    Of course it naturally does in Heaven)
  "To ——" (here a blank space for the name began)
  "The Nineteenth Century's Great Foremost Man!"

  "Completed" the inscription ended, "in
    The Year Three Thousand"—which was just arriving.
  By Jove! thought I, 'twould make the founders grin
    To learn whose fame so long has been surviving—
  To read the name posterity will place
  In that blank void, and view the finished face.

  Even as I gazed, the year Three Thousand came,
    And then by acclamation all the people
  Decreed whose was our century's best fame;
    Then scaffolded the statue like a steeple,
  To make the likeness; and the name was sunk
  Deep in the pedestal's metallic trunk.

  Whose was it? Gentle reader, pray excuse
    The seeming rudeness, but I can't consent to
  Be so forehanded with important news.
    'Twas neither yours nor mine—let that content you.
  If not, the name I must surrender, which,
  Upon a dead man's word, was George K. Fitch!

AN ART CRITIC

  Ira P. Rankin, you've a nasal name—
  I'll sound it through "the speaking-trump of fame,"
  And wondering nations, hearing from afar
  The brazen twang of its resounding jar,
  Shall say: "These bards are an uncommon class—
  They blow their noses with a tube of brass!"
  Rankin! ye gods! if Influenza pick
  Our names at christening, and such names stick,
  Let's all be born when summer suns withstand
  Her prevalence and chase her from the land,
  And healing breezes generously help
  To shield from death each ailing human whelp!
  "What's in a name?" There's much at least in yours
  That the pained ear unwillingly endures,
  And much to make the suffering soul, I fear,
  Envy the lesser anguish of the ear.

  So you object to Cytherea! Do,
  The picture was not painted, sir, for you!
  Your mind to gratify and taste address,
  The masking dove had been a dove the less.
  Provincial censor! all untaught in art,
  With mind indecent and indecent heart,
  Do you not know—nay, why should I explain?
  Instruction, argument alike were vain—
  I'll show you reasons when you show me brain.

THE SPIRIT OF A SPONGE

  I dreamed one night that Stephen Massett died,
  And for admission up at Heaven applied.
  "Who are you?" asked St. Peter. Massett said:
  "Jeems Pipes, of Pipesville." Peter bowed his head,
  Opened the gates and said: "I'm glad to know you,
  And wish we'd something better, sir, to show you."
  "Don't mention it," said Stephen, looking bland,
  And was about to enter, hat in hand,
  When from a cloud below such fumes arose
  As tickled tenderly his conscious nose.
  He paused, replaced his hat upon his head,
  Turned back and to the saintly warden said,
  O'er his already sprouting wings: "I swear
  I smell some broiling going on down there!"
  So Massett's paunch, attracted by the smell,
  Followed his nose and found a place in Hell.

ORNITHANTHROPOS

  "Let John P. Irish rise!" the edict rang
  As when Creation into being sprang!
  Nature, not clearly understanding, tried
  To make a bird that on the air could ride.
  But naught could baffle the creative plan—
  Despite her efforts 'twas almost a man.
  Yet he had risen—to the bird a twin—
  Had she but fixed a wing upon his chin.

TO E.S. SALOMON

      Who in a Memorial Day oration protested bitterly against
      decorating the graves of Confederate dead.

  What! Salomon! such words from you,
    Who call yourself a soldier? Well,
    The Southern brother where he fell
  Slept all your base oration through.

  Alike to him—he cannot know
    Your praise or blame: as little harm
    Your tongue can do him as your arm
  A quarter-century ago.

  The brave respect the brave. The brave
    Respect the dead; but you—you draw
    That ancient blade, the ass's jaw,
  And shake it o'er a hero's grave.

  Are you not he who makes to-day
    A merchandise of old renown
    Which he persuades this easy town
  He won in battle far away?

  Nay, those the fallen who revile
    Have ne'er before the living stood
    And stoutly made their battle good
  And greeted danger with a smile.

  What if the dead whom still you hate
    Were wrong? Are you so surely right?
    We know the issue of the fight—
  The sword is but an advocate.

  Men live and die, and other men
    Arise with knowledges diverse:
    What seemed a blessing seems a curse,
  And Now is still at odds with Then.

  The years go on, the old comes back
    To mock the new—beneath the sun.
    Is nothing new; ideas run
  Recurrent in an endless track.

  What most we censure, men as wise
    Have reverently practiced; nor
    Will future wisdom fail to war
  On principles we dearly prize.

  We do not know—we can but deem,
    And he is loyalest and best
    Who takes the light full on his breast
  And follows it throughout the dream.

  The broken light, the shadows wide—
    Behold the battle-field displayed!
    God save the vanquished from the blade,
  The victor from the victor's pride!

  If, Salomon, the blessed dew
    That falls upon the Blue and Gray
    Is powerless to wash away
  The sin of differing from you.

  Remember how the flood of years
    Has rolled across the erring slain;
    Remember, too, the cleansing rain
  Of widows' and of orphans' tears.

  The dead are dead—let that atone:
    And though with equal hand we strew
    The blooms on saint and sinner too,
  Yet God will know to choose his own.

  The wretch, whate'er his life and lot,
    Who does not love the harmless dead
    With all his heart and all his head—
  May God forgive him—I shall not.

  When, Salomon, you come to quaff
    The Darker Cup with meeker face,
    I, loving you at last, shall trace
  Upon your tomb this epitaph:

  "Draw near, ye generous and brave—
    Kneel round this monument and weep:
    It covers one who tried to keep
  A flower from a dead man's grave."

DENNIS KEARNEY

  Your influence, my friend, has gathered head—
  To east and west its tides encroaching spread.
  There'll be, on all God's foot-stool, when they meet,
  No clean spot left for God to set His feet.

FINIS FTERNITATIS

  Strolling at sunset in my native land,
  With fruits and flowers thick on either hand,
      I crossed a Shadow flung athwart my way,
  Emerging on a waste of rock and sand.

  "The apples all are gone from here," I said,
  "The roses perished and their spirits fled.
      I will go back." A voice cried out: "The man
  Is risen who eternally was dead!"

  I turned and saw an angel standing there,
  Newly descended from the heights of air.
      Sweet-eyed compassion filled his face, his hands
  A naked sword and golden trumpet bare.

  "Nay, 'twas not death, the shadow that I crossed,"
  I said. "Its chill was but a touch of frost.
      It made me gasp, but quickly I came through,
  With breath recovered ere it scarce was lost."

  'Twas the same land! Remembered mountains thrust
  Grayed heads asky, and every dragging gust,
      In ashen valleys where my sons had reaped,
  Stirred in familiar river-beds the dust.

  Some heights, where once the traveler was shown
  The youngest and the proudest city known,
      Lifted smooth ridges in the steely light—
  Bleak, desolate acclivities of stone.

  Where I had worshiped at my father's tomb,
  Within a massive temple's awful gloom,
      A jackal slunk along the naked rock,
  Affrighted by some prescience of doom.

  Man's vestiges were nowhere to be found,
  Save one brass mausoleum on a mound
      (I knew it well) spared by the artist Time
  To emphasize the desolation round.

  Into the stagnant sea the sullen sun
  Sank behind bars of crimson, one by one.
      "Eternity's at hand!" I cried aloud.
  "Eternity," the angel said, "is done.

  For man is ages dead in every zone;
  The angels all are dead but I alone;
      The devils, too, are cold enough at last,
  And God lies dead before the great white throne!

  'Tis foreordained that I bestride the shore
  When all are gone (as Gabriel did before,
      When I had throttled the last man alive)
  And swear Eternity shall be no more."

  "O Azrael—O Prince of Death, declare
  Why conquered I the grave?" I cried. "What rare,
      Conspicuous virtues won this boon for me?"
  "You've been revived," he said, "to hear me swear."

  "Then let me creep again beneath the grass,
  And knock thou at yon pompous tomb of brass.
       If ears are what you want, Charles Crocker's there—
  Betwixt the greatest ears, the greatest ass."

  He rapped, and while the hollow echoes rang,
  Out at the door a curst hyena sprang
       And fled! Said Azrael: "His soul's escaped,"
  And closed the brazen portal with a bang.

THE VETERAN

  John Jackson, once a soldier bold,
      Hath still a martial feeling;
  So, when he sees a foe, behold!
      He charges him—with stealing.

  He cares not how much ground to-day
      He gives for men to doubt him;
  He's used to giving ground, they say,
      Who lately fought with—out him.

  When, for the battle to be won,
      His gallantry was needed,
  They say each time a loaded gun
      Went off—so, likewise, he did.

  And when discharged (for war's a sport
      So hot he had to leave it)
  He made a very loud report,
      But no one did believe it.

AN "EXHIBIT"

  Goldenson hanged! Well, Heaven forbid
    That I should smile above him:
  Though truth to tell, I never did
    Exactly love him.

  It can't be wrong, though, to rejoice
    That his unpleasing capers
  Are ended. Silent is his voice
    In all the papers.

  No longer he's a show: no more,
    Bear-like, his den he's walking.
  No longer can he hold the floor
    When I'd be talking.

  The laws that govern jails are bad
    If such displays are lawful.
  The fate of the assassin's sad,
    But ours is awful!

  What! shall a wretch condemned to die
    In shame upon the gibbet
  Be set before the public eye
    As an "exhibit"?—

  His looks, his actions noted down,
    His words if light or solemn,
  And all this hawked about the town—
    So much a column?

  The press, of course, will publish news
    However it may get it;
  But blast the sheriff who'll abuse
    His powers to let it!

  Nay, this is not ingratitude;
    I'm no reporter, truly,
  Nor yet an editor. I'm rude
    Because unruly—

  Because I burn with shame and rage
    Beyond my power of telling
  To see assassins in a cage
    And keepers yelling.

  "Walk up! Walk up!" the showman cries:
    "Observe the lion's poses,
  His stormy mane, his glooming eyes.
    His—hold your noses!"

  How long, O Lord, shall Law and Right
    Be mocked for gain or glory,
  And angels weep as they recite
    The shameful story?

THE TRANSMIGRATIONS OF A SOUL

  What! Pixley, must I hear you call the roll
  Of all the vices that infest your soul?
  Was't not enough that lately you did bawl
  Your money-worship in the ears of all?[A]
  Still must you crack your brazen cheek to tell
  That though a miser you're a sot as well?
  Still must I hear how low your taste has sunk—
  From getting money down to getting drunk?[B]

  Who worships money, damning all beside,
  And shows his callous knees with pious pride,
  Speaks with half-knowledge, for no man e'er scorns
  His own possessions, be they coins or corns.
  You've money, neighbor; had you gentle birth
  You'd know, as now you never can, its worth.

  You've money; learning is beyond your scope,
  Deaf to your envy, stubborn to your hope.
  But if upon your undeserving head
  Science and letters had their glory shed;
  If in the cavern of your skull the light
  Of knowledge shone where now eternal night
  Breeds the blind, poddy, vapor-fatted naughts
  Of cerebration that you think are thoughts—
  Black bats in cold and dismal corners hung
  That squeak and gibber when you move your tongue—
  You would not write, in Avarice's defense,
  A senseless eulogy on lack of sense,
  Nor show your eagerness to sacrifice
  All noble virtues to one loathsome vice.

  You've money; if you'd manners too you'd shame
  To boast your weakness or your baseness name.
  Appraise the things you have, but measure not
  The things denied to your unhappy lot.
  He values manners lighter than a cork
  Who combs his beard at table with a fork.
  Hare to seek sin and tortoise to forsake,
  The laws of taste condemn you to the stake
  To expiate, where all the world may see,
  The crime of growing old disgracefully.

  Religion, learning, birth and manners, too,
  All that distinguishes a man from you,
  Pray damn at will: all shining virtues gain
  An added luster from a rogue's disdain.
  But spare the young that proselyting sin,
  A toper's apotheosis of gin.
  If not our young, at least our pigs may claim
  Exemption from the spectacle of shame!

  Are you not he who lately out of shape
  Blew a brass trumpet to denounce the grape?—
  Who led the brave teetotalers afield
  And slew your leader underneath your shield?—
  Swore that no man should drink unless he flung
  Himself across your body at the bung?
  Who vowed if you'd the power you would fine
  The Son of God for making water wine?

  All trails to odium you tread and boast,
  Yourself enamored of the dirtiest most.
  One day to be a miser you aspire,
  The next to wallow drunken in the mire;
  The third, lo! you're a meritorious liar![C]
  Pray, in the catalogue of all your graces,
  Have theft and cowardice no honored places?

  Yield thee, great Satan—here's a rival name
  With all thy vices and but half thy shame!
  Quick to the letter of the precept, quick
  To the example of the elder Nick;
  With as great talent as was e'er applied
  To fool a teacher and to fog a guide;
  With slack allegiance and boundless greed,
  To paunch the profit of a traitor deed,
  He aims to make thy glory all his own,
  And crowd his master from the infernal throne!

  [Footnote A: We are not writing this paragraph for any other purpose
  than to protest against this never ending cant, affectation, and
  hypocrisy about money. It is one of the best things in this
  world—better than religion, or good birth, or learning, or good
  manners.—The Argonaut.]

  [Footnote B: Now, it just occurs to us that some of our temperance
  friends will take issue with us, and say that this is bad doctrine,
  and that it is ungentlemanly to get drunk under any circumstances
  or under any possible conditions. We do not think so.—The
  same.]

  [Footnote C: The man or woman who, for the sake of benefiting others,
  protecting them in their lives, property, or reputation, sparing
  their feelings, contributing to their enjoyment, or increasing
  their pleasures, will tell a lie, deserves to be rewarded.—The
  same.]

AN ACTOR

  Some one ('tis hardly new) has oddly said
  The color of a trumpet's blare is red;
  And Joseph Emmett thinks the crimson shame
  On woman's cheek a trumpet-note of fame.
  The more the red storm rises round her nose—
  The more her eyes averted seek her toes,
  He fancies all the louder he can hear
  The tube resounding in his spacious ear,
  And, all his varied talents to exert,
  Darkens his dullness to display his dirt.
  And when the gallery's indecent crowd,
  And gentlemen below, with hisses loud,
  In hot contention (these his art to crown,
  And those his naked nastiness to drown)
  Make such a din that cheeks erewhile aflame
  Grow white and in their fear forget their shame,
  With impudence imperial, sublime,
  Unmoved, the patient actor bides his time,
  Till storm and counter-storm are both allayed,
  Like donkeys, each by t'other one outbrayed.
  When all the place is silent as a mouse
  One slow, suggestive gesture clears the house!

FAMINE'S REALM

  To him in whom the love of Nature has
  Imperfectly supplanted the desire
  And dread necessity of food, your shore,
  Fair Oakland, is a terror. Over all
  Your sunny level, from Tamaletown
  To where the Pestuary's fragrant slime,
  With dead dogs studded, bears its ailing fleet,
  Broods the still menace of starvation. Bones
  Of men and women bleach along the ways
  And pampered vultures sleep upon the trees.
  It is a land of death, and Famine there
  Holds sovereignty; though some there be her sway
  Who challenge, and intrenched in larders live,
  Drawing their sustentation from abroad.
  But woe to him, the stranger! He shall die
  As die the early righteous in the bud
  And promise of their prime. He, venturesome
  To penetrate the wilds rectangular
  Of grass-grown ways luxuriant of blooms,
  Frequented of the bee and of the blithe,
  Bold squirrel, strays with heedless feet afar
  From human habitation and is lost
  In mid-Broadway. There hunger seizes him,
  And (careless man! deeming God's providence
  Extends so far) he has not wherewithal
  To bate its urgency. Then, lo! appears
  A mealery—a restaurant—a place
  Where poison battles famine, and the two,
  Like fish-hawks warring in the upper sky
  For that which one has taken from the deep,
  Manage between them to dispatch the prey.
  He enters and leaves hope behind. There ends
  His history. Anon his bones, clean-picked
  By buzzards (with the bones himself had picked,
  Incautious) line the highway. O, my friends,
  Of all felonious and deadlywise
  Devices of the Enemy of Souls,
  Planted along the ways of life to snare
  Man's mortal and immortal part alike,
  The Oakland restaurant is chief. It lives
  That man may die. It flourishes that life
  May wither. Its foundation stones repose
  On human hearts and hopes. I've seen in it
  Crabs stewed in milk and salad offered up
  With dressing so unholily compound
  That it included flour and sugar! Yea,
  I've eaten dog there!—dog, as I'm a man,
  Dog seethed in sewage of the town! No more—
  Thy hand, Dyspepsia, assumes the pen
  And scrawls a tortured "Finis" on the page.

THE MACKAIAD

  Mackay's hot wrath to Bonynge, direful spring
  Of blows unnumbered, heavenly goddess, sing—
  That wrath which hurled to Hellman's office floor
  Two heroes, mutually smeared with gore,
  Whose hair in handfuls marked the dire debate,
  And riven coat-tails testified their hate.
  Sing, muse, what first their indignation fired,
  What words augmented it, by whom inspired.

  First, the great Bonynge comes upon the scene
  And asks the favor of the British Queen.
  Suppliant he stands and urges all his claim:
  His wealth, his portly person and his name,
  His habitation in the setting sun,
  As child of nature; and his suit he won.
  No more the Sovereign, wearied with his plea,
  From slumber's chain her faculties can free.
  Low and more low the royal eyelids creep,
  She gives the assenting nod and falls asleep.
  Straightway the Bonynges all invade the Court
  And telegraph the news to every port.
  Beneath the seas, red-hot, the tidings fly,
  The cables crinkle and the fishes fry!
  The world, awaking like a startled bat,
  Exclaims: "A Bonynge? What the devil's that?"
  Mackay, meanwhile, to envy all attent,
  Untaught to spare, unable to relent,
  Walks in our town on needles and on pins,
  And in a mean, revengeful spirit—grins!

  Sing, muse, what next to break the peace occurred—
  What act uncivil, what unfriendly word?
  The god of Bosh ascending from his pool,
  Where since creation he has played the fool,
  Clove the blue slush, as other gods the sky,
  And, waiting but a moment's space to dry,
  Touched Bonynge with his finger-tip. "O son,"
  He said, "alike of nature and a gun,
  Knowest not Mackay's insufferable sin?
  Hast thou not heard that he doth stand and grin?
  Arise! assert thy manhood, and attest
  The uncommercial spirit in thy breast.
  Avenge thine honor, for by Jove I swear
  Thou shalt not else be my peculiar care!"
  He spake, and ere his worshiper could kneel
  Had dived into his slush pool, head and heel.
  Full of the god and to revenges nerved,
  And conscious of a will that never swerved,
  Bonynge set sail: the world beyond the wave
  As gladly took him as the other gave.
  New York received him, but a shudder ran
  Through all the western coast, which knew the man;
  And science said that the seismic action
  Was owing to an asteroid's impaction.

  O goddess, sing what Bonynge next essayed.
  Did he unscabbard the avenging blade,
  The long spear brandish and porrect the shield,
  Havoc the town and devastate the field?
  His sacred thirst for blood did he allay
  By halving the unfortunate Mackay?
  Small were the profit and the joy to him
  To hew a base-born person, limb from limb.
  Let vulgar souls to low revenge incline,
  That of diviner spirits is divine.
  Bonynge at noonday stood in public places
  And (with regard to the Mackays) made faces!
  Before those formidable frowns and scowls
  The dogs fled, tail-tucked, with affrighted howls,
  And horses, terrified, with flying feet
  O'erthrew the apple-stands along the street,
  Involving the metropolis in vast
  Financial ruin! Man himself, aghast,
  Retreated east and west and north and south
  Before the menace of that twisted mouth,
  Till Jove, in answer to their prayers, sent Night
  To veil the dreadful visage from their sight!

  Such were the causes of the horrid strife—
  The mother-wrongs which nourished it to life.
  O, for a quill from an archangel's wing!
  O, for a voice that's adequate to sing
  The splendor and the terror of the fray,
  The scattered hair, the coat-tails all astray,
  The parted collars and the gouts of gore
  Reeking and smoking on the banker's floor,
  The interlocking limbs, embraces dire,
  Revolving bodies and deranged attire!

  Vain, vain the trial: 'tis vouchsafed to none
  To sing two millionaires rolled into one!
  My hand and pen their offices refuse,
  And hoarse and hoarser grows the weary muse.
  Alone remains, to tell of the event,
  Abandoned, lost and variously rent,
  The Bonynge nethermost habiliment.

A SONG IN PRAISE

  Hail, blessed Blunder! golden idol, hail!—
  Clay-footed deity of all who fail.
  Celestial image, let thy glory shine,
  Thy feet concealing, but a lamp to mine.
  Let me, at seasons opportune and fit,
  By turns adore thee and by turns commit.
  In thy high service let me ever be
  (Yet never serve thee as my critics me)
  Happy and fallible, content to feel
  I blunder chiefly when to thee I kneel.
  But best felicity is his thy praise
  Who utters unaware in works and ways—
  Who laborare est orare proves,
  And feels thy suasion wheresoe'er he moves,
  Serving thy purpose, not thine altar, still,
  And working, for he thinks it his, thy will.
  If such a life with blessings be not fraught,
  I envy Peter Robertson for naught.

A POET'S FATHER

  Welcker, I'm told, can boast a father great
  And honored in the service of the State.
  Public Instruction all his mind employs—
  He guides its methods and its wage enjoys.
  Prime Pedagogue, imperious and grand,
  He waves his ferule o'er a studious land
  Where humming youth, intent upon the page,
  Thirsting for knowledge with a noble rage,
  Drink dry the whole Pierian spring and ask
  To slake their fervor at his private flask.
  Arrested by the terror of his frown,
  The vaulting spit-ball drops untimely down;
  The fly impaled on the tormenting pin
  Stills in his awful glance its dizzy din;
  Beneath that stern regard the chewing-gum
  Which writhed and squeaked between the teeth is dumb;
  Obedient to his will the dunce-cap flies
  To perch upon the brows of the unwise;
  The supple switch forsakes the parent wood
  To settle where 'twill do the greatest good,
  Puissant still, as when of old it strove
  With Solomon for spitting on the stove
  Learned Professor, variously great,
  Guide, guardian, instructor of the State—
  Quick to discern and zealous to correct
  The faults which mar the public intellect
  From where of Siskiyou the northern bound
  Is frozen eternal to the sunless ground
  To where in San Diego's torrid clime
  The swarthy Greaser swelters in his grime—
  Beneath your stupid nose can you not see
  The dunce whom once you dandled on your knee?
  O mighty master of a thousand schools,
  Stop teaching wisdom, or stop breeding fools.

A COWARD

  When Pickering, distressed by an "attack,"
  Has the strange insolence to answer back
  He hides behind a name that is a lie,
  And out of shadow falters his reply.
  God knows him, though—identified alike
  By hardihood to rise and fear to strike,
  And fitly to rebuke his sins decrees,
  That, hide from others with what care he please,
  Night sha'n't be black enough nor earth so wide
  That from himself himself can ever hide!
  Hard fate indeed to feel at every breath
  His burden of identity till death!—
  No moment's respite from the immortal load,
  To think himself a serpent or a toad,
  Or dream, with a divine, ecstatic glow,
  He's long been dead and canonized a crow!

TO MY LIARS

  Attend, mine enemies of all degrees,
  From sandlot orators and sandlot fleas
  To fallen gentlemen and rising louts
  Who babble slander at your drinking bouts,
  And, filled with unfamiliar wine, begin
  Lies drowned, ere born, in more congenial gin.
  But most attend, ye persons of the press
  Who live (though why, yourselves alone can guess)
  In hope deferred, ambitious still to shine
  By hating me at half a cent a line—
  Like drones among the bees of brighter wing,
  Sunless to shine and impotent to sting.
  To estimate in easy verse I'll try
  The controversial value of a lie.
  So lend your ears—God knows you have enough!—
  I mean to teach, and if I can't I'll cuff.

  A lie is wicked, so the priests declare;
  But that to us is neither here nor there.
  'Tis worse than wicked, it is vulgar too;
  N'importe—with that we've nothing here to do.
  If 'twere artistic I would lie till death,
  And shape a falsehood with my latest breath.
  Parrhasius never more did pity lack,
  The while his model writhed upon the rack,
  Than I for my collaborator's pain,
  Who, stabbed with fibs again and yet again,
  Would vainly seek to move my stubborn heart
  If slander were, and wit were not, an art.
  The ill-bred and illiterate can lie
  As fast as you, and faster far than I.
  Shall I compete, then, in a strife accurst
  Where Allen Forman is an easy first,
  And where the second prize is rightly flung
  To Charley Shortridge or to Mike de Young?

  In mental combat but a single end
  Inspires the formidable to contend.
  Not by the raw recruit's ambition fired,
  By whom foul blows, though harmless, are admired;
  Not by the coward's zeal, who, on his knee
  Behind the bole of his protecting tree,
  So curves his musket that the bark it fits,
  And, firing, blows the weapon into bits;
  But with the noble aim of one whose heart
  Values his foeman for he loves his art
  The veteran debater moves afield,
  Untaught to libel as untaught to yield.
  Dear foeman mine, I've but this end in view—
  That to prevent which most you wish to do.
  What, then, are you most eager to be at?
  To hate me? Nay, I'll help you, sir, at that.
  This only passion does your soul inspire:
  You wish to scorn me. Well, you shall admire.

  'Tis not enough my neighbors that you school
  In the belief that I'm a rogue or fool;
  That small advantage you would gladly trade
  For what one moment would yourself persuade.
  Write, then, your largest and your longest lie:
  You sha'n't believe it, howsoe'er you try.
  No falsehood you can tell, no evil do,
  Shall turn me from the truth to injure you.
  So all your war is barren of effect;
  I find my victory in your respect.
  What profit have you if the world you set
  Against me? For the world will soon forget
  It thought me this or that; but I'll retain
  A vivid picture of your moral stain,
  And cherish till my memory expire
  The sweet, soft consciousness that you're a liar
  Is it your triumph, then, to prove that you
  Will do the thing that I would scorn to do?
  God grant that I forever be exempt
  From such advantage as my foe's contempt.

  "PHIL" CRIMMINS

  Still as he climbed into the public view
  His charms of person more apparent grew,
  Till the pleased world that watched his airy grace
  Saw nothing of him but his nether face—
  Forgot his follies with his head's retreat,
  And blessed his virtues as it viewed their seat.

CODEX HONORIS

  Jacob Jacobs, of Oakland, he swore:
  "Dat Solomon Martin—I'll haf his gore!"
  Solomon Martin, of Oakland, he said:
  "Of Shacob Shacobs der bleed I vill shed!"
  So they met, with seconds and surgeon at call,
  And fought with pistol and powder and—all
  Was done in good faith,—as before I said,
  They fought with pistol and powder and—shed
  Tears, O my friends, for each other they marred
  Fighting with pistol and powder and—lard!
  For the lead had been stolen away, every trace,
  And Christian hog-product supplied its place.
  Then the shade of Moses indignant arose:
  "Quvicker dan lighdnings go vosh yer glose!"
  Jacob Jacobs, of Oakland, they say,
  Applied for a pension the following day.
  Solomon Martin, of Oakland, I hear,
  Will call himself Colonel for many a year.

TO W.H.L.B.

  Refrain, dull orator, from speaking out,
  For silence deepens when you raise the shout;
  But when you hold your tongue we hear, at least,
  Your noise in mastering that little beast.

EMANCIPATION

  Behold! the days of miracle at last
  Return—if ever they were truly past:
  From sinful creditors' unholy greed
  The church called Calvary at last is freed—
  So called for there the Savior's crucified,
  Roberts and Carmany on either side.

  The circling contribution-box no more
  Provokes the nod and simulated snore;
  No more the Lottery, no more the Fair,
  Lure the reluctant dollar from its lair,
  Nor Ladies' Lunches at a bit a bite
  Destroy the health yet spare the appetite,
  While thrifty sisters o'er the cauldron stoop
  To serve their God with zeal, their friends with soup,
  And all the brethren mendicate the earth
  With viewless placards: "We've been so from birth!"

  Sure of his wage, the pastor now can lend
  His whole attention to his latter end,
  Remarking with a martyr's prescient thrill
  The Hemp maturing on the cheerless Hill.
  The holy brethren, lifting pious palms,
  Pour out their gratitude in prayer and psalms,
  Chant De Profundis, meaning "out of debt,"
  And dance like mad—or would if they were let.

  Deeply disguised (a deacon newly dead
  Supplied the means) Jack Satan holds his head
  As high as any and as loudly sings
  His jubilate till each rafter rings.
  "Rejoice, ye ever faithful," bellows he,
  "The debt is lifted and the temple free!"
  Then says, aside, with gentle cachination:
  "I've got a mortgage on the congregation."

JOHNDONKEY

      [There isn't a man living who does not have at least a
      sneaking reverence for a horse-shoe.—Evening Post.]

  Thus the poor ass whose appetite has ne'er
  Known than the thistle any sweeter fare
  Thinks all the world eats thistles. Thus the clown,
  The wit and Mentor of the country town,
  Grins through the collar of a horse and thinks
  Others for pleasure do as he for drinks,
  Though secretly, because unwilling still
  In public to attest their lack of skill.
  Each dunce whose life and mind all follies mar
  Believes as he is all men living are—
  His vices theirs, their understandings his;
  Naught that he knows not, all he fancies, is.
  How odd that any mind such stuff should boast!
  How natural to write it in the Post!

HELL

  The friends who stood about my bed
  Looked down upon my face and said:
  "God's will be done—the fellow's dead."

  When from my body I was free
  I straightway felt myself, ah me!
  Sink downward to the life to be.

  Full twenty centuries I fell,
  And then alighted. "Here you dwell
  For aye," a Voice cried—"this is Hell!"

  A landscape lay about my feet,
  Where trees were green and flowers sweet.
  The climate was devoid of heat.

  The sun looked down with gentle beam
  Upon the bosom of the stream,
  Nor saw I any sign of steam.

  The waters by the sky were tinged,
  The hills with light and color fringed.
  Birds warbled on the wing unsinged.

  "Ah, no, this is not Hell," I cried;
  "The preachers ne'er so greatly lied.
  This is Earth's spirit glorified!

  "Good souls do not in Hades dwell,
  And, look, there's John P. Irish!" "Well,"
  The Voice said, "that's what makes it Hell."

BY FALSE PRETENSES

  John S. Hittell, whose sovereign genius wields
  The quill his tributary body yields;
  The author of an opera—that is,
  All but the music and libretto's his:
  A work renowned, whose formidable name,
  Linked with his own, repels the assault of fame
  From the high vantage of a dusty shelf,
  Secure from all the world except himself;—
  Who told the tale of "Culture" in a screed
  That all might understand if some would read;—
  Master of poesy and lord of prose,
  Dowered, like a setter, with a double nose;
  That one for Erato, for Clio this;
  He flushes both—not his fault if we miss;—
  Judge of the painter's art, who'll straight proclaim
  The hue of any color you can name,
  And knows a painting with a canvas back
  Distinguished from a duck by the duck's quack;—
  This thinker and philosopher, whose work
  Is famous from Commercial street to Turk,
  Has got a fortune now, his talent's meed.
  A woman left it him who could not read,
  And so went down to death's eternal night
  Sweetly unconscious that the wretch could write.

LUCIFER OF THE TORCH

  O Reverend Ravlin, once with sounding lung
  You shook the bloody banner of your tongue,
  Urged all the fiery boycotters afield
  And swore you'd rather follow them than yield,
  Alas, how brief the time, how great the change!—
  Your dogs of war are ailing all of mange;
  The loose leash dangles from your finger-tips,
  But the loud "havoc" dies upon your lips.
  No spirit animates your feeble clay—
  You'd rather yield than even run away.
  In vain McGlashan labors to inspire
  Your pallid nostril with his breath of fire:
  The light of battle's faded from your face—
  You keep the peace, John Chinaman his place.
  O Ravlin, what cold water, thrown by whom
  Upon the kindling Boycott's ruddy bloom,
  Has slaked your parching blood-thirst and allayed
  The flash and shimmer of your lingual blade?
  Your salary—your salary's unpaid!

  In the old days, when Christ with scourges drave
  The Ravlins headlong from the Temple's nave,
  Each bore upon his pelt the mark divine—
  The Boycott's red authenticating sign.
  Birth-marked forever in surviving hurts,
  Glowing and smarting underneath their shirts,
  Successive Ravlins have revenged their shame
  By blowing every coal and flinging flame.
  And you, the latest (may you be the last!)
  Endorsed with that hereditary, vast
  And monstrous rubric, would the feud prolong,
  Save that cupidity forbids the wrong.
  In strife you preferably pass your days—
  But brawl no moment longer than it pays.
  By shouting when no more you can incite
  The dogs to put the timid sheep to flight
  To load, for you, the brambles with their fleece,
  You cackle concord to congenial geese,
  Put pinches of goodwill upon their tails
  And pluck them with a touch that never fails.

THE "WHIRLIGIG OF TIME"

  Dr. Jewell speaks of Balaam
  And his vices, to assail 'em.
  Ancient enmities how cruel!—
  Balaam cudgeled once a Jewell.

A RAILROAD LACKEY

  Ben Truman, you're a genius and can write,
    Though one would not suspect it from your looks.
  You lack that certain spareness which is quite
    Distinctive of the persons who make books.
    You show the workmanship of Stanford's cooks
  About the region of the appetite,
  Where geniuses are singularly slight.
  Your friends the Chinamen are understood,
  Indeed, to speak of you as "belly good."

  Still, you can write—spell, too, I understand—
    Though how two such accomplishments can go,
  Like sentimental schoolgirls, hand in hand
    Is more than ever I can hope to know.
    To have one talent good enough to show
  Has always been sufficient to command
  The veneration of the brilliant band
  Of railroad scholars, who themselves, indeed,
  Although they cannot write, can mostly read.

  There's Towne and Fillmore, Goodman and Steve Gage,
    Ned Curtis of Napoleonic face,
  Who used to dash his name on glory's page
    "A.M." appended to denote his place
    Among the learned. Now the last faint trace
  Of Nap. is all obliterate with age,
  And Ned's degree less precious than his wage.
  He says: "I done it," with his every breath.
  "Thou canst not say I did it," says Macbeth.

  Good land! how I run on! I quite forgot
    Whom this was meant to be about; for when
  I think upon that odd, unearthly lot—
    Not quite Creedhaymonds, yet not wholly men—
    I'm dominated by my rebel pen
  That, like the stubborn bird from which 'twas got,
  Goes waddling forward if I will or not.
  To leave your comrades, Ben, I'm now content:
  I'll meet them later if I don't repent.

  You've writ a letter, I observe—nay, more,
    You've published it—to say how good you think
  The coolies, and invite them to come o'er
    In thicker quantity. Perhaps you drink
  No corporation's wine, but love its ink;
  Or when you signed away your soul and swore
  On railrogue battle-fields to shed your gore
  You mentally reserved the right to shed
  The raiment of your character instead.

  You're naked, anyhow: unragged you stand
    In frank and stark simplicity of shame.
  And here upon your flank, in letters grand,
    The iron has marked you with your owner's name.
    Needless, for none would steal and none reclaim.
    But "#eland $tanford" is a pretty brand,
  Wrought by an artist with a cunning hand
  But come—this naked unreserve is flat:
  Don your habiliment—you're fat, you're fat!

THE LEGATEE

  In fair San Francisco a good man did dwell,
  And he wrote out a will, for he didn't feel well,
  Said he: "It is proper, when making a gift,
  To stimulate virtue by comforting thrift."

  So he left all his property, legal and straight,
  To "the cursedest rascal in all of the State."
  But the name he refused to insert, for, said he;
  "Let each man consider himself legatee."

  In due course of time that philanthropist died,
  And all San Francisco, and Oakland beside—
  Save only the lawyers—came each with his claim
  The lawyers preferring to manage the same.

  The cases were tried in Department Thirteen,
  Judge Murphy presided, sedate and serene,
  But couldn't quite specify, legal and straight,
  The cursedest rascal in all of the State.

  And so he remarked to them, little and big—
  To claimants: "You skip!" and to lawyers: "You dig!"
  They tumbled, tumultuous, out of his court
  And left him victorious, holding the fort.

  'Twas then that he said: "It is plain to my mind
  This property's ownerless—how can I find
  The cursedest rascal in all of the State?"
  So he took it himself, which was legal and straight.

  "DIED OF A ROSE"

  A reporter he was, and he wrote, wrote he:
    "The grave was covered as thick as could be
    With floral tributes"—which reading,
  The editor man he said, he did so:
    "For 'floral tributes' he's got for to go,
    For I hold the same misleading."
  Then he called him in and he pointed sweet
  To a blooming garden across the street,
    Inquiring: "What's them a-growing?"
  The reporter chap said: "Why, where's your eyes?
  Them's floral tributes!" "Arise, arise,"
    The editor said, "and be going."

A LITERARY HANGMAN

  Beneath his coat of dirt great Neilson loves
    To hide the avenging rope.
  He handles all he touches without gloves,
    Excepting soap.

AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR

  As through the blue expanse he skims
    On joyous wings, the late
  Frank Hutchings overtakes Miss Sims,
    Both bound for Heaven's high gate.

  In life they loved and (God knows why
    A lover so should sue)
  He slew her, on the gallows high
    Died pious—and they flew.

  Her pinions were bedraggled, soiled
    And torn as by a gale,
  While his were bright—all freshly oiled
    The feathers of his tail.

  Her visage, too, was stained and worn
    And menacing and grim;
  His sweet and mild—you would have sworn
    That she had murdered him.

  When they'd arrived before the gate
    He said to her: "My dear,
  'Tis hard once more to separate,
    But you can't enter here.

  "For you, unluckily, were sent
    So quickly to the grave
  You had no notice to repent,
    Nor time your soul to save."

  "'Tis true," said she, "and I should wail
    In Hell even now, but I
  Have lingered round the county jail
    To see a Christian die."

A CONTROVERSIALIST

  I've sometimes wished that Ingersoll were wise
  To hold his tongue, nor rail against the skies;
    For when he's made a point some pious dunce
  Like Bartlett of the Bulletin "replies."

  I brandish no iconoclastic fist,
  Nor enter the debate an atheist;
    But when they say there is a God I ask
  Why Bartlett, then, is suffered to exist.

  Even infidels that logic might resent,
  Saying: "There's no place for his punishment
    That's worse than earth." But humbly I submit
  That he would make a hell wherever sent.

MENDAX

  High Lord of Liars, Pickering, to thee
  Let meaner mortals bend the subject knee!
  Thine is mendacity's imperial crown,
  Alike by genius, action and renown.
  No man, since words could set a cheek aflame
  E'er lied so greatly with so little shame!
  O bad old man, must thy remaining years
  Be passed in leading idiots by their ears—
  Thine own (which Justice, if she ruled the roast
  Would fasten to the penitential post)
  Still wagging sympathetically—hung
  the same rocking-bar that bears thy tongue?

  Thou dog of darkness, dost thou hope to stay
  Time's dread advance till thou hast had thy day?
  Dost think the Strangler will release his hold
  Because, forsooth, some fibs remain untold?
  No, no—beneath thy multiplying load
  Of years thou canst not tarry on the road
  To dabble in the blood thy leaden feet
  Have pressed from bosoms that have ceased to beat
  Of reputations margining thy way,
  Nor wander from the path new truth to slay.
  Tell to thyself whatever lies thou wilt,
  Catch as thou canst at pennies got by guilt—
  Straight down to death this blessed year thou'lt sink,
  Thy life washed out as with a wave of ink.
  But if this prophecy be not fulfilled,
  And thou who killest patience be not killed;
  If age assail in vain and vice attack
  Only by folly to be beaten back;
  Yet Nature can this consolation give:
  The rogues who die not are condemned to live!

THE RETROSPECTIVE BIRD

  His caw is a cackle, his eye is dim,
  And he mopes all day on the lowest limb;
  Not a word says he, but he snaps his bill
  And twitches his palsied head, as a quill,
  The ultimate plume of his pride and hope,
  Quits his now featherless nose-of-the-Pope,
  Leaving that eminence brown and bare
  Exposed to the Prince of the Power of the Air.
  And he sits and he thinks: "I'm an old, old man,
  Mateless and chickless, the last of my clan,
  But I'd give the half of the days gone by
  To perch once more on the branches high,
  And hear my great-grand-daddy's comical croaks
  In authorized versions of Bulletin jokes."

THE OAKLAND DOG

  I lay one happy night in bed
  And dreamed that all the dogs were dead.
  They'd all been taken out and shot—
  Their bodies strewed each vacant lot.

  O'er all the earth, from Berkeley down
  To San Leandro's ancient town,
  And out in space as far as Niles—
  I saw their mortal parts in piles.

  One stack upreared its ridge so high
  Against the azure of the sky
  That some good soul, with pious views,
  Put up a steeple and sold pews.

  No wagging tail the scene relieved:
  I never in my life conceived
  (I swear it on the Decalogue!)
  Such penury of living dog.

  The barking and the howling stilled,
  The snarling with the snarler killed,
  All nature seemed to hold its breath:
  The silence was as deep as death.

  True, candidates were all in roar
  On every platform, as before;
  And villains, as before, felt free
  To finger the calliope.

  True, the Salvationist by night,
  And milkman in the early light,
  The lonely flutist and the mill
  Performed their functions with a will.

  True, church bells on a Sunday rang
  The sick man's curtain down—the bang
  Of trains, contesting for the track,
  Out of the shadow called him back.

  True, cocks, at all unheavenly hours,
  Crew with excruciating powers,
  Cats on the woodshed rang and roared,
  Fat citizens and fog-horns snored.

  But this was all too fine for ears
  Accustomed, through the awful years,
  To the nocturnal monologues
  And day debates of Oakland dogs.

  And so the world was silent. Now
  What else befell—to whom and how?
  Imprimis, then, there were no fleas,
  And days of worth brought nights of ease.

  Men walked about without the dread
  Of being torn to many a shred,
  Each fragment holding half a cruse
  Of hydrophobia's quickening juice.

  They had not to propitiate
  Some curst kioodle at each gate,
  But entered one another's grounds,
  Unscared, and were not fed to hounds.

  Women could drive and not a pup
  Would lift the horse's tendons up
  And let them go—to interject
  A certain musical effect.

  Even children's ponies went about,
  All grave and sober-paced, without
  A bulldog hanging to each nose—
  Proud of his fragrance, I suppose.

  Dog being dead, Man's lawless flame
  Burned out: he granted Woman's claim,
  Children's and those of country, art—
  all took lodgings in his heart.

  When memories of his former shame
  Crimsoned his cheeks with sudden flame
  He said; "I know my fault too well—
  They fawned upon me and I fell."

  Ah! 'twas a lovely world!—no more
  I met that indisposing bore,
  The unseraphic cynogogue—
  The man who's proud to love a dog.

  Thus in my dream the golden reign
  Of Reason filled the world again,
  And all mankind confessed her sway,
  From Walnut Creek to San Jose.

THE UNFALLEN BRAVE

  Not all in sorrow and in tears,
  To pay of gratitude's arrears
    The yearly sum—
  Not prompted, wholly by the pride
  Of those for whom their friends have died,
    To-day we come.

  Another aim we have in view
  Than for the buried boys in blue
    To drop a tear:
  Memorial Day revives the chin
  Of Barnes, and Salomon chimes in—
    That's why we're here.

  And when in after-ages they
  Shall pass, like mortal men, away,
    Their war-song sung,
  Then fame will tell the tale anew
  Of how intrepidly they drew
    The deadly tongue.

  Then cull white lilies for the graves
  Of Liberty's loquacious braves,
    And roses red.
  Those represent their livers, these
  The blood that in unmeasured seas
    They did not shed.

A CELEBRATED CASE

  Way down in the Boom Belt lived Mrs. Roselle;
  A person named Petrie, he lived there as well;
  But Mr. Roselle he resided away—
  Sing tooral iooral iooral iay.

  Once Mrs. Roselle in her room was alone:
  The flesh of her flesh and the bone of her bone
  Neglected the wife of his bosom to woo—
  Sing tooral iooral iooral ioo.

  Then Petrie, her lover, appeared at the door,
  Remarking: "My dear; I don't love you no more."
  "That's awfully rough," said the lady, "on me—
  Sing tooral iooral iooral iee."

  "Come in, Mr. Petrie," she added, "pray do:
  Although you don't love me no more, I love you.
  Sit down while I spray you with vitriol now—
  Sing tooral iooral iooral iow."

  Said Petrie: "That liquid I know won't agree
  With my beauty, and then you'll no longer love me;
  So spray and be "—O, what a word he did say!—
  Sing tooral iooral iooral iay.

  She deluged his head and continued to pour
  Till his bonny blue eyes, like his love, were no more.
  It was seldom he got such a hearty shampoo—
  Sing tooral iooral iooral ioo.

  Then Petrie he rose and said: "Mrs. Roselle,
  I have an engagement and bid you farewell."
  "You see," she began to explain—but not he!—
  Sing tooral, iooral, iooral iee.

  The Sheriff he came and he offered his arm,
  Saying, "Sorry I am for disturbin' you, marm,
  But business is business." Said she, "So they say—
  Sing tooral, iooral, iooral iay."

  The Judge on the bench he looked awfully stern;
  The District Attorney began to attorn;
  The witnesses lied and the lawyers—O my!—
  Sing tooral, iooral, iooral iyi.

  The chap that defended her said: "It's our claim
  That he loved us no longer and told us the same.
  What else than we did could we decently do?—
  Sing tooral, iooral, iooral ioo."

  The District Attorney, sarcastic, replied:
  "We loved you no longer—that can't be denied.
  Not having no eyes we may dote on you now—
  Sing tooral, iooral, iooral iow."

  The prisoner wept to entoken her fears;
  The sockets of Petrie were flooded with tears.
  O heaven-born Sympathy, bully for you!—
  Sing tooral, iooral, iooral ioo.

  Four jurors considered the prisoner mad,
  And four thought her victim uncommonly bad,
  And four that the acid was all in his eye—
  Sing rum tiddy iddity iddity hi.

COUPLETS

      Intended for Inscription on a Sword Presented to Colonel
      Cutting of the National Guard of California.

  I am for Cutting. I'm a blade
  Designed for use at dress parade.
  My gleaming length, when I display
  Peace rules the land with gentle sway;
  But when the war-dogs bare their teeth
  Go seek me in the modest sheath.
  I am for Cutting. Not for me
  The task of setting nations free.
  Let soulless blades take human life,
  My softer metal shuns the strife.
  The annual review is mine,
  When gorgeous shopmen sweat and shine,
  And Biddy, tip-toe on the pave,
  Adores the cobble-trotting brave.
  I am for Cutting. 'Tis not mine
  To hew amain the hostile line;
  Not mine all pitiless to spread
  The plain with tumuli of dead.
  My grander duty lies afar
  From haunts of the insane hussar,
  Where charging horse and struggling foot
  Are grimed alike with cannon-soot.
  When Loveliness and Valor meet
  Beneath the trees to dance, and eat,
  And sing, and much beside, behold
  My golden glories all unfold!
  There formidably are displayed
  The useful horrors of my blade
  In time of feast and dance and ballad,
  I am for cutting chicken salad.

A RETORT

  As vicious women think all men are knaves,
  And shrew-bound gentlemen discourse of slaves;
  As reeling drunkards judge the world unsteady
  And idlers swear employers ne'er get ready—
  Thieves that the constable stole all they had,
  The mad that all except themselves are mad;
  So, in another's clear escutcheon shown,
  Barnes rails at stains reflected from his own;
  Prates of "docility," nor feels the dark
  Ring round his neck—the Ralston collar mark.
  Back, man, to studies interrupted once,
  Ere yet the rogue had merged into the dunce.
  Back, back to Yale! and, grown with years discreet,
  The course a virgin's lust cut short, complete.
  Go drink again at the Pierian pool,
  And learn—at least to better play the fool.
  No longer scorn the draught, although the font,
  Unlike Pactolus, waters not Belmont.

A VISION OF RESURRECTION

  I had a dream. The habitable earth—
  Its continents and islands, all were bare
  Of cities and of forests. Naught remained
  Of its old aspect, and I only knew
  (As men know things in dreams, unknowing how)
  That this was earth and that all men were dead.
  On every side I saw the barren land,
  Even to the distant sky's inclosing blue,
  Thick-pitted all with graves; and all the graves
  Save one were open—not as newly dug,
  But rather as by some internal force
  Riven for egress. Tombs of stone were split
  And wide agape, and in their iron decay
  The massive mausoleums stood in halves.
  With mildewed linen all the ground was white.
  Discarded shrouds upon memorial stones
  Hung without motion in the soulless air.
  While greatly marveling how this should be
  I heard, or fancied that I heard, a voice,
  Low like an angel's, delicately strong,
  And sweet as music.

                      —"Spirit," it said, "behold
  The burial place of universal Man!
  A million years have rolled away since here
  His sheeted multitudes (save only some
  Whose dark misdeeds required a separate
  And individual arraignment) rose
  To judgment at the trumpet's summoning
  And passed into the sky for their award,
  Leaving behind these perishable things
  Which yet, preserved by miracle, endure
  Till all are up. Then they and all of earth,
  Rock-hearted mountain and storm-breasted sea,
  River and wilderness and sites of dead
  And vanished capitals of men, shall spring
  To flame, and naught shall be for evermore!
  When all are risen that wonder will occur.
  'Twas but ten centuries ago the last
  But one came forth—a soul so black with sin,
  Against whose name so many crimes were set
  That only now his trial is at end.
  But one remains."

  Straight, as the voice was stilled—
  That single rounded mound cracked lengthliwise
  And one came forth in grave-clothes. For a space
  He stood and gazed about him with a smile
  Superior; then laying off his shroud
  Disclosed his two attenuated legs
  Which, like parentheses, bent outwardly
  As by the weight of saintliness above,
  And so sprang upward and was lost to view
  Noting his headstone overthrown, I read:
  "Sacred to memory of George K. Fitch,
  Deacon and Editor—a holy man
  Who fell asleep in Jesus, full of years
  And blessedness. The dead in Christ rise first."

MASTER OF THREE ARTS

  Your various talents, Goldenson, command
    Respect: you are a poet and can draw.
  It is a pity that your gifted hand
    Should ever have been raised against the law.
  If you had drawn no pistol, but a picture,
  You would have saved your throttle from a stricture.

  About your poetry I'm not so sure:
    'Tis certain we have much that's quite as bad,
  Whose hardy writers have not to endure
    The hangman's fondling. It is said they're mad:
  Though lately Mr. Brooks (I mean the poet)
  Looked well, and if demented didn't show it.

  Well, Goldenson, I am a poet, too—
    Taught by the muses how to smite the harp
  And lift the tuneful voice, although, like you
    And Brooks, I sometimes flat and sometimes sharp.
  But let me say, with no desire to taunt you,
  I never murder even the girls I want to.

  I hold it one of the poetic laws
    To sing of life, not take. I've ever shown
  A high regard for human life because
    I have such trouble to support my own.
  And you—well, you'll find trouble soon in blowing
  Your private coal to keep it red and glowing.

  I fancy now I see you at the Gate
    Approach St. Peter, crawling on your belly,
  You cry: "Good sir, take pity on my state—
    Forgive the murderer of Mamie Kelly!"
  And Peter says: "O, that's all right—but, mister,
  You scribbled rhymes. In Hell I'll make you
       blister!"

THERSITES

  So, in the Sunday papers you, Del Mar,
      Damn, all great Englishmen in English speech?
      I am no Englishman, but in my reach
  A rogue shall never rail where heroes are.

  You are the man, if I mistake you not,
      Who lately with a supplicating twitch
      Plucked at the pockets of the London rich
  And paid your share-engraver all you got.

  Because that you have greatly lied, because
      You libel nations, and because no hand
      Of officer is raised to bid you stand,
  And falsehood is unpunished of the laws,

  I stand here in a public place to mark
      With level finger where you part the crowd—
      I stand to name you and to cry aloud:
  "Behold mendacity's great hierarch!"

A SOCIETY LEADER

  "The Social World"! O what a world it is—
    Where full-grown men cut capers in the German,
  Cotillion, waltz, or what you will, and whizz
    And spin and hop and sprawl about like mermen!
    I wonder if our future Grant or Sherman,
  As these youths pass their time, is passing his—
    If eagles ever come from painted eggs,
    Or deeds of arms succeed to deeds of legs.

  I know they tell us about Waterloo:
    How, "foremost fighting," fell the evening's
      dancers.
  I don't believe it: I regard it true
    That soldiers who are skillful in "the Lancers"
    Less often die of cannon than of cancers.
  Moreover, I am half-persuaded, too,
    That David when he danced before the Ark
    Had the reporter's word to keep it dark.

  Ed. Greenway, you fatigue. Your hateful name
    Like maiden's curls, is in the papers daily.
  You think it, doubtless, honorable fame,
    And contemplate the cheap distinction gaily,
    As does the monkey the blue-painted tail he
  Believes becoming to him. 'Tis the same
    With men as other monkeys: all their souls
    Crave eminence on any kind of poles.
  But cynics (barking tribe!) are all agreed
    That monkeys upon poles performing capers
  Are not exalted, they are only "treed."
    A glory that is kindled by the papers
    Is transient as the phosphorescent vapors
  That shine in graveyards and are seen, indeed,
    But while the bodies that supply the gas
    Are turning into weeds to feed an ass.

  One can but wonder sometimes how it feels
    To be an ass—a beast we beat condignly
  Because, like yours, his life is in his heels
    And he is prone to use them unbenignly.
    The ladies (bless them!) say you dance divinely.
  I like St. Vitus better, though, who deals
    His feet about him with a grace more just,
    And hops, not for he will, but for he must.

  Doubtless it gratifies you to observe
    Elbowy girls and adipose mamas
  All looking adoration as you swerve
    This way and that; but prosperous papas
    Laugh in their sleeves at you, and their ha-has,
  If heard, would somewhat agitate your nerve.
    And dames and maids who keep you on their
      shelves
  Don't seem to want a closer tie themselves.

  Gods! what a life you live!—by day a slave
    To your exacting back and urgent belly;
  Intent to earn and vigilant to save—
    By night, attired so sightly and so smelly,
    With countenance as luminous as jelly,
  Bobbing and bowing! King of hearts and knave
    Of diamonds, I'd bet a silver brick
    If brains were trumps you'd never take a trick.

EXPOSITOR VERITATIS

  I Slept, and, waking in the years to be,
    Heard voices, and approaching whence they came,
  Listened indifferently where a key
    Had lately been removed. An ancient dame
  Said to her daughter: "Go to yonder caddy
  And get some emery to scour your daddy."

  And then I knew—some intuition said—
    That tombs were not and men had cleared their shelves
  Of urns; and the electro-plated dead
    Stood pedestaled as statues of themselves.
  With famous dead men all the public places
  Were thronged, and some in piles awaited bases.

  One mighty structure's high fagade alone
  Contained a single monumental niche,
  Where, central in that steep expanse of stone,
  Gleamed the familiar form of Thomas Fitch.
  A man cried: "Lo! Truth's temple and its founder!"
  Then gravely added: "I'm her chief expounder."

TO "COLONEL" DAN. BURNS

  They say, my lord, that you're a Warwick. Well,
    The title's an absurd one, I believe:
  You make no kings, you have no kings to sell,
    Though really 'twere easy to conceive
    You stuffing half-a-dozen up your sleeve.
  No, you're no Warwick, skillful from the shell
  To hatch out sovereigns. On a mare's nest, maybe,
  You'd incubate a little jackass baby.

  I fancy, too, that it is naught but stuff,
    This "power" that you're said to be "behind
  The throne." I'm sure 'twere accurate enough
    To represent you simply as inclined
    To push poor Markham (ailing in his mind
  And body, which were never very tough)
  Round in an invalid's wheeled chair. Such menial
  Employment to low natures is congenial.

  No, Dan, you're an impostor every way:
    A human bubble, for "the earth," you know,
  "Hath bubbles, as the water hath." Some day
    Some careless hand will prick your film, and O,
    How utterly you'll vanish! Daniel, throw
  (As fallen Woolsey might to Cromwell say)
  Your curst ambition to the pigs—though truly
  'Twould make them greater pigs, and more unruly.

GEORGE A. KNIGHT

  Attorney Knight, it happens so sometimes
  That lawyers, justifying cut-throats' crimes
  For hire—calumniating, too, for gold,
  The dead, dumb victims cruelly unsouled—
  Speak, through the press, to a tribunal far
  More honorable than their Honors are,—
  A court that sits not with assenting smile
  While living rogues dead gentleman revile,—
  A court where scoundrel ethics of your trade
  Confuse no judgment and no cheating aid,—
  The Court of Honest Souls, where you in vain
  May plead your right to falsify for gain,
  Sternly reminded if a man engage
  To serve assassins for the liar's wage,
  His mouth with vilifying falsehoods crammed,
  He's twice detestable and doubly damned!

  Attorney Knight, defending Powell, you,
  To earn your fee, so energetic grew
  (So like a hound, the pride of all the pack,
  Clapping your nose upon the dead man's track
  To run his faults to earth—at least proclaim
  At vacant holes the overtaken game)
  That men who marked you nourishing the tongue,
  And saw your arms so vigorously swung,
  All marveled how so light a breeze could stir
  So great a windmill to so great a whirr!
  Little they knew, or surely they had grinned,
  The mill was laboring to raise the wind.

  Ralph Smith a "shoulder-striker"! God, O hear
  This hardy man's description of thy dear
  Dead child, the gentlest soul, save only One,
  E'er born in any land beneath the sun.
  All silent benefactions still he wrought:
  High deed and gracious speech and noble thought,
  Kept all thy law, and, seeking still the right,
  Upon his blameless breast received the light.

  "Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints," he cried
  Whose wrath was deep as his comparison wide—
  Milton, thy servant. Nay, thy will be done:
  To smite or spare—to me it all is one.
  Can vengeance bring my sorrow to an end,
  Or justice give me back my buried friend?
  But if some Milton vainly now implore,
  And Powell prosper as he did before,
  Yet 'twere too much that, making no ado,
  Thy saints be slaughtered and be slandered too.
  So, Lord, make Knight his weapon keep in sheath,
  Or do Thou wrest it from between his teeth!

UNARMED

  Saint Peter sat at the jasper gate,
  When Stephen M. White arrived in state.

  "Admit me." "With pleasure," Peter said,
  Pleased to observe that the man was dead;

  "That's what I'm here for. Kindly show
  Your ticket, my lord, and in you go."

  White stared in blank surprise. Said he
  "I run this place—just turn that key."

  "Yes?" said the Saint; and Stephen heard
  With pain the inflection of that word.

  But, mastering his emotion, he
  Remarked: "My friend, you're too d—— free;

  "I'm Stephen M., by thunder, White!"
  And, "Yes?" the guardian said, with quite

  The self-same irritating stress
  Distinguishing his former yes.

  And still demurely as a mouse
  He twirled the key to that Upper House.

  Then Stephen, seeing his bluster vain
  Admittance to those halls to gain,

  Said, neighborly: "Pray tell me. Pete,
  Does any one contest my seat?"

  The Saint replied: "Nay, nay, not so;
  But you voted always wrong below:

  "Whate'er the question, clear and high
  You're voice rang: 'I,' 'I,' ever 'I.'"

  Now indignation fired the heart
  Of that insulted immortal part.

  "Die, wretch!" he cried, with blanching lip,
  And made a motion to his hip,

  With purpose murderous and hearty,
  To draw the Democratic party!

  He felt his fingers vainly slide
  Upon his unappareled hide

  (The dead arise from their "silent tents"
  But not their late habiliments)

  Then wailed—the briefest of his speeches:
  "I've left it in my other breeches!"

A POLITICAL VIOLET

  Come, Stanford, let us sit at ease
    And talk as old friends do.
  You talk of anything you please,
    And I will talk of you.

  You recently have said, I hear,
    That you would like to go
  To serve as Senator. That's queer!
    Have you told William Stow?

  Once when the Legislature said:
    "Go, Stanford, and be great!"
  You lifted up your Jovian head
    And everlooked the State.

  As one made leisurely awake,
    You lightly rubbed your eyes
  And answered: "Thank you—please to make
    A note of my surprise.

  "But who are they who skulk aside,
    As to get out of reach,
  And in their clothing strive to hide
    Three thousand dollars each?

  "Not members of your body, sure?
    No, that can hardly be:
  All statesmen, I suppose, are pure.
    What! there are rogues? Dear me!"

  You added, you'll recall, that though
    You were surprised and pained,
  You thought, upon the whole, you'd go,
    And in that mind remained.

  Now, what so great a change has wrought
    That you so frankly speak
  Of "seeking" honors once unsought
    Because you "scorned to seek"?

  Do you not fear the grave reproof
    In good Creed Haymond's eye?
  Will Stephen Gage not stand aloof
    And pass you coldly by?

  O, fear you not that Vrooman's lich
    Will rise from earth and point
  At you a scornful finger which
    May lack, perchance, a joint?

  Go, Stanford, where the violets grow,
    And join their modest train.
  Await the work of William Stow
    And be surprised again.

THE SUBDUED EDITOR

  Pope-choker Pixley sat in his den
      A-chewin' upon his quid.
  He thought it was Leo Thirteen, and then
      He bit it intenser, he did.

  The amber which overflew from the cud
      Like rivers which burst out of bounds—
  'Twas peculiar grateful to think it blood
      A-gushin' from Papal wounds.

  A knockin' was heard uponto the door
      Where some one a-waitin' was.
  "Come in," said the shedder of priestly gore,
      Arrestin' to once his jaws.

  The person which entered was curly of hair
      And smilin' as ever you see;
  His eyes was blue, and uncommon fair
      Was his physiognomee.

  And yet there was some'at remarkable grand—
      And the editor says as he looks:
  "Your Height" (it was Highness, you understand,
      That he meant, but he spoke like books)—

  "Your Height, I am in. I'm the editor man
      Of this paper—which is to say,
  I'm the owner, too, and it's alway ran
      In the independentest way!

  "Not a damgaloot can interfere,
      A-shapin' my course for me:
  This paper's (and nothing can make it veer)
      Pixleian in policee!"

  "It's little to me," said the sunny youth,
      "If journals is better or worse
  Where I am to home they won't keep, in truth,
      The climate is that perverse.

  "I've come, howsomever, your mind to light
      With a more superior fire:
  You'll have naught hencefor'ard to do but write,
      While I sets by and inspire.

  "We'll make it hot all round, bedad!"
      And his laughture was loud and free.
  "The devil!" cried Pixley, surpassin' mad.
      "Exactly, my friend—that's me."

  So he took a chair and a feather fan,
      And he sets and sets and sets,
  Inspirin' that humbled editor man,
      Which sweats and sweats and sweats!

  All unavailin' his struggles be,
      And it's, O, a weepin' sight
  To see a great editor bold and free
      Reducted to sech a plight!

  "BLACK BART, Po8"

  Welcome, good friend; as you have served your term,
    And found the joy of crime to be a fiction,
  I hope you'll hold your present faith, stand firm
    And not again be open to conviction.

  Your sins, though scarlet once, are now as wool:
    You've made atonement for all past offenses,
  And conjugated—'twas an awful pull!—
    The verb "to pay" in all its moods and tenses.

  You were a dreadful criminal—by Heaven,
    I think there never was a man so sinful!
  We've all a pinch or two of Satan's leaven,
    But you appeared to have an even skinful.

  Earth shuddered with aversion at your name;
    Rivers fled backward, gravitation scorning;
  The sea and sky, from thinking on your shame,
    Grew lobster-red at eve and in the morning.

  But still red-handed at your horrid trade
    You wrought, to reason deaf, and to compassion.
  But now with gods and men your peace is made
    I beg you to be good and in the fashion.

  What's that?—you "ne'er again will rob a stage"?
    What! did you do so? Faith, I didn't know it.
  Was that what threw poor Themis in a rage?
    I thought you were convicted as a poet!

  I own it was a comfort to my soul,
    And soothed it better than the deepest curses,
  To think they'd got one poet in a hole
    Where, though he wrote, he could not print, his verses.

  I thought that Welcker, Plunkett, Brooks, and all
    The ghastly crew who always are begriming
  With villain couplets every page and wall,
    Might be arrested and "run in" for rhyming.

  And then Parnassus would be left to me,
    And Pegasus should bear me up it gaily,
  Nor down a steep place run into the sea,
    As now he must be tempted to do daily.

  Well, grab the lyre-strings, hearties, and begin:
    Bawl your harsh souls all out upon the gravel.
  I must endure you, for you'll never sin
    By robbing coaches, until dead men travel.

A "SCION OF NOBILITY"

  Come, sisters, weep!—our Baron dear,
    Alas! has run away.
  If always we had kept him here
    He had not gone astray.

  Painter and grainer it were vain
    To say he was, before;
  And if he were, yet ne'er again
    He'll darken here a door.

  We mourn each matrimonial plan—
    Even tradesmen join the cry:
  He was so promising a man
    Whenever he did buy.

  He was a fascinating lad,
    Deny it all who may;
  Even moneyed men confess he had
    A very taking way.

  So from our tables he is gone—
    Our tears descend in showers;
  We loved the very fat upon.
    His kidneys, for 'twas ours.

  To women he was all respect
    To duns as cold as ice;
  No lady could his suit reject,
    No tailor get its price.

  He raised our hope above the sky;
    Alas! alack! and O!
  That one who worked it up so high
    Should play it down so low!

THE NIGHT OF ELECTION

  "O venerable patriot, I pray
  Stand not here coatless; at the break of day
    We'll know the grand result—and even now
  The eastern sky is faintly touched with gray.

  "It ill befits thine age's hoary crown—
  This rude environment of rogue and clown,
    Who, as the lying bulletins appear,
  With drunken cries incarnadine the town.

  "But if with noble zeal you stay to note
  The outcome of your patriotic vote
    For Blaine, or Cleveland, and your native land,
  Take—and God bless you!—take my overcoat."

  "Done, pard—and mighty white of you. And now
    guess the country'll keep the trail somehow.
    I aint allowed to vote, the Warden said,
  But whacked my coat up on old Stanislow."

THE CONVICTS' BALL

  San Quentin was brilliant. Within the halls
  Of the noble pile with the frowning walls
  (God knows they've enough to make them frown,
  With a Governor trying to break them down!)
  Was a blaze of light. 'Twas the natal day
  Of his nibs the popular John S. Gray,
  And many observers considered his birth
  The primary cause of his moral worth.
  "The ball is free!" cried Black Bart, and they all
  Said a ball with no chain was a novel ball;
  "And I never have seed," said Jimmy Hope,
  "Sech a lightsome dance withouten a rope."
  Chinamen, Indians, Portuguese, Blacks,
  Russians, Italians, Kanucks and Kanaks,
  Chilenos, Peruvians, Mexicans—all
  Greased with their presence that notable ball.
  None were excluded excepting, perhaps,
  The Rev. Morrison's churchly chaps,
  Whom, to prevent a religious debate,
  The Warden had banished outside of the gate.
  The fiddler, fiddling his hardest the while,
  "Called off" in the regular foot-hill style:
  "Circle to the left!" and "Forward and back!"
  And "Hellum to port for the stabbard tack!"
  (This great virtuoso, it would appear,
  Was Mate of the Gatherer many a year.)
  "Ally man left!"—to a painful degree
  His French was unlike to the French of Paree,
  As heard from our countrymen lately abroad,
  And his "doe cee doe" was the gem of the fraud.
  But what can you hope from a gentleman barred
  From circles of culture by dogs in the yard?
  'Twas a glorious dance, though, all the same,
  The Jardin Mabille in the days of its fame
  Never saw legs perform such springs—
  The cold-chisel's magic had given them wings.
  They footed it featly, those lades and gents:
  Dull care (said Long Moll) had a helly go-hence!

  'Twas a very aristocratic affair:
  The crjme de la crjme and ilite were there—
  Rank, beauty and wealth from the highest sets,
  And Hubert Howe Bancroft sent his regrets.

A PRAYER

  Sweet Spirit of Cesspool, hear a mother's prayer:
  Her terrors pacify and offspring spare!
  Upon Silurians alone let fall
  (And God in Heaven have mercy on them all!)
  The red revenges of your fragrant breath,
  Hot with the flames invisible of death.
  Sing in each nose a melody of smells,
  And lead them snoutwise to their several hells!

TO ONE DETESTED

  Sir, you're a veteran, revealed
    In history and fable
  As warrior since you took the field,
      Defeating Abel.

  As Commissary later (or
    If not, in every cottage
  The tale is) you contracted for
      A mess of pottage.

  In civil life you were, we read
    (And our respect increases)
  A man of peace—a man, indeed,
      Of thirty pieces.

  To paying taxes when you turned
    Your mind, or what you call so,
  A wide celebrity you earned—
      Saphira also.

  In every age, by various names,
    You've won renown in story,
  But on your present record flames
      A greater glory.

  Cain, Esau, and Iscariot, too,
    And Ananias, likewise,
  Each had peculiar powers, but who
      Could lie as Mike lies?

THE BOSS'S CHOICE

  Listen to his wild romances:
  He advances foolish fancies,
  Each expounded as his "view"—
                    Gu.

  In his brain's opacous clot, ah
  He has got a maggot! What a
  Man with "views" to overwhelm us!—
             Gulielmus.

  Hear his demagogic clamor—
  Hear him stammer in his grammar!
  Teaching, he will learn to spell—
        Gulielmus L.

  Slave who paid the price demanded—
  With two-handed iron branded
  By the boss—pray cease to dose us,
  Gulielmus L. Jocosus.

A MERCIFUL GOVERNOR

  Standing within the triple wall of Hell,
    And flattening his nose against a grate
  Behind whose brazen bars he'd had to dwell
    A thousand million ages to that date,
    Stoneman bewailed his melancholy fate,
  And his big tear-drops, boiling as they fell,
  Had worn between his feet, the record mentions,
  A deep depression in the "good intentions."

  Imperfectly by memory taught how—
    For prayer in Hell is a lost art—he prayed,
  Uplifting his incinerated brow
    And flaming hands in supplication's aid.
  "O grant," he cried, "my torment may be stayed—
  In mercy, some short breathing spell allow!
  If one good deed I did before my ghosting,
  Spare me and give Delmas a double roasting."

  Breathing a holy harmony in Hell,
    Down through the appalling clamors of the place,
  Charming them all to willing concord, fell
    A Voice ineffable and full of grace:
  "Because of all the law-defying race
  One single malefactor of the cell
  Thou didst not free from his incarceration,
  Take thou ten thousand years of condonation."

  Back from their fastenings began to shoot
    The rusted bolts; with dreadful roar, the gate
  Laboriously turned; and, black with soot,
    The extinguished spirit passed that awful strait,
    And as he legged it into space, elate,
  Muttered: "Yes, I remember that galoot—
  I'd signed his pardon, ready to allot it,
  But stuck it in my desk and quite forgot it."

AN INTERPRETATION

  Now Lonergan appears upon the boards,
  And Truth and Error sheathe their lingual swords.
  No more in wordy warfare to engage,
  The commentators bow before the stage,
  And bookworms, militant for ages past,
  Confess their equal foolishness at last,
  Reread their Shakspeare in the newer light
  And swear the meaning's obvious to sight.
  For centuries the question has been hot:
  Was Hamlet crazy, or was Hamlet not?
  Now, Lonergan's illuminating art
  Reveals the truth of the disputed "part,"
  And shows to all the critics of the earth
  That Hamlet was an idiot from birth!

A SOARING TOAD

  So, Governor, you would not serve again
    Although we'd all agree to pay you double.
  You find it all is vanity and pain—
    One clump of clover in a field of stubble—
    One grain of pleasure in a peck of trouble.
  'Tis sad, at your age, having to complain
  Of disillusion; but the fault is whose
  When pigmies stumble, wearing giants' shoes?

  I humbly told you many moons ago
    For high preferment you were all unfit.
  A clumsy bear makes but a sorry show
    Climbing a pole. Let him, judicious, sit
    With dignity at bottom of his pit,
  And none his awkwardness will ever know.
  Some beasts look better, and feel better, too,
  Seen from above; and so, I think, would you.

  Why, you were mad! Did you suppose because
    Our foolish system suffers foolish men
  To climb to power, make, enforce the laws,
    And, it is whispered, break them now and then,
    We love the fellows and respect them when
  We've stilled the volume of our loud hurrahs?
  When folly blooms we trample it the more
  For having fertilized it heretofore.

  Behold yon laborer! His garb is mean,
    His face is grimy, but who thinks to ask
  The measure of his brains? 'Tis only seen
    He's fitted for his honorable task,
    And so delights the mind. But let him bask
  In droll prosperity, absurdly clean—
  Is that the man whom we admired before?
  Good Lord, how ignorant, and what a bore!

  Better for you that thoughtless men had said
    (Noting your fitness in the humbler sphere):
  "Why don't they make him Governor?" instead
    Of, "Why the devil did they?" But I fear
    My words on your inhospitable ear
  Are wasted like a sermon to the dead.
  Still, they may profit you if studied well:
  You can't be taught to think, but may to spell.

AN UNDRESS UNIFORM

  The apparel does not proclaim the man—
  Polonius lied like a partisan,
  And Salomon still would a hero seem
  If (Heaven dispel the impossible dream!)
  He stood in a shroud on the hangman's trap,
  His eye burning holes in the black, black cap.
  And the crowd below would exclaim amain:
  "He's ready to fall for his country again!"

THE PERVERTED VILLAGE

  AFTER GOLDSMITH

  Sweet Auburn! liveliest village of the plain,
  Where Health and Slander welcome every train,
  Whence smiling innocence, its tribute paid,
  Retires in terror, wounded and dismayed—
  Dear lovely bowers of gossip and disease,
  Whose climate cures us that thy dames may tease,
  How often have I knelt upon thy green
  And prayed for death, to mitigate their spleen!
  How often have I paused on every charm
  With mingled admiration and alarm—
  The brook that runs by many a scandal-mill,
  The church whose pastor groans upon the grill,
  The cowthorn bush with seats beneath the shade,
  Where hearts are struck and reputations flayed;
  How often wished thine idle wives, some day,
  Might more at whist, less at the devil, play.

  Unblest retirement! ere my life's decline
  (Killed by detraction) may I witness thine.
  How happy she who, shunning shades like these,
  Finds in a wolf-den greater peace and ease;
  Who quits the place whence truth did earlier fly,
  And rather than come back prefers to die!
  For her no jealous maids renounce their sleep,
  Contriving malices to make her weep;
  No iron-faced dames her character debate
  And spurn imploring mercy from the gate;
  But down she lies to a more peaceful end,
  For wolves do not calumniate, but rend—
  Sinks piecemeal to their maws, a willing prey,
  While resignation lubricates the way,
  And all her prospects brighten at the last:
  To wolves, not women, an approved repast.

  1884.

MR. SHEETS

  The Devil stood before the gate
  Of Heaven. He had a single mate:
  Behind him, in his shadow, slunk
  Clay Sheets in a perspiring funk.
  "Saint Peter, see this season ticket,"
  Said Satan; "pray undo the wicket."
  The sleepy Saint threw slight regard
  Upon the proffered bit of card,
  Signed by some clerical dead-beats:
  "Admit the bearer and Clay Sheets."
  Peter expanded all his eyes:
  "'Clay Sheets?'—well, I'll be damned!" he cries.
  "Our couches are of golden cloud;
  Nothing of earth is here allowed.
  I'll let you in," he added, shedding
  On Nick a smile—"but not your bedding."

A JACK-AT-ALL-VIEWS

  So, Estee, you are still alive! I thought
    That you had died and were a blessed ghost
  I know at least your coffin once was bought
    With Railroad money; and 'twas said by most
    Historians that Stanford made a boast
  The seller "threw you in." That goes for naught—
  Man takes delight in fancy's fine inventions,
  And woman too, 'tis said, if they are French ones.

  Do you remember, Estee—ah, 'twas long
    And long ago!—how fierce you grew and hot
  When anything impeded the straight, strong,
    Wild sweep of the great billow you had got
    Atop of, like a swimmer bold? Great Scott!
  How fine your wavemanship! How loud your song
  Of "Down with railroads!" When the wave subsided
  And left you stranded you were much divided.

  Then for a time you were content to wade
    The waters of the "robber barons'" moat.
  To fetch, and carry was your humble trade,
    And ferry Stanford over in a boat,
    Well paid if he bestowed the kindly groat
  And spoke you fair and called you pretty maid.
  And when his stomach seemed a bit unsteady
  You got your serviceable basin ready.

  Strange man! how odd to see you, smug and spruce,
    There at Chicago, burrowed in a Chair,
  Not made to measure and a deal too loose,
    And see you lift your little arm and swear
    Democracy shall be no more! If it's a fair
  And civil question, and not too abstruse,
  Were you elected as a "robber baron,"
  Or as a Communist whose teeth had hair on?

MY LORD POET

  "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat;"
    Who sings for nobles, he should noble be.
  There's no non sequitur, I think, in that,
    And this is logic plain as a, b, c.
  Now, Hector Stuart, you're a Scottish prince,
    If right you fathom your descent—that fall
  From grace; and since you have no peers, and since
    You have no kind of nobleness at all,
  'Twere better to sing little, lest you wince
    When made by heartless critics to sing small.
  And yet, my liege, I bid you not despair—
    Ambition conquers but a realm at once:
  For European bays arrange your hair—
    Two continents, in time, shall crown you Dunce!

TO THE FOOL-KILLER

  Ah, welcome, welcome! Sit you down, old friend;
  Your pipe I'll serve, your bottle I'll attend.
  'Tis many a year since you and I have known
  Society more pleasant than our own
  In our brief respites from excessive work—
  I pointing out the hearts for you to dirk.
  What have you done since lately at this board
  We canvassed the deserts of all the horde
  And chose what names would please the people best,
  Engraved on coffin-plates—what bounding breast
  Would give more satisfaction if at rest?
  But never mind—the record cannot fail:
  The loftiest monuments will tell the tale.

  I trust ere next we meet you'll slay the chap
  Who calls old Tyler "Judge" and Merry "Cap"—
  Calls John P. Irish "Colonel" and John P.,
  Whose surname Jack-son speaks his pedigree,
  By the same title—men of equal rank
  Though one is belly all, and one all shank,
  Showing their several service in the fray:
  One fought for food and one to get away.
  I hope, I say, you'll kill the "title" man
  Who saddles one on every back he can,
  Then rides it from Bekrsheba to Dan!
  Another fool, I trust, you will perform
  Your office on while my resentment's warm:
  He shakes my hand a dozen times a day
  If, luckless, I so often cross his way,
  Though I've three senses besides that of touch,
  To make me conscious of a fool too much.
  Seek him, friend Killer, and your purpose make
  Apparent as his guilty hand you take,
  And set him trembling with a solemn: "Shake!"

  But chief of all the addle-witted crew
  Conceded by the Hangman's League to you,
  The fool (his dam's acquainted with a knave)
  Whose fluent pen, of his no-brain the slave,
  Strews notes of introduction o'er the land
  And calls it hospitality—his hand
  May palsy seize ere he again consign
  To me his friend, as I to Hades mine!
  Pity the wretch, his faults howe'er you see,
  Whom A accredits to his victim, B.
  Like shuttlecock which battledores attack
  (One speeds it forward, one would drive it back)
  The trustful simpleton is twice unblest—
  A rare good riddance, an unwelcome guest.
  The glad consignor rubs his hands to think
  How duty is commuted into ink;
  The consignee (his hands he cannot rub—
  He has the man upon them) mutters: "Cub!"
  And straightway plans to lose him at the Club.
  You know, good Killer, where this dunce abides—
  The secret jungle where he writes and hides—
  Though no exploring foot has e'er upstirred
  His human elephant's exhaustless herd.
  Go, bring his blood! We'll drink it—letting fall
  A due libation to the gods of Gall.
  On second thought, the gods may have it all.

ONE AND ONE ARE TWO

  The trumpet sounded and the dead
    Came forth from earth and ocean,
  And Pickering arose and sped
    Aloft with wobbling motion.

  "What makes him fly lop-sided?" cried
    A soul of the elected.
  "One ear was wax," a rogue replied,
    "And isn't resurrected."

  Below him on the pitted plain,
    By his abandoned hollow,
  His hair and teeth tried all in vain
    The rest of him to follow.

  Saint Peter, seeing him ascend,
    Came forward to the wicket,
  And said: "My mutilated friend,
    I'll thank you for your ticket."

  "The Call," said Pickering, his hand
    To reach the latch extended.
  Said Peter, affable and bland:
    "The free-list is suspended—

  "What claim have you that's valid here?"
    That ancient vilifier
  Reflected; then, with look austere,
    Replied: "I am a liar."

  Said Peter: "That is simple, neat
    And candid Anglo-Saxon,
  But—well, come in, and take a seat
    Up there by Colonel Jackson."

MONTAGUE LEVERSON

  As some enormous violet that towers
  Colossal o'er the heads of lowlier flowers—
  Its giant petals royally displayed,
  And casting half the landscape into shade;
  Delivering its odors, like the blows
  Of some strong slugger, at the public nose;
  Pride of two Nations—for a single State
  Would scarce suffice to sprout a plant so great;
  So Leverson's humility, outgrown
  The meaner virtues that he deigns to own,
  To the high skies its great corolla rears,
  O'ertopping all he has except his ears.

THE WOFUL TALE OF MR. PETERS

  I should like, good friends, to mention the disaster which befell
  Mr. William Perry Peters, of the town of Muscatel,
  Whose fate is full of meaning, if correctly understood—
  Admonition to the haughty, consolation to the good.

  It happened in the hot snap which we recently incurred,
  When 'twas warm enough to carbonize the feathers of a bird,
  And men exclaimed: "By Hunky!" who were bad enough to swear,
  And pious persons supervised their adjectives with care.

  Mr. Peters was a pedagogue of honor and repute,
  His learning comprehensive, multifarious, minute.
  It was commonly conceded in the section whence he came
  That the man who played against him needed knowledge of the game.

  And some there were who whispered, in the town of Muscatel,
  That besides the game of Draw he knew Orthography as well;
  Though, the school directors, frigidly contemning that as stuff,
  Thought that Draw (and maybe Spelling, if it pleased him) was enough.

  Withal, he was a haughty man—indubitably great,
  But too vain of his attainments and his power in debate.
  His mien was contumelious to men of lesser gift:
  "It's only me," he said, "can give the human mind a lift.

  "Before a proper audience, if ever I've a chance,
  You'll see me chipping in, the cause of Learning to advance.
  Just let me have a decent chance to back my mental hand
  And I'll come to center lightly in a way they'll understand."

  Such was William Perry Peters, and I feel a poignant sense
  Of grief that I'm unable to employ the present tense;
  But Providence disposes, be our scheming what it may,
  And disposed of Mr. Peters in a cold, regardless way.

  It occurred in San Francisco, whither Mr. Peters came
  In the cause of Education, feeling still the holy flame
  Of ambition to assist in lifting up the human mind
  To a higher plane of knowledge than its Architect designed.

  He attended the convention of the pedagogic host;
  He was first in the Pavilion, he was last to leave his post.
  For days and days he narrowly observed the Chairman's eye,
  His efforts ineffectual to catch it on the fly.

  The blessed moment came at last: the Chairman tipped his head.
  "The gentleman from ah—um—er," that functionary said.
  The gentleman from ah—um—er reflected with a grin:
  "They'll know me better by-and-by, when I'm a-chipping in."

  So William Perry Peters mounted cheerfully his feet—
  And straightway was aglow with an incalculable heat!
  His face was as effulgent as a human face could be,
  And caloric emanated from his whole periphery;

  For he felt himself the focus of non-Muscatelish eyes,
  And the pain of their convergence was a terror and surprise.
  As with pitiless impaction all their heat-waves on him broke
  He was seen to be evolving awful quantities of smoke!

  "Put him out!" cried all in chorus; but the meaning wasn't clear
  Of that succoring suggestion to his obfuscated ear;
  And it notably augmented his incinerating glow
  To regard himself excessive, or in any way de trop.

  Gone was all his wild ambition to lift up the human mind!—
  Gone the words he would have uttered!—gone the thought that lay behind!
  For "words that burn" may be consumed in a superior flame,
  And "thoughts that breathe" may breathe their last, and die a death of shame.

  He'd known himself a shining light, but never had he known
  Himself so very luminous as now he knew he shone.
  "A pillar, I, of fire," he'd said, "to guide my race will be;"
  And now that very inconvenient thing to him was he.

  He stood there all irresolute; the seconds went and came;
  The minutes passed and did but add fresh fuel to his flame.
  How long he stood he knew not—'twas a century or more—
  And then that incandescent man levanted for the door!

  He darted like a comet from the building to the street,
  Where Fahrenheit attested ninety-five degrees of heat.
  Vicissitudes of climate make the tenure of the breath
  Precarious, and William Perry Peters froze to death!

TWIN UNWORTHIES

  Ye parasites that to the rich men stick,
  As to the fattest sheep the thrifty tick—
  Ed'ard to Stanford and to Crocker Ben
  (To Ben and Ed'ard many meaner men,
  And lice to these)—who do the kind of work
  That thieves would have the honesty to shirk—
  Whose wages are that your employers own
  The fat that reeks upon your every bone
  And deigns to ask (the flattery how sweet!)
  About its health and how it stands the heat,—
  Hail and farewell! I meant to write about you,
  But, no, my page is cleaner far without you.

ANOTHER PLAN

  Editor Owen, of San Jose,
  Commonly known as "our friend J.J."
  Weary of scribbling for daily bread,
  Weary of writing what nobody read,
  Slept one day at his desk and dreamed
  That an angel before him stood and beamed
  With compassionate eyes upon him there.

  Editor Owen is not so fair
  In feature, expression, form or limb
  But glances like that are familiar to him;
  And so, to arrive by the shortest route
  At his visitor's will he said, simply: "Toot."
  "Editor Owen," the angel said,
  "Scribble no more for your daily bread.
  Your intellect staggers and falls and bleeds,
  Weary of writing what nobody reads.
  Eschew now the quill—in the coming years
  Homilize man through his idle ears.
  Go lecture!" "Just what I intended to do,"
  Said Owen. The angel looked pained and flew.

  Editor Owen, of San Jose,
  Commonly known as "our friend J.J."
  Scribbling no more to supply his needs,
  Weary of writing what nobody reads,
  Passes of life each golden year
  Speaking what nobody comes to hear.

A POLITICAL APOSTATE

  Good friend, it is with deep regret I note
  The latest, strangest turning of your coat;
  Though any way you wear that mental clout
  The seamy side seems always to be out.
  Who could have thought that you would e'er sustain
  The Southern shotgun's arbitrary reign!—
  Your sturdy hand assisting to replace
  The broken yoke on a delivered race;
  The ballot's purity no more your care,
  With equal privilege to dark and fair.
  To Yesterday a traitor, to To-day
  You're constant but the better to betray
  To-morrow. Your convictions all are naught
  But the wild asses of the world of thought,
  Which, flying mindless o'er the barren plain,
  Perceive at last they've nothing so to gain,
  And, turning penitent upon their track,
  Economize their strength by flying back.

  Ex-champion of Freedom, battle-lunged,
  No more, red-handed, or at least red-tongued,
  Brandish the javelin which by others thrown
  Clove Sambo's heart to quiver in your own!
  Confess no more that when his blood was shed,
  And you so sympathetically bled,
  The bow that spanned the mutual cascade
  Was but the promise of a roaring trade
  In offices. Your fingering now the trigger
  Shows that you knew your Negro was a nigger!
  Ad hominem this argumentum runs:
  Peace!—let us fire another kind of guns.

  I grant you, friend, that it is very true
  The Blacks are ignorant—and sable, too.
  What then? One way of two a fool must vote,
  And either way with gentlemen of note
  Whose villain feuds the fact attest too well
  That pedagogues nor vice nor error quell.
  The fiercest controversies ever rage
  When Miltons and Salmasii engage.
  No project wide attention ever drew
  But it disparted all the learned crew.
  As through their group the cleaving line's prolonged
  With fiery combatants each field is thronged.
  In battle-royal they engage at once
  For guidance of the hesitating dunce.
  The Titans on the heights contend full soon—
  On this side Webster and on that Calhoun,
  The monstrous conflagration of their fight
  Startling the day and splendoring the night!
  Both are unconquerable—one is right.
  Will't keep the pigmy, if we make him strong,
  From siding with a giant in the wrong?
  When Genius strikes for error, who's afraid
  To arm poor Folly with a wooden blade?
  O Rabelais, you knew it all!—your good
  And honest judge (by men misunderstood)
  Knew to be right there was but one device
  Less fallible than ignorance—the dice.
  The time must come—Heaven expedite the day!—
  When all mankind shall their decrees obey,
  And nations prosper in their peaceful sway.

TINKER DICK

  Good Parson Dickson preached, I'm told,
  A sermon—ah, 'twas very old
    And very, very, bald!
  'Twas all about—I know not what
  It was about, nor what 'twas not.
    "A Screw Loose" it was called.

  Whatever, Parson Dick, you say,
  The world will get each blessed day
    Still more and more askew,
  And fall apart at last. Great snakes!
  What skillful tinker ever takes
    His tongue to turn a screw?

BATS IN SUNSHINE

  Well, Mr. Kemble, you are called, I think,
    A great divine, and I'm a great profane.
  You as a Congregationalist blink
    Some certain truths that I esteem a gain,
    And drop them in the coffers of my brain,
  Pleased with the pretty music of their chink.
  Perhaps your spiritual wealth is such
  A golden truth or two don't count for much.

  You say that you've no patience with such stuff
    As by Rinan is writ, and when you read
  (Why do you read?) have hardly strength enough
    To hold your hand from flinging the vile screed
    Into the fire. That were a wasteful deed
  Which you'd repent in sackcloth extra rough;
  For books cost money, and I'm told you care
  To lay up treasures Here as well as There.

  I fear, good, pious soul, that you mistake
    Your thrift for toleration. Never mind:
  Rinan in any case would hardly break
    His great, strong, charitable heart to find
    The bats and owls of your myopic kind
  Pained by the light that his ideas make.
  'Tis Truth's best purpose to shine in at holes
  Where cower the Kembles, to confound their souls!

A WORD TO THE UNWISE

      [Charles Main, of the firm of Main & Winchester, has ordered a
      grand mausoleum for his plot in Mountain View Cemetery.—City
      Newspaper.]

  Charles Main, of Main & Winchester, attend
  With friendly ear the chit-chat of a friend
    Who knows you not, yet knows that you and he
  Travel two roads that have a common end.

  We journey forward through the time allowed,
  I humbly bending, you erect and proud.
    Our heads alike will stable soon the worm—
  The one that's lifted, and the one that's bowed.

  You in your mausoleum shall repose,
  I where it pleases Him who sleep bestows;
    What matter whether one so little worth
  Shall stain the marble or shall feed the rose?

  Charles Main, I had a friend who died one day.
  A metal casket held his honored clay.
    Of cyclopean architecture stood
  The splendid vault where he was laid away.

  A dozen years, and lo! the roots of grass
  Had burst asunder all the joints; the brass,
    The gilded ornaments, the carven stones
  Lay tumbled all together in a mass.

  A dozen years! That taxes your belief.
  Make it a thousand if the time's too brief.
    'Twill be the same to you; when you are dead
  You cannot even count your days of grief.

  Suppose a pompous monument you raise
  Till on its peak the solar splendor blaze
    While yet about its base the night is black;
  But will it give your glory length of days?

  Say, when beneath your rubbish has been thrown,
  Some rogue to reputation all unknown—
    Men's backs being turned—should lift his thieving hand,
  Efface your name and substitute his own.

  Whose then would be the monument? To whom
  Would be the fame? Forgotten in your gloom,
    Your very name forgotten—ah, my friend,
  The name is all that's rescued by the tomb.

  For memory of worth and work we go
  To other records than a stone can show.
    These lacking, naught remains; with these
  The stone is needless for the world will know.

  Then build your mausoleum if you must,
  And creep into it with a perfect trust;
    But in the twinkling of an eye the plow
  Shall pass without obstruction through your dust.

  Another movement of the pendulum,
  And, lo! the desert-haunting wolf shall come,
    And, seated on the spot, shall howl by night
  O'er rotting cities, desolate and dumb.

ON THE PLATFORM

  When Dr. Bill Bartlett stepped out of the hum
    Of Mammon's distracting and wearisome strife
  To stand and deliver a lecture on "Some
    Conditions of Intellectual Life,"
  I cursed the offender who gave him the hall
  To lecture on any conditions at all!

  But he rose with a fire divine in his eye,
    Haranguing with endless abundance of breath,
  Till I slept; and I dreamed of a gibbet reared high,
    And Dr. Bill Bartlett was dressing for death.
  And I thought in my dream: "These conditions, no doubt,
  Are bad for the life he was talking about."

  So I cried (pray remember this all was a dream):
    "Get off of the platform!—it isn't the kind!"
  But he fell through the trap, with a jerk at the beam,
    And wiggled his toes to unburden his mind.
  And, O, so bewitching the thoughts he advanced,
  That I clung to his ankles, attentive, entranced!

A DAMPENED ARDOR

  The Chinatown at Bakersfield
    Was blazing bright and high;
  The flames to water would not yield,
    Though torrents drenched the sky
  And drowned the ground for miles around—
    The houses were so dry.

  Then rose an aged preacher man
    Whom all did much admire,
  Who said: "To force on you my plan
    I truly don't aspire,
  But streams, it seems, might quench these beams
    If turned upon the fire."

  The fireman said: "This hoary wight
    His folly dares to thrust
  On us! 'Twere well he felt our might—
    Nay, he shall feel our must!"
  With jet of wet and small regret
    They laid that old man's dust.

ADAIR WELCKER, POET

  The Swan of Avon died—the Swan
  Of Sacramento'll soon be gone;
  And when his death-song he shall coo,
  Stand back, or it will kill you too.

TO A WORD-WARRIOR

  Frank Pixley, you, who kiss the hand
    That strove to cut the country's throat,
    Cannot forgive the hands that smote
  Applauding in a distant land,—

  Applauding carelessly, as one
    The weaker willing to befriend
    Until the quarrel's at an end,
  Then learn by whom it was begun.

  When North was pitted against South
    Non-combatants on either side
    In calculating fury vied,
  And fought their foes by word of mouth.

  That devil's-camisade you led
    With formidable feats of tongue.
    Upon the battle's rear you hung—
  With Samson's weapon slew the dead!

  So hot the ardor of your soul
    That every fierce civilian came,
    His torch to kindle at your name,
  Or have you blow his cooling coal.

  Men prematurely left their beds
    And sought the gelid bath—so great
    The heat and splendor of your hate
  Of Englishmen and "Copperheads."

  King Liar of deceitful men,
    For imposition doubly armed!
    The patriots whom your speaking charmed
  You stung to madness with your pen.

  There was a certain journal here,
    Its English owner growing rich—
    Your hand the treason wrote for which
  A mob cut short its curst career.

  If, Pixley, you had not the brain
    To know the true from false, or you
    To Truth had courage to be true,
  And loyal to her perfect reign;

  If you had not your powers arrayed
    To serve the wrong by tricksy speech,
    Nor pushed yourself within the reach
  Of retribution's accolade,

  I had not had the will to go
    Outside the olive-bordered path
    Of peace to cut the birch of wrath,
  And strip your body for the blow.

  Behold how dark the war-clouds rise
    About the mother of our race!
    The lightnings gild her tranquil face
  And glitter in her patient eyes.

  Her children throng the hither flood
    And lean intent above the beach.
    Their beating hearts inhibit speech
  With stifling tides of English blood.

  "Their skies, but not their hearts, they change
    Who go in ships across the sea"—
    Through all centuries to be
  The strange new land will still be strange.

  The Island Mother holds in gage
    The souls of sons she never saw;
    Superior to law, the law
  Of sympathetic heritage.

  Forgotten now the foolish reign
    Of wrath which sundered trivial ties.
    A soldier's sabre vainly tries
  To cleave a spiritual chain.

  The iron in our blood affines,
    Though fratricidal hands may spill.
    Shall Hate be throned on Bunker Hill,
  Yet Love abide at Seven Pines?

A CULINARY CANDIDATE

  A cook adorned with paper cap,
    Or waiter with a tray,
  May be a worthy kind of chap
        In his way,
  But when we want one for Recorder,
  Then, Mr. Walton, take our order.

THE OLEOMARGARINE MAN

  Once—in the county of Marin,
  Where milk is sold to purchase gin—
  Renowned for butter and renowned
  For fourteen ounces to the pound—
  A bull stood watching every turn
  Of Mr. Wilson with a churn,
  As that deigning worthy stalked
  About him, eying as he walked,
  El Toro's sleek and silken hide,
  His neck, his flank and all beside;
  Thinking with secret joy: "I'll spread
  That mammal on a slice of bread!"

  Soon Mr. Wilson's keen concern
  To get the creature in his churn
  Unhorsed his caution—made him blind
  To the fell vigor of bullkind,
  Till, filled with valor to the teeth,
  He drew his dasher from its sheath
  And bravely brandished it; the while
  He smiled a dark, portentous smile;
  A deep, sepulchral smile; a wide
  And open smile, which, at his side,
  The churn to copy vainly tried;
  A smile so like the dawn of doom
  That all the field was palled in gloom,
  And all the trees within a mile,
  As tribute to that awful smile,
  Made haste, with loyalty discreet,
  To fling their shadows at his feet.
  Then rose his battle-cry: "I'll spread
  That mammal on a slice of bread!"

  To such a night the day had turned
  That Taurus dimly was discerned.
  He wore so meek and grave an air
  It seemed as if, engaged in prayer
  This thunderbolt incarnate had
  No thought of anything that's bad:
  This concentrated earthquake stood
  And gave his mind to being good.
  Lightly and low he drew his breath—
  This magazine of sudden death!
  All this the thrifty Wilson's glance
  Took in, and, crying, "Now's my chance!"
  Upon the bull he sprang amain
  To put him in his churn. Again
  Rang out his battle-yell: "I'll spread
  That mammal on a slice of bread!"

  Sing, Muse, that battle-royal—sing
  The deeds that made the region ring,
  The blows, the bellowing, the cries,
  The dust that darkened all the skies,
  The thunders of the contest, all—
  Nay, none of these things did befall.
  A yell there was—a rush—no more:
  El Toro, tranquil as before,
  Still stood there basking in the sun,
  Nor of his legs had shifted one—
  Stood there and conjured up his cud
  And meekly munched it. Scenes of blood
  Had little charm for him. His head
  He merely nodded as he said:
  "I've spread that butterman upon
  A slice of Southern Oregon."

GENESIS

  God said, "Let there be Crime," and the command
  Brought Satan, leading Stoneman by the hand.
  "Why, that's Stupidity, not Crime," said God—
  "Bring what I ordered." Satan with a nod
  Replied, "This is one element—when I
  The other—Opportunity—supply
  In just equivalent, the two'll affine
  And in a chemical embrace combine
  And Crime result—for Crime can only be
  Stupiditate of Opportunity."
  So leaving Stoneman (not as yet endowed
  With soul) in special session on a cloud,
  Nick to his sooty laboratory went,
  Returning soon with t'other element.
  "Here's Opportunity," he said, and put
  Pen, ink, and paper down at Stoneman's foot.
  He seized them—Heaven was filled with fires and thunders,
  And Crime was added to Creation's wonders!

LLEWELLEN POWELL

  Villain, when the word is spoken,
  And your chains at last are broken
    When the gibbet's chilling shade
  Ceases darkly to enfold you,
  And the angel who enrolled you
    As a master of the trade
  Of assassination sadly
    Blots the record he has made,
  And your name and title paints
  In the calendar of saints;
  When the devils, dancing madly
  In the midmost Hell, are very
  Multitudinously merry—
  Then beware, beware, beware!—-
  Nemesis is everywhere!
  You shall hear her at your back,
    And, your hunted visage turning,
    Fancy that her eyes are burning
  Like a tiger's on your track!
  You shall hear her in the breeze
  Whispering to summer trees.
  You shall hear her calling, calling
    To your spirit through the storm
    When the giant billows form
  And the splintered lightning, falling
  Down the heights of Heaven, appalling,
  Splendors all the tossing seas!
  On your bed at night reclining,
  Stars into your chamber shining
    As they roll around the Pole,
  None their purposes divining,
    Shall appear to search your soul,
  And to gild the mark of Cain
  That burns into your tortured brain!
  And the dead man's eyes shall ever
    Meet your own wherever you,
    Desperate, shall turn you to,
  And you shall escape them never!

  By your heritage of guilt;
  By the blood that you have spilt;
  By the Law that you have broken;
  By the terrible red token
    That you bear upon your brow;
  By the awful sentence spoken
    And irrevocable vow
  Which consigns you to a living
  Death and to the unforgiving
  Furies who avenge your crime
  Through the periods of time;
  By that dread eternal doom
  Hinted in your future's gloom,
    As the flames infernal tell
  Of their power and perfection
  In their wavering reflection
    On the battlements of Hell;
  By the mercy you denied,
    I condemn your guilty soul
  In your body to abide,
    Like a serpent in a hole!

THE SUNSET GUN.

  Off Santa Cruz the western wave
    Was crimson as with blood:
  The sun was sinking to his grave
    Beneath that angry flood.

  Sir Walter Turnbull, brave and stout,
    Then shouted, "Ho! lads; run—
  The powder and the ball bring out
    To fire the sunset gun.

  "That punctual orb did ne'er omit
    To keep, by land or sea,
  Its every engagement; it
    Shall never wait for me."

  Behold the black-mouthed cannon stand,
    Ready with charge and prime,
  The lanyard in the gunner's hand.
    Sir Walter waits the time.

  The glowing orb sinks in the sea,
    And clouds of steam aspire,
  Then fade, and the horizon's free.
    Sir Walter thunders: "Fire!"

  The gunner pulls—the lanyard parts
    And not a sound ensues.
  The beating of ten thousand hearts
    Was heard at Santa Cruz!

  Off Santa Cruz the western wave
    Was crimson as with blood;
  The sun, with visage stern and grave,
    Came back from out the flood.

THE "VIDUATE DAME"

  'Tis the widow of Thomas Blythe,
    And she goeth upon the spree,
  And red are cheeks of the bystanders
    For her acts are light and free.

  In a seven-ounce costume
    The widow of Thomas Blythe,
  Y-perched high on the window ledge,
    The difficult can-can tryeth.

  Ten constables they essay
    To bate the dame's halloing.
  With the widow of Thomas Blythe
    Their hands are overflowing,

  And they cry: "Call the National Guard
    To quell this parlous muss—
  For all of the widows of Thomas Blythe
    Are upon the spree and us!"

  O long shall the eerie tale be told
    By that posse's surviving tithe;
  And with tears bedewed he'll sing this rude
    Ball`d of the widow of Thomas Blythe.

FOUR OF A KIND

  ROBERT F. MORROW

  Dear man! although a stranger and a foe
  To soft affection's humanizing glow;
  Although untaught how manly hearts may throb
  With more desires than the desire to rob;
  Although as void of tenderness as wit,
  And owning nothing soft but Maurice Schmitt;
  Although polluted, shunned and in disgrace,
  You fill me with a passion to embrace!
  Attentive to your look, your smile, your beck,
  I watch and wait to fall upon your neck.
  Lord of my love, and idol of my hope,
  You are my Valentine, and I'm
                                           A ROPE.

  ALFRED CLARKE JR.

  Illustrious son of an illustrious sire—
  Entrusted with the duty to cry "Fire!"
  And call the engines out, exert your power
  With care. When, looking from your lofty tower,
  You see a ruddy light on every wall,
  Pause for a moment ere you sound the call:
  It may be from a fire, it may be, too,
  From good men's blushes when they think of you.

  JUDGE RUTLEDGE

  Sultan of Stupids! with enough of brains
  To go indoors in all uncommon rains,
  But not enough to stay there when the storm
  Is past. When all the world is dry and warm,
  In irking comfort, lamentably gay,
  Keeping the evil tenor of your way,
  You walk abroad, sweet, beautiful and smug,
  And Justice hears you with her wonted shrug,
  Lifts her broad bandage half-an-inch and keeps
  One eye upon you while the other weeps.

  W.H.L. BARNES

  Happy the man who sin's proverbial wage
  Receives on the instalment plan—in age.
  For him the bulldog pistol's honest bark
  Has naught of terror in its blunt remark.
  He looks with calmness on the gleaming steel—
  If e'er it touched his heart he did not feel:
  Superior hardness turned its point away,
  Though urged by fond affinity to stay;
  His bloodless veins ignored the futile stroke,
  And moral mildew kept the cut in cloak.
  Happy the man, I say, to whom the wage
  Of sin has been commuted into age.
  Yet not quite happy—hark, that horrid cry!—
  His cruel mirror wounds him in the eye!

RECONCILIATION

  Stanford and Huntington, so long at outs,
  Kissed and made up. If you have any doubts
  Dismiss them, for I saw them do it, man;
  And then—why, then I clutched my purse and ran.

A VISION OF CLIMATE

  I dreamed that I was poor and sick and sad,
    Broken in hope and weary of my life;
  My ventures all miscarrying—naught had
    For all my labor in the heat and strife.
    And in my heart some certain thoughts were rife
  Of an unsummoned exit. As I lay
    Considering my bitter state, I cried:
  "Alas! that hither I did ever stray.
    Better in some fair country to have died
  Than live in such a land, where Fortune never
  (Unless he be successful) crowns Endeavor."

  Then, even as I lamented, lo! there came
    A troop of Presences—I knew not whence
  Nor what they were: thought cannot rightly name
    What's known through spiritual evidence,
    Reported not by gross material sense.
  "Why come ye here?" I seemed to cry (though naught
    My sleeping tongue did utter) to the first—
  "What are ye?—with what woful message fraught?
    Ye have a ghastly look, as ye had burst
  Some sepulcher in memory. Weird creatures,
  I'm sure I'd know you if ye had but features."

  Some subtle organ noted the reply
    (Inaudible to ear of flesh the tone):
  "The Finest Climate in the World am I,
    From Siskiyou to San Diego known—
    From the Sierra to the sea. The zone
  Called semi-tropical I've pulled about
    And placed it where it does most good, I trust.
  I shake my never-failing bounty out
    Alike upon the just and the unjust."
  "That's very true," said I, "but when 'tis shaken
  My share by the unjust is ever taken."

  "Permit me," it resumed, "now to present
    My eldest son, the Champagne Atmosphere,
  And others to rebuke your discontent—
    The Mammoth Squash, Strawberry All the Year,
    The fair No Lightning—flashing only here—
  The Wholesome Earthquake and Italian Sky,
    With its Unstriking Sun; and last, not least,
  The Compos Mentis Dog. Now, ingrate, try
    To bring a better stomach to the feast:
  When Nature makes a dance and pays the piper,
    To be unhappy is to be a viper!"

  "Why, yet," said I, "with all your blessings fine
    (And Heaven forbid that I should speak them ill)
  I yet am poor and sick and sad. Ye shine
    With more of splendor than of heat: for still,
    Although my will is warm, my bones are chill."
  "Then warm you with enthusiasm's blaze—
    Fortune waits not on toil," they cried; "O then
  Join the wild chorus clamoring our praise—
    Throw up your beaver and throw down you pen!"
  "Begone!" I shouted. They bewent, a-smirking,
    And I, awakening, fell straight a-working.

A "MASS" MEETING

  It was a solemn rite as e'er
    Was seen by mortal man.
  The celebrants, the people there,
    Were all Republican.

  There Estee bent his grizzled head,
    And General Dimond, too,
  And one—'twas Reddick, some one said,
    Though no one clearly knew.

  I saw the priest, white-robed and tall
    (Assistant, Father Stow)—
  He was the pious man men call
    Dan Burns of Mexico.

  Ah, 'twas a high and holy rite
    As any one could swear.
  "What does it mean?" I asked a wight
    Who knelt apart in prayer.

  "A mass for the repose," he said,
    "Of Colonel Markham's"——"What,
  Is gallant Colonel Markham dead?
    'Tis sad, 'tis sad, God wot!"

  "A mass"—repeated he, and rose
    To go and kneel among
  The worshipers—"for the repose
    Of Colonel Markham's tongue."

FOR PRESIDENT, LELAND STANFORD

  Mahomet Stanford, with covetous stare,
  Gazed on a vision surpassingly fair:
  Far on the desert's remote extreme
  A mountain of gold with a mellow gleam
  Reared its high pinnacles into the sky,
  The work of mirage to delude the eye.
  Pixley Pasha, at the Prophet's feet
  Piously licking them, swearing them sweet,
  Ventured, observing his master's glance,
  To beg that he order the mountain's advance.
  Mahomet Stanford exerted his will,
  Commanding: "In Allah's name, hither, hill!"
  Never an inch the mountain came.
  Mahomet Stanford, with face aflame,
  Lifted his foot and kicked, alack!
  Pixley Pasha on the end of the back.
  Mollified thus and smiling free,
  He said: "Since the mountain won't come to me,
  I'll go to the mountain." With infinite pains,
  Camels in caravans, negroes in trains,
  Warriors, workmen, women, and fools,
  Food and water and mining tools
  He gathered about him, a mighty array,
  And the journey began at the close of day.
  All night they traveled—at early dawn
  Many a wearisome league had gone.
  Morning broke fair with a golden sheen,
  Mountain, alas, was nowhere seen!
  Mahomet Stanford pounded his breast,
  Pixley Pasha he thus addressed:
  "Dog of mendacity, cheat and slave,
  May jackasses sing o'er your grandfather's grave!"

FOR MAYOR

  O Abner Doble—whose "catarrhal name"
    Budd of that ilk might envy—'tis a rough
    Rude thing to say, but it is plain enough
  Your name is to be sneezed at: its acclaim
  Will "fill the speaking trump of future fame"
    With an impeded utterance—a puff
    Suggesting that a pinch or two of snuff
  Would clear the tube and somewhat disinflame.
  Nay, Abner Doble, you'll not get from me
    My voice and influence: I'll cheer instead,
      Some other man; for when my voice ascends a
  Tall pinnacle of praise, and at high C
    Sustains a chosen name, it shan't be said
      My influence is naught but influenza.

A CHEATING PREACHER

  Munhall, to save my soul you bravely try,
  Although, to save my soul, I can't say why.
  'Tis naught to you, to me however much—
  Why, bless it! you might save a million such
  Yet lose your own; for still the "means of grace"
  That you employ to turn us from the place
  By the arch-enemy of souls frequented
  Are those which to ensnare us he invented!
  I do not say you utter falsehoods—I
  Would scorn to give to ministers the lie:
  They cannot fight—their calling has estopped it.
  True, I did not persuade them to adopt it.
  But, Munhall, when you say the Devil dwells
  In all the breasts of all the infidels—
  Making a lot of individual Hells
  In gentlemen instinctively who shrink
  From thinking anything that you could think,
  You talk as I should if some world I trod
  Where lying is acceptable to God.
  I don't at all object—forbid it Heaven!—
  That your discourse you temperately leaven
  With airy reference to wicked souls
  Cursing impenitent on glowing coals,
  Nor quarrel with your fancy, blithe and fine,
  Which represents the wickedest as mine.
  Each ornament of style my spirit eases:
  The subject saddens, but the manner pleases.
  But when you "deal damnation round" 'twere sweet
  To think hereafter that you did not cheat.
  Deal, and let all accept what you allot 'em.
  But, blast you! you are dealing from the bottom!

A CROCODILE

  Nay, Peter Robertson, 'tis not for you
    To blubber o'er Max Taubles for he's dead.
  By Heaven! my hearty, if you only knew
    How better is a grave-worm in the head
  Than brains like yours—how far more decent, too,
    A tomb in far Corea than a bed
  Where Peter lies with Peter, you would covet
  His happier state and, dying, learn to love it.

  In the recesses of the silent tomb
    No Maunderings of yours disturb the peace.
  Your mental bag-pipe, droning like the gloom
    Of Hades audible, perforce must cease
  From troubling further; and that crack o' doom,
    Your mouth, shaped like a long bow, shall release
  In vain such shafts of wit as it can utter—
  The ear of death can't even hear them flutter.

THE AMERICAN PARTY

  Oh, Marcus D. Boruck, me hearty,
    I sympathize wid ye, poor lad!
  A man that's shot out of his party
    Is mighty onlucky, bedad!
    An' the sowl o' that man is sad.

  But, Marcus, gossoon, ye desarve it—
    Ye know for yerself that ye do,
  For ye j'ined not intendin' to sarve it,
    But hopin' to make it sarve you,
    Though the roll of its members wuz two.

  The other wuz Pixley, an' "Surely,"
    Ye said, "he's a kite that wall sail."
  An' so ye hung till him securely,
    Enactin' the role of a tail.
    But there wuzn't the ghost of a gale!

  But the party to-day has behind it
    A powerful backin', I'm told;
  For just enough Irish have j'ined it
    (An' I'm m'anin' to be enrolled)
    To kick ye out into the cold.

  It's hard on ye, darlint, I'm thinkin'—
    So young—so American, too—
  Wid bypassers grinnin' an' winkin',
    An' sayin', wid ref'rence to you:
  "Get onto the murtherin' Joo!"

  Republicans never will take ye—
    They had ye for many a year;
  An' Dimocrats—angels forsake ye!—
    If ever ye come about here
    We'll brand ye and scollop yer ear!

UNCOLONELED

  Though war-signs fail in time of peace, they say,
    Two awful portents gloom the public mind:
  All Mexico is arming for the fray
    And Colonel Mark McDonald has resigned!
    We know not by what instinct he divined
  The coming trouble—may be, like the steed
    Described by Job, he smelled the fight afar.
  Howe'er it be, he left, and for that deed
    Is an aspirant to the G.A.R.
  When cannon flame along the Rio Grande
  A citizen's commission will be handy.

THE GATES AJAR

  The Day of Judgment spread its glare
    O'er continents and seas.
  The graves cracked open everywhere,
    Like pods of early peas.

  Up to the Court of Heaven sped
    The souls of all mankind;
  Republicans were at the head
    And Democrats behind.

  Reub. Lloyd was there before the tube
    Of Gabriel could call:
  The dead in Christ rise first, and Reub.
    Had risen first of all.

  He sat beside the Throne of Flame
    As, to the trumpet's sound,
  Four statesmen of the Party Came
    And ranged themselves around—

  Pure spirits shining like the sun,
    From taint and blemish free—
  Great William Stow was there for one,
    And George A. Knight for three.

  Souls less indubitably white
    Approached with anxious air,
  Judge Blake at head of them by right
    Of having been a Mayor.

  His ermine he had donned again,
    Long laid away in gums.
  'Twas soiled a trifle by the stains
    Of politicians' thumbs.

  Then Knight addressed the Judge of Heaven:
    "Your Honor, would it trench
  On custom here if Blake were given
    A seat upon the Bench?"

  'Twas done. "Tom Shannon!" Peter cried.
    He came, without ado,
  In forma pauperis was tried,
    And was acquitted, too!

  Stow rose, remarking: "I concur."
    Lloyd added: "That suits us.
  I move Tom's nomination, sir,
    Be made unanimous."

TIDINGS OF GOOD

  Old Nick from his place of last resort
    Came up and looked the world over.
  He saw how the grass of the good was short
    And the wicked lived in clover.

  And he gravely said: "This is all, all wrong,
    And never by me intended.
  If to me the power should ever belong
    I shall have this thing amended."

  He looked so solemn and good and wise
    As he made this observation
  That the men who heard him believed their eyes
    Instead of his reputation.

  So they bruited the matter about, and each
    Reported the words as nearly
  As memory served—with additional speech
    To bring out the meaning clearly.

  The consequence was that none understood,
    And the wildest rumors started
  Of something intended to help the good
    And injure the evil-hearted.

  Then Robert Morrow was seen to smile
    With a bright and lively joyance.
  "A man," said he, "that is free from guile
    Will now be free from annoyance.

  "The Featherstones doubtless will now increase
    And multiply like the rabbits,
  While jailers, deputy sheriffs, police,
    And writers will form good habits.

  "The widows more easily robbed will be,
    And no juror will ever heed 'em,
  But open his purse to my eloquent plea
    For security, gain, or freedom."

  When Benson heard of the luck of the good
    (He was eating his dinner) he muttered:
  "It cannot help me, for 'tis understood
    My bread is already buttered.

  "My plats of surveys are all false, they say,
    But that cannot greatly matter
  To me, for I'll tell the jurors that they
    May lick, if they please, my platter."

ARBORICULTURE

      [Californians are asking themselves how Joaquin Miller will
      make the trees grow which he proposes to plant in the form of
      a Maltese cross on Goat Island, in San Francisco Bay.—New
      York Graphic.]

  You may say they won't grow, and say they'll decay—
  Say it again till you're sick of the say,
  Get up on your ear, blow your blaring bazoo
  And hire a hall to proclaim it; and you
  May stand on a stump with a lifted hand
  As a pine may stand or a redwood stand,
  And stick to your story and cheek it through.
  But I point with pride to the far divide
  Where the Snake from its groves is seen to glide—
  To Mariposa's arboreal suit,
  And the shaggy shoulders of Shasta Butte,
  And the feathered firs of Siskiyou;
  And I swear as I sit on my marvelous hair—
  I roll my marvelous eyes and swear,
  And sneer, and ask where would your forests be
  To-day if it hadn't been for me!
  Then I rise tip-toe, with a brow of brass,
  Like a bully boy with an eye of glass;
  I look at my gum sprouts, red and blue,
  And I say it loud and I say it low:
  "They know their man and you bet they'll grow!"

A SILURIAN HOLIDAY

  'Tis Master Fitch, the editor;
    He takes an holiday.
  Now wherefore, venerable sir,
    So resolutely gay?

  He lifts his head, he laughs aloud,
    Odzounds! 'tis drear to see!
  "Because the Boodle-Scribbler crowd
    Will soon be far from me.

  "Full many a year I've striven well
    To freeze the caitiffs out
  By making this good town a Hell,
    But still they hang about.

  "They maken mouths and eke they grin
    At the dollar limit game;
  And they are holpen in that sin
    By many a wicked dame.

  "In sylvan bowers hence I'll dwell
    My bruishd mind to ease.
  Farewell, ye urban scenes, farewell!
    Hail, unfamiliar trees!"

  Forth Master Fitch did bravely hie,
    And all the country folk
  Besought him that he come not nigh
    The deadly poison oak!

  He smiled a cheerful smile (the day
    Was straightway overcast)—
  The poison oak along his way
    Was blighted as he passed!

REJECTED

  When Dr. Charles O'Donnell died
  They sank a box with him inside.

  The plate with his initials three
  Was simply graven—"C.O.D."

  That night two demons of the Pit
  Adown the coal-hole shunted it.

  Ten million million leagues it fell,
  Alighting at the gate of Hell.

  Nick looked upon it with surprise,
  A night-storm darkening his eyes.

  "They've sent this rubbish, C.O.D.—
  I'll never pay a cent!" said he.

JUDEX JUDICATUS

  Judge Armstrong, when the poor have sought your aid,
  To be released from vows that they have made
  In haste, and leisurely repented, you,
  As stern as Rhadamanthus (Minos too,
  And Feacus) have drawn your fierce brows down
  And petrified them with a moral frown!
  With iron-faced rigor you have made them run
  The gauntlet of publicity—each Hun
  Or Vandal of the public press allowed
  To throw their households open to the crowd
  And bawl their secret bickerings aloud.
  When Wealth before you suppliant appears,
  Bang! go the doors and open fly your ears!
  The blinds are drawn, the lights diminished burn,
  Lest eyes too curious should look and learn
  That gold refines not, sweetens not a life
  Of conjugal brutality and strife—
  That vice is vulgar, though it gilded shine
  Upon the curve of a judicial spine.
  The veiled complainant's whispered evidence,
  The plain collusion and the no defense,
  The sealed exhibits and the secret plea,
  The unrecorded and unseen decree,
  The midnight signature and—chink! chink! chink!—
  Nay, pardon, upright Judge, I did but think
  I heard that sound abhorred of honest men;
  No doubt it was the scratching of your pen.

  O California! long-enduring land,
  Where Judges fawn upon the Golden Hand,
  Proud of such service to that rascal thing
  As slaves would blush to render to a king—
  Judges, of judgment destitute and heart,
  Of conscience conscious only by the smart
  From the recoil (so insight is enlarged)
  Of duty accidentally discharged;—
  Invoking still a "song o' sixpence" from
  The Scottish fiddle of each lusty palm,
  Thy Judges, California, skilled to play
  This silent music, through the livelong-day
  Perform obsequious before the rich,
  And still the more they scratch the more they itch!

ON THE WEDDING OF AN AKRONAUT

  Akronaut, you're fairly caught,
    Despite your bubble's leaven:
  Out of the skies a lady's eyes
    Have brought you down to Heaven!

  No more, no more you'll freely soar
    Above the grass and gravel:
  Henceforth you'll walk—and she will chalk
    The line that you're to travel!

A HASTY INFERENCE

  The Devil one day, coming up from the Pit,
    All grimy with perspiration,
  Applied to St. Peter and begged he'd admit
    Him a moment for consultation.

  The Saint showed him in where the Master reclined
    On the throne where petitioners sought him;
  Both bowed, and the Evil One opened his mind
    Concerning the business that brought him:

  "For ten million years I've been kept in a stew
    Because you have thought me immoral;
  And though I have had my opinion of you,
    You've had the best end of the quarrel.

  "But now—well, I venture to hope that the past
    With its misunderstandings we'll smother;
  And you, sir, and I, sir, be throned here at last
    As equals, the one to the other."

  "Indeed!" said the Master (I cannot convey
    A sense of his tone by mere letters)
  "What makes you presume you'll be bidden to stay
    Up here on such terms with your betters?"

  "Why, sure you can't mean it!" said Satan. "I've seen
    How Stanford and Crocker you've nourished,
  And Huntington—bless me! the three like a green
    Umbrageous great bay-tree have flourished.

  They are fat, they are rolling in gold, they command
    All sources and well-springs of power;
  You've given them houses, you've given them land—
    Before them the righteous all cower."

  "What of that?" "What of that?" cried the Father of Sin;
    "Why, I thought when I saw you were winking
  At crimes such as theirs that perhaps you had been
    Converted to my way of thinking."

A VOLUPTUARY

  Who's this that lispeth in the thickening throng
  Which crowds to claim distinction in my song?
  Fresh from "the palms and temples of the South,"
  The mixed aromas quarrel in his mouth:
  Of orange blossoms this the lingering gale,
  And that the odor of a spicy tale.
  Sir, in thy pleasure-dome down by the sea
  (No finer one did Kubla Khan decree)
  Where, Master of the Revels, thou dost stand
  With joys and mysteries on either hand,
  Dost keep a poet to report the rites
  And sing the tale of those Elysian nights?
  Faith, sir, I'd like the place if not too young.
  I'm no great bard, but—I can hold my tongue.

AD CATTONUM

  I know not, Mr. Catton, who you are,
  Nor very clearly why; but you go far
  To show that you are many things beside
  A Chilean Consul with a tempting hide;
  But what they are I hardly could explain
  Without afflicting you with mental pain.
  Your name (gods! what a name the muse to woo—
  Suggesting cats, and hinting kittens, too!)
  Points to an origin—perhaps Maltese,
  Perhaps Angoran—where the wicked cease
  From fiddling, and the animals that grow
  The strings that groan to the tormenting bow
  Live undespoiled of their insides, resigned
  To give their name and nature to mankind.
  With Chilean birth your name but poorly tallies;
  The test is—Did you ever sell tamales?

  It matters very little, though, my boy,
  If you're from Chile or from Illinois;
  You can't, because you serve a foreign land,
  Spit with impunity on ours, expand,
  Cock-turkeywise, and strut with blind conceit,
  All heedless of the hearts beneath your feet,
  Fling falsehoods as a sower scatters grain
  And, for security, invoke disdain.
  Sir, there are laws that men of sense observe,
  No matter whence they come nor whom they serve—
  The laws of courtesy; and these forbid
  You to malign, as recently you did,
  As servant of another State, a State
  Wherein your duties all are concentrate;
  Branding its Ministers as rogues—in short,
  Inviting cuffs as suitable retort.

  Chileno or American, 'tis one—
  Of any land a citizen, or none—
  If like a new Thersites here you rail,
  Loading with libels every western gale,
  You'll feel the cudgel on your scurvy hump
  Impinging with a salutary thump.
  'Twill make you civil or 'twill make you jump!

THE NATIONAL GUARDSMAN

  I'm a gorgeous golden hero
    And my trade is taking life.
  Hear the twittle-twittle-tweero
    Of my sibillating fife
  And the rub-a-dub-a-dum
    Of my big bass drum!
  I'm an escort strong and bold,
    The Grand Army to protect.
  My countenance is cold
    And my attitude erect.
  I'm a Californian Guard
    And my banner flies aloft,
  But the stones are O, so hard!
    And my feet are O, so soft!

THE BARKING WEASEL

  You say, John Irish, Mr. Taylor hath
    A painted beard. Quite likely that is true,
  And sure 'tis natural you spend your wrath
    On what has been least merciful to you.
  By Taylor's chin, if I am not mistaken,
  You like a rat have recently been shaken.

  To wear a beard of artificial hue
    May be or this or that, I know not what;
  But, faith, 'tis better to be black-and-blue
    In beard from dallying with brush and pot
  Than to be so in body from the beating
  That hardy rogues get when detected cheating.

  You're whacked about the mazzard rather more
    Of late than any other man in town.
  Certes your vulnerable back is sore
    And tender, too, your corrigible crown.
  In truth your whole periphery discloses
  More vivid colors than a bed of posies!

  You call it glory! Put your tongue in sheath!—
    Scars got in battle, even if on the breast,
  May be a shameful record if, beneath,
    A robber heart a lawless strife attest.
  John Sullivan had wounds, and Paddy Ryan—
  Nay, as to that, even Masten has, and Bryan.

  'Tis willingly conceded you've a knack
    At holding the attention of the town;
  The worse for you when you have on your back
    What did not grow there—prithee put it down!
  For pride kills thrift, and you lack board and lodging,
  Even while the brickbats of renown you're dodging.

A REAR ELEVATION

      [He can speak with his eyes, his hands, arms, legs, body—nay,
      with his very bones, for he turned the broad of his back upon
      us in "Conrad," the other night, and his shoulder-blades
      spoke to us a volume of hesitation, fear, submission,
      desperation—everything which could haunt a man at the moment
      of inevitable detection.—A "Dramatic Critic."]

  Once Moses (in Scripture the story is told)
  Entreated the favor God's face to behold.
  Compassion divine the petition denied
  Lest vision be blasted and body be fried.
  Yet this much, the Record informs us, took place:
  Jehovah, concealing His terrible face,
  Protruded His rear from behind a great rock,
  And edification ensued without shock.
  So godlike Salvini, lest worshipers die,
  Averting the blaze of his withering eye,
  Tempers his terrors and shows to the pack
  Of feeble adorers the broad of his back.
  The fires of their altars, which, paled and declined
  Before him, burn all the more brightly behind.
  O happy adorers, to care not at all
  Where fawning may tickle or lip-service fall!

IN UPPER SAN FRANCISCO

  I heard that Heaven was bright and fair,
  And politicians dwelt not there.

  'Twas said by knowing ones that they
  Were in the Elsewhere—so to say.

  So, waking from my last long sleep,
  I took my place among the sheep.

  I passed the gate—Saint Peter eyed
  Me sharply as I stepped inside.

  He thought, as afterward I learned,
  That I was Chris, the Unreturned.

  The new Jerusalem—ah me,
  It was a sorry sight to see!

  The mansions of the blest were there,
  And mostly they were fine and fair;

  But O, such streets!—so deep and wide,
  And all unpaved, from side to side!

  And in a public square there grew
  A blighted tree, most sad to view.

  From off its trunk the bark was ripped—
  Its very branches all were stripped!

  An angel perched upon the fence
  With all the grace of indolence.

  "Celestial bird," I cried, in pain,
  "What vandal wrought this wreck? Explain."

  He raised his eyelids as if tired:
  "What is a Vandal?" he inquired.

  "This is the Tree of Life. 'Twas stripped
  By Durst and Siebe, who have shipped

  "The bark across the Jordan—see?—
  And sold it to a tannery."

  "Alas," I sighed, "their old-time tricks!
  That pavement, too, of golden bricks—

  "They've gobbled that?" But with a scowl,
  "You greatly wrong them," said the fowl:

  "'Twas Gilleran did that, I fear—
  Head of the Street Department here."

  "What! what!" cried I—"you let such chaps
  Come here? You've Satan, too, perhaps."

  "We had him, yes, but off he went,
  Yet showed some purpose to repent;

  "But since your priests and parsons filled
  The place with those their preaching killed"—

  (Here Siebe passed along with Durst,
  Psalming as if their lungs would burst)—

  "He swears his foot no more shall press
  ('Tis cloven, anyhow, I guess)

  "Our soil. In short, he's out on strike—
  But devils are not all alike."

  Lo! Gilleran came down the street,
  Pressing the soil with broad, flat feet!

NIMROD

  There were brave men, some one has truly said,
  Before Atrides (those were mostly dead
  Behind him) and ere you could e'er occur
  Actaeon lived, Nimrod and Bahram-Gur.
  In strength and speed and daring they excelled:
  The stag they overtook, the lion felled.
  Ah, yes, great hunters flourished before you,
  And—for Munchausen lived—great talkers too.
  There'll be no more; there's much to kill, but—well,
  You have left nothing in the world to tell!

CENSOR LITERARUM

  So, Parson Stebbins, you've released your chin
    To say that here, and here, we press-folk ail.
  'Tis a great thing an editor to skin
    And hang his faulty pelt upon a nail
    (If over-eared, it has, at least, no tail)
  And, for an admonition against sin,
  Point out its maculations with a rod,
  And act, in short, the gentleman of God.

  'Twere needless cruelty to spoil your sport
    By comment, critical or merely rude;
  But you, too, have, according to report,
    Despite your posing as a holy dude,
    Imperfect spiritual pulchritude
  For so severe a judge. May't please the court,
  We shall appeal and take our case at once
  Before that higher court, a taller dunce.

  Sir, what were you without the press? What spreads
    The fame of your existence, once a week,
  From the Pacific Mail dock to the Heads,
    Warning the people you're about to wreak
    Upon the human ear your Sunday freak?—
  Whereat the most betake them to their bed
  Though some prefer to slumber in the pews
  And nod assent to your hypnotic views.

  Unhappy man! can you not still your tongue
    When (like a luckless brat afflict with worms,
  By cruel fleas intolerably stung,
    Or with a pang in its small lap) it squirms?
  Still must it vulgarize your feats of lung?
  No preaching better were, the sun beneath,
  If you had nothing there behind your teeth.

BORROWED BRAINS

  Writer folk across the bay
  Take the pains to see and say—
  All their upward palms in air:
  "Joaquin Miller's cut his hair!"
  Hasten, hasten, writer folk—
  In the gutters rake and poke,
  If by God's exceeding grace
  You may hit upon the place
  Where the barber threw at length
  Samson's literary strength.
  Find it, find it if you can;
  Happy the successful man!
  He has but to put one strand
  In his beaver's inner band
  And his intellect will soar
  As it never did before!
  While an inch of it remains
  He will noted be for brains,
  And at last ('twill so befall)
  Fit to cease to write at all.

THE FYGHTYNGE SEVENTH

  It is the gallant Seventh—
    It fyghteth faste and free!
  God wot the where it fyghteth
    I ne desyre to be.

  The Gonfalon it flyeth,
    Seeming a Flayme in Sky;
  The Bugel loud yblowen is,
    Which sayeth, Doe and dye!

  And (O good Saints defende us
    Agaynst the Woes of Warr)
  Drawn Tongues are flashing deadly
    To smyte the Foeman sore!

  With divers kinds of Riddance
    The smoaking Earth is wet,
  And all aflowe to seaward goe
    The Torrents wide of Sweat!

  The Thunder of the Captens,
    And eke the Shouting, mayketh
  Such horrid Din the Soule within
    The boddy of me quayketh!

  Who fyghteth the bold Seventh?
    What haughty Power defyes?
  Their Colonel 'tis they drubben sore,
    And dammen too his Eyes!

INDICTED

  Dear Bruner, once we had a little talk
    (That is to say, 'twas I did all the talking)
  About the manner of your moral walk:
    How devious the trail you made in stalking,
  On level ground, your law-protected game—
  "Another's Dollar" is, I think, its name.

  Your crooked course more recently is not
    So blamable; for, truly, you have stumbled
  On evil days; and 'tis your luckless lot
    To traverse spaces (with a spirit humbled,
  Contrite, dejected and divinely sad)
  Where, 'tis confessed, the walking's rather bad.

  Jordan, the song says, is a road (I thought
    It was a river) that is hard to travel;
  And Dublin, if you'd find it, must be sought
    Along a highway with more rocks than gravel.
  In difficulty neither can compete
  With that wherein you navigate your feet.

  As once George Gorham said of Pixley, so
    I say of you: "The prison yawns before you,
  The turnkey stalks behind!" Now will you go?
    Or lag, and let that functionary floor you?
  To change the metaphor—you seem to be
  Between Judge Wallace and the deep, deep sea!

OVER THE BORDER

  O, justice, you have fled, to dwell
    In Mexico, unstrangled,
  Lest you should hang as high as—well,
      As Haman dangled.

  (I know not if his cord he twanged,
    Or the King proved forgiving.
  'Tis hard to think of Haman hanged,
      And Haymond living.)

  Yes, as I said: in mortal fear
    To Mexico you journeyed;
  For you were on your trial here,
      And ill attorneyed.

  The Law had long regarded you
    As an extreme offender.
  Religion looked upon you, too,
      With thoughts untender.

  The Press to you was cold as snow,
    For sin you'd always call so.
  In Politics you were de trop,
      In Morals also.

  All this is accurately true
    And, faith! there might be more said;
  But—well, to save your thrapple you
      Fled, as aforesaid.

  You're down in Mexico—that's plain
    As that the sun is risen;
  For Daniel Burns, down there, his chain
    Drags round in prison.

ONE JUDGE

  Wallace, created on a noble plan
  To show us that a Judge can be a Man;
  Through moral mire exhaling mortal stench
  God-guided sweet and foot-clean to the Bench;
  In salutation here and sign I lift
  A hand as free as yours from lawless thrift,
  A heart—ah, would I truly could proclaim
  My bosom lighted with so pure a flame!
  Alas, not love of justice moves my pen
  To praise, or to condemn, my fellow men.
  Good will and ill its busy point incite:
  I do but gratify them when I write.
  In palliation, though, I'd humbly state,
  I love the righteous and the wicked hate.
  So, sir, although we differ we agree,
  Our work alike from persecution free,
  And Heaven, approving you, consents to me.
  Take, therefore, from this not all useless hand
  The crown of honor—not in all the land
  One honest man dissenting from the choice,
  Nor in approval one Fred. Crocker's voice!

TO AN INSOLENT ATTORNEY

  So, Hall McAllister, you'll not be warned—
  My protest slighted, admonition scorned!
  To save your scoundrel client from a cell
  As loth to swallow him as he to swell
  Its sum of meals insurgent (it decries
  All wars intestinal with meats that rise)
  You turn your scurril tongue against the press
  And damn the agency you ought to bless.
  Had not the press with all its hundred eyes
  Discerned the wolf beneath the sheep's disguise
  And raised the cry upon him, he to-day
  Would lack your company, and you would lack his pay.

  Talk not of "hire" and consciences for sale—
  You whose profession 'tis to threaten, rail,
  Calumniate and libel at the will
  Of any villain who can pay the bill—
  You whose most honest dollars all were got
  By saying for a fee "the thing that's not!"
  To you 'tis one, to challenge or defend;
  Clients are means, their money is an end.
  In my profession sometimes, as in yours
  Always, a payment large enough secures
  A mercenary service to defend
  The guilty or the innocent to rend.
  But mark the difference, nor think it slight:
  We do not hold it proper, just and right;
  Of selfish lies a little still we shame
  And give our villainies another name.
  Hypocrisy's an ugly vice, no doubt,
  But blushing sinners can't get on without.
  Happy the lawyer!—at his favored hands
  Nor truth nor decency the world demands.
  Secure in his immunity from shame,
  His cheek ne'er kindles with the tell-tale flame.
  His brains for sale, morality for hire,
  In every land and century a licensed liar!

  No doubt, McAllister, you can explain
  How honorable 'tis to lie for gain,
  Provided only that the jury's made
  To understand that lying is your trade.
  A hundred thousand volumes, broad and flat,
  (The Bible not included) proving that,
  Have been put forth, though still the doubt remains
  If God has read them with befitting pains.
  No Morrow could get justice, you'll declare,
  If none who knew him foul affirmed him fair.
  Ingenious man! how easy 'tis to raise
  An argument to justify the course that pays!

  I grant you, if you like, that men may need
  The services performed for crime by greed,—
  Grant that the perfect welfare of the State
  Requires the aid of those who in debate
  As mercenaries lost in early youth
  The fine distinction between lie and truth—
  Who cheat in argument and set a snare
  To take the feet of Justice unaware—
  Who serve with livelier zeal when rogues assist
  With perjury, embracery (the list
  Is long to quote) than when an honest soul,
  Scorning to plot, conspire, intrigue, cajole,
  Reminds them (their astonishment how great!)
  He'd rather suffer wrong than perpetrate.
  I grant, in short, 'tis better all around
  That ambidextrous consciences abound
  In courts of law to do the dirty work
  That self-respecting scavengers would shirk.
  What then? Who serves however clean a plan
  By doing dirty work, he is a dirty man!

ACCEPTED

  Charles Shortridge once to St. Peter came.
  "Down!" cried the saint with his face aflame;
  "'Tis writ that every hardy liar
  Shall dwell forever and ever in fire!"
  "That's what I said the night that I died,"
  The sinner, turning away, replied.
  "What! you said that?" cried the saint—"what! what!
  You said 'twas so writ? Then, faith, 'tis not!  I'm a devil at quoting, but I begin
  To fail in my memory. Pray walk in."

A PROMISED FAST TRAIN

  I turned my eyes upon the Future's scroll
  And saw its pictured prophecies unroll.

  I saw that magical life-laden train
  Flash its long glories o'er Nebraska's plain.

  I saw it smoothly up the mountain glide.
  "O happy, happy passengers!" I cried.

  For Pleasure, singing, drowned the engine's roar,
  And Hope on joyous pinions flew before.

  Then dived the train adown the sunset slope—
  Pleasure was silent and unseen was Hope.

  Crashes and shrieks attested the decay
  That greed had wrought upon that iron way.

  The rusted rails broke down the rotting ties,
  And clouds of flying spikes obscured the skies.

  My coward eyes I drew away, distressed,
  And fixed them on the terminus to-West,

  Where soon, its melancholy tale to tell,
  One bloody car-wheel wabbled in and fell!

ONE OF THE SAINTS

  Big Smith is an Oakland School Board man,
  And he looks as good as ever he can;
  And he's such a cold and a chaste Big Smith
  That snowflakes all are his kin and kith.
  Wherever his eye he chances to throw
  The crystals of ice begin to grow;
  And the fruits and flowers he sees are lost
  By the singeing touch of a sudden frost.
  The women all shiver whenever he's near,
  And look upon us with a look austere—
  Effect of the Smithian atmosphere.
  Such, in a word, is the moral plan
  Of the Big, Big Smith, the School Board man.
  When told that Madame Ferrier had taught
  Hernani in school, his fist he brought
  Like a trip-hammer down on his bulbous knee,
  And he roared: "Her Nanny? By gum, we'll see
  If the public's time she dares devote
  To the educatin' of any dam goat!"
  "You do not entirely comprehend—
  Hernani's a play," said his learned friend,
  "By Victor Hugo—immoral and bad.
  What's worse, it's French!" "Well, well, my lad,"
  Said Smith, "if he cuts a swath so wide
  I'll have him took re'glar up and tried!"
  And he smiled so sweetly the other chap
  Thought that himself was a Finn or Lapp
  Caught in a storm of his native snows,
  With a purple ear and an azure nose.
  The Smith continued: "I never pursue
  Immoral readin'." And that is true:
  He's a saint of remarkably high degree,
  With a mind as chaste as a mind can be;
  But read!—the devil a word can he!

A MILITARY INCIDENT

  Dawn heralded the coming sun—
    Fort Douglas was computing
  The minutes—and the sunrise gun
    Was manned for his saluting.

  The gunner at that firearm stood,
    The which he slowly loaded,
  When, bang!—I know not how it could,
    But sure the charge exploded!

  Yes, to that veteran's surprise
    The gun went off sublimely,
  And both his busy arms likewise
  Went off with it, untimely.

  Then said that gunner to his mate
    (He was from Ballyshannon):
  "Bedad, the sun's a minute late,
    Accardin' to this cannon!"

SUBSTANCE VERSUS SHADOW

  So, gentle critics, you would have me tilt,
  Not at the guilty, only just at Guilt!—
  Spare the offender and condemn Offense,
  And make life miserable to Pretense!
  "Whip Vice and Folly—that is satire's use—
  But be not personal, for that's abuse;
  Nor e'er forget what, 'like a razor keen,
  Wounds with a touch that's neither felt nor seen.'"
  Well, friends, I venture, destitute of awe,
  To think that razor but an old, old saw,
  A trifle rusty; and a wound, I'm sure,
  That's felt not, seen not, one can well endure.
  Go to! go to!—you're as unfitted quite
  To give advice to writers as to write.
  I find in Folly and in Vice a lack
  Of head to hit, and for the lash no back;
  Whilst Pixley has a pow that's easy struck,
  And though good Deacon Fitch (a Fitch for luck!)
  Has none, yet, lest he go entirely free,
  God gave to him a corn, a heel to me.
  He, also, sets his face (so like a flint
  The wonder grows that Pickering doesn't skin't)
  With cold austerity, against these wars
  On scamps—'tis Scampery that he abhors!
  Behold advance in dignity and state—
  Grave, smug, serene, indubitably great—
  Stanford, philanthropist! One hand bestows
  In alms what t'other one as justice owes.
  Rascality attends him like a shade,
  But closes, woundless, o'er my baffled blade,
  Its limbs unsevered, spirit undismayed.
  Faith! I'm for something can be made to feel,
  If, like Pelides, only in the heel.
  The fellow's self invites assault; his crimes
  Will each bear killing twenty thousand times!
  Anon Creed Haymond—but the list is long
  Of names to point the moral of my song.
  Rogues, fools, impostors, sycophants, they rise,
  They foul the earth and horrify the skies—
  With Mr. Huntington (sole honest man
  In all the reek of that rapscallion clan)
  Denouncing Theft as hard as e'er he can!

THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC MORALS

  The Senate met in Sacramento city;
  On public morals it had no committee
  Though greatly these abounded. Soon the quiet
  Was broken by the Senators in riot.
  Now, at the end of their contagious quarrels,
  There's a committee but no public morals.

CALIFORNIA

      [The Chinaman's Assailant was allowed to walk quietly
      away, although the street was filled with
      pedestrians.—Newspaper.]

  Why should he not have been allowed
  To thread with peaceful feet the crowd
    Which filled that Christian street?
  The Decalogue he had observed,
  From Faith in Jesus had not swerved,
  And scorning pious platitudes,
  He saw in the Beatitudes
    A lamp to guide his feet.

  He knew that Jonah downed the whale
  And made no bones of it. The tale
    That Ananias told
  He swore was true. He had no doubt
  That Daniel laid the lions out.
  In short, he had all holiness,
  All meekness and all lowliness,
    And was with saints enrolled.

  'Tis true, some slight excess of zeal
  Sincerely to promote the weal
    Of this most Christian state
  Had moved him rudely to divide
  The queue that was a pagan's pride,
  And in addition certify
  The Faith by making fur to fly
    From pelt as well as pate?

  But, Heavenly Father, thou dost know
  That in this town these actions go
    For nothing worth a name.
  Nay, every editorial ass,
  To prove they never come to pass
  Will damn his soul eternally,
  Although in his own journal he
    May read the printed shame.

  From bloody hands the reins of pow'r
  Fall slack; the high-decisive hour
    Strikes not for liars' ears.
  Remove, O Father, the disgrace
  That stains our California's face,
  And consecrate to human good
  The strength of her young womanhood
    And all her golden years!

DE YOUNG—A PROPHECY

  Running for Senator with clumsy pace,
  He stooped so low, to win at least a place,
  That Fortune, tempted by a mark so droll,
  Sprang in an kicked him to the winning pole.

TO EITHER

        Back further than
        I know, in San
  Francisco dwelt a wealthy man.
        So rich was he
        That none could be
  Wise, good and great in like degree.

        'Tis true he wrought,
        In deed or thought,
  But few of all the things he ought;
        But men said: "Who
        Would wish him to?
  Great souls are born to be, not do!"

        One thing, indeed,
        He did, we read,
  Which was becoming, all agreed:
        Grown provident,
        Ere life was spent
  He built a mighty monument.

        For longer than
        I know, in San
  Francisco lived a beggar man;
        And when in bed
        They found him dead—
  "Just like the scamp!" the people said.

        He died, they say,
        On the same day
  His wealthy neighbor passed away.
        What matters it
        When beggars quit
  Their beats? I answer: Not a bit.

        They got a spade
        And pick and made
  A hole, and there the chap was laid.
        "He asked for bread,"
        'Twas neatly said:
  "He'll get not even a stone instead."

        The years rolled round:
        His humble mound
  Sank to the level of the ground;
        And men forgot
        That the bare spot
  Was like (and was) the beggar's lot.

        Forgotten, too,
        Was t'other, who
  Had reared the monument to woo
        Inconstant Fame,
        Though still his name
  Shouted in granite just the same.

        That name, I swear,
        They both did bear
  The beggar and the millionaire.
        That lofty tomb,
        Then, honored—whom?
  For argument here's ample room.

        I'll not debate,
        But only state
  The scamp first claimed it at the Gate.
        St. Peter, proud
        To serve him, bowed
  And showed him to the softest cloud.

DISAPPOINTMENT

  The Senate woke; the Chairman's snore
       Was stilled, its echoes balking;
  The startled members dreamed no more,
  For Steele, who long had held the floor,
       Had suddenly ceased talking.

  As, like Elijah, in his pride,
       He to his seat was passing,
  "Go up thou baldhead!" Reddy cried.
  Then six fierce bears ensued and tried
       To sunder him for "sassing."

  Two seized his legs, and one his head,
       The fourth his trunk, to munch on;
  The fifth preferred an arm instead;
  The last, with rueful visage, said:
       "Pray what have I for luncheon?"

  Then to that disappointed bear
       Said Steele, serene and chipper,
  "My friend, you shall not lack your share:
  Look in the Treasury, and there
       You'll find his other flipper."

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF THEFT

  In fair Yosemite, that den of thieves
    Wherein the minions of the moon divide
  The travelers' purses, lo! the Devil grieves,
    His larger share as leader still denied.

  El Capitan, foreseeing that his reign
    May be disputed too, beclouds his head.
  The joyous Bridal Veil is torn in twain
    And the crêpe steamer dangles there instead.

  The Vernal Fall abates her pleasant speed
    And hesitates to take the final plunge,
  For rumors reach her that another greed
    Awaits her in the Valley of the Sponge.

  The Brothers envy the accord of mind
    And peace of purpose (by the good deplored
  As honor among Commissioners) which bind
    That confraternity of crime, the Board.

  The Half-Dome bows its riven face to weep,
    But not, as formerly, because bereft:
  Prophetic dreams afflict him when asleep
    Of losing his remaining half by theft.

  Ambitious knaves! has not the upper sod
    Enough of room for every crime that crawls
  But you must loot the Palaces of God
    And daub your filthy names upon the walls?

DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN

  Within my dark and narrow bed
    I rested well, new-laid:
  I heard above my fleshless head
    The grinding of a spade.

  A gruffer note ensued and grew
    To harsh and harsher strains:
  The poet Welcker then I knew
    Was "snatching" my remains.

  "O Welcker, let your hand be stayed
    And leave me here in peace.
  Of your revenge you should have made
    An end with my decease."

  "Hush, Mouldyshanks, and hear my moan:
    I once, as you're aware,
  Was eminent in letters—known
    And honored everywhere.

  "My splendor made all Berkeley bright
    And Sacramento blind.
  Men swore no writer e'er could write
    Like me—if I'd a mind.

  "With honors all insatiate,
    With curst ambition smit,
  Too far, alas! I tempted fate—
    I published what I'd writ!

  "Good Heaven! with what a hunger wild
    Oblivion swallows fame!
  Men who have known me from a child
    Forget my very name!

  "Even creditors with searching looks
    My face cannot recall;
  My heaviest one—he prints my books—
    Oblivious most of all.

  "O I should feel a sweet content
    If one poor dun his claim
  Would bring to me for settlement,
    And bully me by name.

  "My dog is at my gate forlorn;
    It howls through all the night,
  And when I greet it in the morn
    It answers with a bite!"

  "O Poet, what in Satan's name
    To me's all this ado?
  Will snatching me restore the fame
    That printing snatched from you?"

  "Peace, dread Remains; I'm not about
    To do a deed of sin.
  I come not here to hale you out—
    I'm trying to get in."

THE LAST MAN

  I dreamed that Gabriel took his horn
  On Resurrection's fateful morn,
  And lighting upon Laurel Hill
  Blew long, blew loud, blew high and shrill.
  The houses compassing the ground
  Rattled their windows at the sound.
  But no one rose. "Alas!" said he,
  "What lazy bones these mortals be!"
  Again he plied the horn, again
  Deflating both his lungs in vain;
  Then stood astonished and chagrined
  At raising nothing but the wind.
  At last he caught the tranquil eye
  Of an observer standing by—
  Last of mankind, not doomed to die.
  To him thus Gabriel: "Sir, I pray
  This mystery you'll clear away.
  Why do I sound my note in vain?
  Why spring they not from out the plain?
  Where's Luning, Blythe and Michael Reese,
  Magee, who ran the Golden Fleece?  Where's Asa Fisk? Jim Phelan, who
  Was thought to know a thing or two
  Of land which rose but never sank?
  Where's Con O'Conor of the Bank,
  And all who consecrated lands
  Of old by laying on of hands?
  I ask of them because their worth
  Was known in all they wished—the earth.
  Brisk boomers once, alert and wise,
  Why don't they rise, why don't they rise?"
  The man replied: "Reburied long
  With others of the shrouded throng
  In San Mateo—carted there
  And dumped promiscuous, anywhere,
  In holes and trenches—all misfits—
  Mixed up with one another's bits:
  One's back-bone with another's shin,
  A third one's skull with a fourth one's grin—
  Your eye was never, never fixed
  Upon a company so mixed!
  Go now among them there and blow:
  'Twill be as good as any show
  To see them, when they hear the tones,
  Compiling one another's bones!
  But here 'tis vain to sound and wait:
  Naught rises here but real estate.
  I own it all and shan't disgorge.
  Don't know me? I am Henry George."

ARBOR DAY

  Hasten, children, black and white—
  Celebrate the yearly rite.
  Every pupil plant a tree:
  It will grow some day to be
  Big and strong enough to bear
  A School Director hanging there.

THE PIUTE

  Unbeautiful is the Piute!
    Howe'er bedecked with bravery,
    His person is unsavory—
  Of soap he's destitute.

  He multiplies upon the earth
    In spite of all admonishing;
    All censure his astonishing
  And versatile unworth.

  Upon the Reservation wide
    We give for his inhabiting
    He goes a-jackass rabbiting
  To furnish his inside.

  The hopper singing in the grass
    He seizes with avidity:
    He loves its tart acidity,
  And gobbles all that pass.

  He penetrates the spider's veil,
    Industriously pillages
    The toads' defenseless villages,
  And shadows home the snail.

  He lightly runs to earth the quaint
    Red worm and, deftly troweling,
    He makes it with his boweling
  Familiarly acquaint.

  He tracks the pine-nut to its lair,
    Surrounds it with celerity,
    Regards it with asperity—
  Smiles, and it isn't there!

  I wish he'd open up a grin
    Of adequate vivacity
    And carrying capacity
  To take his Agent in.

FAME

  He held a book in his knotty paws,
    And its title grand read he:
  "The Chronicles of the Kings" it was,
    By the History Companee.
  "I'm a monarch," he said
  (But a tear he shed)
    "And my picter here you see.

  "Great and lasting is my renown,
    However the wits may flout—
  As wide almost as this blessed town"
    (But he winced as if with gout).
  "I paid 'em like sin
  For to put me in,
    But it's O, and O, to be out!"

ONE OF THE REDEEMED

  Saint Peter, standing at the Gate, beheld
  A soul whose body Death had lately felled.

  A pleasant soul as ever was, he seemed:
  His step was joyous and his visage beamed.

  "Good morning, Peter." There was just a touch
  Of foreign accent, but not overmuch.

  The Saint bent gravely, like a stately tree,
  And said: "You have the advantage, sir, of me."

  "Rinan of Paris," said the immortal part—
  "A master of the literary art.

  "I'm somewhat famous, too, I grieve to tell,
  As controversialist and infidel."

  "That's of no consequence," the Saint replied,
  "Why, I myself my Master once denied.

  "No one up here cares anything for that.
  But is there nothing you were always at?

  "It seems to me you were accused one day
  Of something—what it was I can't just say."

  "Quite likely," said the other; "but I swear
  My life was irreproachable and fair."

  Just then a soul appeared upon the wall,
  Singing a hymn as loud as he could bawl.

  About his head a golden halo gleamed,
  As well befitted one of the redeemed.

  A harp he bore and vigorously thumbed,
  Strumming he sang, and, singing, ever strummed.

  His countenance, suffused with holy pride,
  Glowed like a pumpkin with a light inside.

  "Ah! that's the chap," said Peter, "who declares:
  'Rinan's a rake and drunkard—smokes and swears.'

  "Yes, that's the fellow—he's a preacher—came
  From San Francisco. Mansfield was his name."

  "Do you believe him?" said Rinan. "Great Scott!
  Believe? Believe the blackguard? Of course not!
  "Just walk right in and make yourself at home.
  And if he pecks at you I'll cut his comb.

  "He's only here because the Devil swore
  He wouldn't have him, for the smile he wore."

  Resting his eyes one moment on that proof
  Of saving grace, the Frenchman turned aloof,

  And stepping down from cloud to cloud, said he:
  "Thank you, monsieur,—I'll see if he'll have me."

A CRITIC

      [Apparently the Cleveland Leader is not a good judge of
      poetry.—The Morning Call.]

  That from you, neighbor! to whose vacant lot
    Each rhyming literary knacker scourges
  His cart-compelling Pegasus to trot,
    As folly, fame or famine smartly urges?

  Admonished by the stimulating goad,
    How gaily, lo! the spavined crow-bait prances—
  Its cart before it—eager to unload
    The dead-dog sentiments and swill-tub fancies.

  Gravely the sweating scavenger pulls out
    The tail-board of his curst imagination,
  Shoots all his rascal rubbish, and, no doubt,
    Thanks Fortune for so good a dumping-station.

  To improve your property, the vile cascade
    Your thrift invites—to make a higher level.
  In vain: with tons of garbage overlaid,
    Your baseless bog sinks slowly to the devil.

  "Rubbish may be shot here"—familiar sign!
    I seem to see it in your every column.
  You have your wishes, but if I had mine
    'Twould to your editor mean something solemn.

A QUESTION OF ELIGIBILITY

  It was a bruised and battered chap
  The victim of some dire mishap,
  Who sat upon a rock and spent
  His breath in this ungay lament:

  "Some wars—I've frequent heard of such—
  Has beat the everlastin' Dutch!
  But never fight was fit by man
  To equal this which has began
  In our (I'm in it, if you please)
  Academy of Sciences.
  For there is various gents belong
  To it which go persistent wrong,
  And loving the debates' delight
  Calls one another names at sight.
  Their disposition, too, accords
  With fighting like they all was lords!
  Sech impulses should be withstood:
  'Tis scientific to be good.

  "'Twas one of them, one night last week,
  Rose up his figure for to speak:
  'Please, Mr. Chair, I'm holding here
  A resolution which, I fear,
  Some ancient fossils that has bust
  Their cases and shook off their dust
  To sit as Members here will find
  Unpleasant, not to say unkind.'
  And then he read it every word,
  And silence fell on all which heard.
  That resolution, wild and strange,
  Proposed a fundamental change,
  Which was that idiots no more
  Could join us as they had before!

  "No sooner was he seated than
  The members rose up, to a man.
  Each chap was primed with a reply
  And tried to snatch the Chairman's eye.
  They stomped and shook their fists in air,
  And, O, what words was uttered there!

  "The Chair was silent, but at last
  He hove up his proportions vast
  And stilled them tumults with a look
  By which the undauntedest was shook.
  He smiled sarcastical and said:
  'If Argus was the Chair, instead
  Of me, he'd lack enough of eyes
  Each orator to recognize!
  And since, denied a hearing, you
  Might maybe undertake to do
  Each other harm before you cease,
  I've took some steps to keep the peace:
  I've ordered out—alas, alas,
  That Science e'er to such a pass
  Should come!—I've ordered out—the gas!'

  "O if a tongue or pen of fire
  Was mine I could not tell entire
  What the ensuin' actions was.
  When swollered up in darkness' jaws
  We fit and fit and fit and fit,
  And everything we felt we hit!
  We gouged, we scratched and we pulled hair,
  And O, what words was uttered there!
  And when at last the day dawn came
  Three hundred Scientists was lame;
  Two hundred others couldn't stand,
  They'd been so careless handled, and
  One thousand at the very least
  Was spread upon the floor deceased!
  'Twere easy to exaggerate,
  But lies is things I mortal hate.

  "Such, friends, is the disaster sad
  Which has befel the Cal. Acad.
  And now the question is of more
  Importance than it was before:
  Shall vacancies among us be
  To idiots threw open free?"

FLEET STROTHER

  What! you were born, you animated doll,
  Within the shadow of the Capitol?
  'Twas always thought (and Bancroft so assures
  His trusting readers) it was reared in yours.

CALIFORNIAN SUMMER PICTURES

  THE FOOT-HILL RESORT

  Assembled in the parlor
    Of the place of last resort,
  The smiler and the snarler
    And the guests of every sort—
      The elocution chap
      With rhetoric on tap;
    The mimic and the funny dog;
    The social sponge; the money-hog;
      Vulgarian and dude;
      And the prude;
    The adiposing dame
    With pimply face aflame;
    The kitten-playful virgin—
      Vergin' on to fifty years;
    The solemn-looking sturgeon
      Of a firm of auctioneers;
    The widower flirtatious;
    The widow all too gracious;
  The man with a proboscis and a sepulcher beneath.
  One assassin picks the banjo, and another picks his teeth.

  AT ANCHOR

  The soft asphaltum in the sun;
  Betrays a tendency to run;
  Whereas the dog that takes his way
  Across its course concludes to stay.

  THE IN-COMING CLIMATE

  Now o' nights the ocean breeze
    Makes the patient flinch,
  For that zephyr bears a sneeze
    In every cubic inch.
  Lo! the lively population
  Chorusing in sternutation
  A catarrhal acclamation!

  A LONG-FELT WANT

  Dimly apparent, through the gloom
  Of Market-street's opaque simoom,
  A queue of people, parti-sexed,
  Awaiting the command of "Next!"
  A sidewalk booth, a dingy sign:
  "Teeth dusted nice—five cents a shine."

  TO THE HAPPY HUNTING GROUNDS

  Wide windy reaches of high stubble field;
  A long gray road, bordered with dusty pines;
  A wagon moving in a "cloud by day."
  Two city sportsmen with a dove between,
  Breast-high upon a fence and fast asleep—
  A solitary dove, the only dove
  In twenty counties, and it sick, or else
  It were not there. Two guns that fire as one,
  With thunder simultaneous and loud;
  Two shattered human wrecks of blood and bone!
  And later, in the gloaming, comes a man—
  The worthy local coroner is he,
  Renowned all thereabout, and popular
  With many a remain. All tenderly
  Compiling in a game-bag the dibris,
  He glides into the gloom and fades from sight.
  The dove, cured of its ailment by the shock,
  Has flown, meantime, on pinions strong and fleet,
  To die of age in some far foreign land.

SLANDER

  FITCH:

  "All vices you've exhausted, friend;
    So all the papers say."

  PICKERING:

  "Ah, what vile calumnies are penned!—
    'Tis just the other way."

JAMES L. FLOOD

  As oft it happens in the youth of day
  That mists obscure the sun's imperfect ray,
  Who, as he's mounting to the dome's extreme,
  Smites and dispels them with a steeper beam,
  So you the vapors that begirt your birth
  Consumed, and manifested all your worth.
  But still one early vice obstructs the light
  And sullies all the visible and bright
  Display of mind and character. You write.

FOUR CANDIDATES FOR SENATOR

  To flatter your way to the goad of your hope,
    O plausible Mr. Perkins,
  You'll need ten tons of the softest soap
    And butter a thousand firkins.
  The soap you could put to a better use
    In washing your hands of ambition
  Ere the butter's used for cooking your goose
    To a beautiful brown condition.

  "The Railroad can't run Stanford." That is so—
    The tail can't curl the pig; but then, you know,
  Inside the vegetable-garden's pale
    The pig will eat more cabbage than the tail.

  When Sargent struts by all the lawmakers say:
    "Right—left!" It is fair to infer
  The right will get left, nor polar the day
    When he makes that thing to occur.

  Not so, not so, 'tis a joke, that cry—
    Foolish and dull and small:
  He so bores them for votes that they mean to imply
    He's a drill-Sargent, that is all.

  Gods! what a sight! Astride McClure's broad back
  Estee jogs round the Senatorial track,
  The crowd all undecided, as they pass,
  Whether to cheer the man or cheer the ass.
  They stop: the man to lower his feet is seen
  And the tired beast, withdrawing from between,
  Mounts, as they start again, the biped's neck,
  And scarce the crowd can say which one's on deck.

A GROWLER

  Judge Shafter, you're an aged man, I know,
    And learned too, I doubt not, in the law;
  And a head white with many a winter's snow
    (I wish, however that your heart would thaw)
    Claims reverence and honor; but the jaw
  That's always wagging with a word malign,
    Nagging and scolding every one in sight
  As harshly as a jaybird in a pine,
    And with as little sense of wrong and right
  As animates that irritable creature,
  Is not a very venerable feature.

  You damn all witnesses, all jurors too
    (And swear at the attorneys, I suppose,
  But that's commendable) "till all is blue";
    And what it's all about, the good Lord knows,
    Not you; but all the hotter, fiercer glows
  Your wrath for that—as dogs the louder howl
    With only moonshine to incite their rage,
  And bears with more ferocious menace growl,
    Even when their food is flung into the cage.
  Reform, your Honor, and forbear to curse us.
  Lest all men, hearing you, cry: "Ecce ursus!"

AD MOODIUM

  Tut! Moody, do not try to show
    To gentlemen and ladies
  That if they have not "Faith," they'll go
      Headlong to Hades.

  Faith is belief; and how can I
    Have that by being willing?
  This dime I cannot, though I try,
      Believe a shilling.

  Perhaps you can. If so, pray do—
    Believe you own it, also.
  But what seems evidence to you
      I may not call so.

  Heaven knows I'd like the Faith to think
    This little vessel's contents
  Are liquid gold. I see 'tis ink
      For writing nonsense.

  Minds prone to Faith, however, may
    Come now and then to sorrow:
  They put their trust in truth to-day,
      In lies to-morrow.

  No doubt the happiness is great
    To think as one would wish to;
  But not to swallow every bait,
      As certain fish do.

  To think a snake a cord, I hope,
    Would bolden and delight me;
  But some day I might think a rope
      Would chase and bite me.

  "Curst Reason! Faith forever blest!"
    You're crying all the season.
  Well, who decides that Faith is best?
      Why, Mr. Reason.

  He's right or wrong; he answers you
    According to your folly,
  And says what you have taught him to,
      Like any polly.

AN EPITAPH

  Hangman's hands laid in this tomb an
    Imp of Satan's getting, whom an
  Ancient legend says that woman
    Never bore—he owed his birth
    To Sin herself. From Hell to Earth
    She brought the brat in secret state
    And laid him at the Golden gate,
  And they named him Henry Vrooman.
    While with mortals here he stayed,
    His father frequently he played.
  Raised his birth-place and in other
  Playful ways begot his mother.

A SPADE

      [The spade that was used to turn the first sod in the
      construction of the Central Pacific Railroad is to be
      exhibited at the New Orleans Exposition.—Press Telegram.]

  Precursor of our woes, historic spade,
  What dismal records burn upon thy blade!
  On thee I see the maculating stains
  Of passengers' commingled blood and brains.
  In this red rust a widow's curse appears,
  And here an orphan tarnished thee with tears.
  Upon thy handle sanguinary bands
  Reveal the clutching of thine owner's hands
  When first he wielded thee with vigor brave
  To cut a sod and dig a people's grave—
  (For they who are debauched are dead and ought,
  In God's name, to be hid from sight and thought.)
  Within thee, as within a magic glass,
  I seem to see a foul procession pass—
  Judges with ermine dragging in the mud
  And spotted here and there with guiltless blood;
  Gold-greedy legislators jingling bribes;
  Kept editors and sycophantic scribes;
  Liars in swarms and plunderers in tribes;
  They fade away before the night's advance,
  And fancy figures thee a devil's lance
  Gleaming portentous through the misty shade,
  While ghosts of murdered virtues shriek about my blade!

THE VAN NESSIAD

  From end to end, thine avenue, Van Ness,
  Rang with the cries of battle and distress!
  Brave lungs were thundering with dreadful sound
  And perspiration smoked along the ground!
  Sing, heavenly muse, to ears of mortal clay,
  The meaning, cause and finish of the fray.

  Great Porter Ashe (invoking first the gods,
  Who signed their favor with assenting nods
  That snapped off half their heads—their necks grown dry
  Since last the nectar cup went circling by)
  Resolved to build a stable on his lot,
  His neighbors fiercely swearing he should not.
  Said he: "I build that stable!" "No, you don't,"
  Said they. "I can!" "You can't!" "I will!" "You won't!"
  "By heaven!" he swore; "not only will I build,
  But purchase donkeys till the place is filled!"
  "Needless expense," they sneered in tones of ice—
  "The owner's self, if lodged there, would suffice."
  For three long months the awful war they waged:
  With women, women, men with men engaged,
  While roaring babes and shrilling poodles raged!

  Jove, from Olympus, where he still maintains
  His ancient session (with rheumatic pains
  Touched by his long exposure) marked the strife,
  Interminable but by loss of life;
  For malediction soon exhausts the breath—
  If not, old age itself is certain death.
  Lo! he holds high in heaven the fatal beam;
  A golden pan depends from each, extreme;
  This feels of Porter's fate the downward stress,
  That bears the destiny of all Van Ness.
  Alas! the rusted scales, their life all gone,
  Deliver judgment neither pro nor con:
  The dooms hang level and the war goes on.
  With a divine, contemptuous disesteem
  Jove dropped the pans and kicked, himself, the beam:
  Then, to decide the strife, with ready wit,
  The nickel that he did not care for it
  Twirled absently, remarking: "See it spin:
  Head, Porter loses; tail, the others win."
  The conscious nickel, charged with doom, spun round,
  Portentously and made a ringing sound,
  Then, staggering beneath its load of fate,
  Sank rattling, died at last and lay in state.

  Jove scanned the disk and then, as is his wont,
  Raised his considering orbs, exclaiming: "Front!"
  With leisurely alacrity approached
  The herald god, to whom his mind he broached:
  "In San Francisco two belligerent Powers,
  Such as contended round great Ilion's towers,
  Fight for a stable, though in either class
  There's not a horse, and but a single ass.
  Achilles Ashe, with formidable jaw
  Assails a Trojan band with fierce hee-haw,
  Firing the night with brilliant curses. They
  With dark vituperation gloom the day.
  Fate, against which nor gods nor men compete,
  Decrees their victory and his defeat.
  With haste, good Mercury, betake thee hence
  And salivate him till he has no sense!"

  Sheer downward shot the messenger afar,
  Trailing a splendor like a falling star!
  With dimming lustre through the air he burned,
  Vanished, nor till another sun returned.
  The sovereign of the gods superior smiled,
  Beaming benignant, fatherly and mild:
  "Is Destiny's decree performed, my lad?—
  And has he now no sense?" "Ah, sire, he never had."

A FISH COMMISSIONER

  Great Joseph D. Redding—illustrious name!—
  Considered a fish-horn the trumpet of Fame.
  That goddess was angry, and what do you think?
  Her trumpet she filled with a gallon of ink,
  And all through the Press, with a devilish glee,
  She sputtered and spattered the name of J.D.

TO A STRAY DOG

  Well, Towser (I'm thinking your name must be Towser),
    You're a decentish puppy as puppy dogs go,
  For you never, I'm sure, could have dined upon trowser,
    And your tail's unimpeachably curled just so.

  But, dear me! your name—if 'tis yours—is a "poser":
    Its meaning I cannot get anywise at,
  When spoken correctly perhaps it is Toser,
    And means one who toses. Max Muller, how's that?

  I ne'er was ingenious at all at divining
    A word's prehistorical, primitive state,
  Or finding its root, like a mole, by consigning
    Its bloom to the turnep-top's sorrowful fate.

  And, now that I think of it well, I'm no nearer
   The riddle's solution than ever—for how's
  My pretty invented word, "tose," any clearer
    In point of its signification than "towse"?

  So, Towser (or Toser), I mean to rename you
    In honor of some good and eminent man,
  In the light and the heat of whose quickening fame you
    May grow to an eminent dog if you can.

  In sunshine like his you'll not long be a croucher:
   The Senate shall hear you—for that I will vouch.
  Come here, sir. Stand up. I rechristen you Goucher.
   But damn you! I'll shoot you if ever you gouch!

IN HIS HAND

  De Young (in Chicago the story is told)
  "Took his life in his hand," like a warrior bold,
  And stood before Buckley—who thought him behind,
  For Buckley, the man-eating monster is blind.
  "Count fairly the ballots!" so rang the demand
  Of the gallant De Young, with his life in his hand.
  'Tis done, and the struggle is ended. No more
  He havocs the battle-field, gilt with the gore
  Of slain reputations. No more he defies
  His "lying opponents" with deadlier lies.
  His trumpet is hushed and his belt is unbound—
  His enemies' characters cumber the ground.
  They bloat on the war-plain with ink all asoak,
  The fortunate candidates perching to croak.
  No more he will charge, with a daring divine,
  His foes with corruption, his friends by the line.
  The thunders are stilled of the horrid campaign,
  De Young is triumphant, and never again
  Will he need, with his life in his hand, to roar:
  "Count fair or, by G——, I will die on your floor!"
  His life has been spared, for his sins to atone,
  And the hand that he took it in washed with cologne.

A DEMAGOGUE

     "Yawp, yawp, yawp!
     Under the moon and sun.
     It's aye the rabble,
     And I to gabble,
  And hey! for the tale that is never done.

     "Chant, chant, chant!
  To woo the reluctant vote.
     I would I were dead
     And my say were said
  And my song were sung to its ultimate note.

     "Stab, stab, stab!
  Ah! the weapon between my teeth—
     I'm sick of the flash of it;
     See how the slash of it
  Misses the foeman to mangle the sheath!

     "Boom, boom, boom!
  I'm beating the mammoth drum.
    My nethermost tripes
    I blow into the pipes—
  It's oh! for the honors that never come!"

     'Twas the dolorous blab
     Of a tramping "scab"—
     'Twas the eloquent Swift
     Of the marvelous gift—
  The wild, weird, wonderful gift of gab!

IGNIS FATUUS

  Weep, weep, each loyal partisan,
    For Buckley, king of hearts;
  A most accomplished man; a man
  Of parts—of foreign parts.

  Long years he ruled with gentle sway,
    Nor grew his glory dim;
  And he would be with us to-day
    If we were but with him.

  Men wondered at his going off
    In such a sudden way;
  'Twas thought, as he had come to scoff
    He would remain to prey.

  Since he is gone we're all agreed
    That he is what men call
  A crook: his very steps, indeed,
    Are bent—to Montreal.

  So let our tears unhindered flow,
    Our sighs and groans have way:
  It matters not how much we Oh!—
    The devil is to pay.

FROM TOP TO BOTTOM

      [Japan has 73,759 Buddhist priests, "most of whom," says a
      Christian missionary, "are grossly ignorant, and many of them
      lead scandalous lives."]

  O Buddha, had you but foreknown
    The vices of your priesthood
  It would have made you twist and moan
    As any wounded beast would.
  You would have damned the entire lot
  And turned a Christian, would you not?

  There were no Christians, I'll allow,
    In your day; that would only
  Have brought distinction. Even now
    A Christian might feel lonely.
  All take the name, but facts are things
  As stubborn as the will of kings.

  The priests were ignorant and low
    When ridiculed by Lucian;
  The records, could we read, might show
    The same of times Confucian.
  And yet the fact I can't disguise
  That Deacon Rankin's good and wise.

  'Tis true he is not quite a priest,
    Nor more than half a preacher;
  But he exhorts as loud at least
    As any living creature.
  And when the plate is passed about
  He never takes a penny out.

  From Buddha down to Rankin! There,—
    I never did intend to.
  This pen's a buzzard's quill, I swear,
    Such subjects to descend to.
  When from the humming-bird I've wrung
  A plume I'll write of Mike de Young.

AN IDLER

  Who told Creed Haymond he was witty?—who
  Had nothing better in this world to do?
  Could no greased pig's appeal to his embrace
  Kindle his ardor for the friendly chase?
  Did no dead dog upon a vacant lot,
  Bloated and bald, or curdled in a clot,
  Stir his compassion and inspire his arms
  To hide from human eyes its faded charms?

  If not to works of piety inclined,
  Then recreation might have claimed his mind.
  The harmless game that shows the feline greed
  To cinch the shorts and make the market bleed[A]
  Is better sport than victimizing Creed;
  And a far livelier satisfaction comes
  Of knowing Simon, autocrat of thumbs.[B]
  If neither worthy work nor play command
  This gentleman of leisure's heart and hand,
  Then Mammon might his idle spirit lift
  By hope of profit to some deed of thrift.
  Is there no cheese to pare, no flint to skin,
  No tin to mend, no glass to be put in,
  No housewife worthy of a morning visit,
  Her rags and sacks and bottles to solicit?
  Lo! the blind sow's precarious pursuit
  Of the aspiring oak's familiar fruit!—
  'Twould more advantage any man to steal
  This easy victim's undefended meal
  Than tell Creed Haymond he has wit, and so
  Expose the state to his narcotic flow!

  [Footnote A: "Pussy Wants a Corner."]

  [Footnote B: "Simon Says Thumbs Up."]

THE DEAD KING

  Hawaii's King resigned his breath—
    Our Legislature guffawed.
  The awful dignity of death
    Not any single rough awed.
  But when our Legislators die
  All Kings, Queens, Jacks and Aces cry.

A PATTER SONG

  There was a cranky Governor—
    His name it wasn't Waterman.
    For office he was hotter than
  The love of any lover, nor
  Was Boruck's threat of aiding him
  Effective in dissuading him—
    This pig-headed, big-headed, singularly self-conceited Governor Nonwaterman.

  To citrus fairs, et cftera,
    He went about philandering,
    To pride of parish pandering.
  He knew not any better—ah,
  His early education had
  Not taught the abnegation fad—
    The wool-witted, bull-witted, fabulously feeble-minded king of gabble-gandering!

  He conjured up, ad libitum,
    With postures energetical,
    One day (this is prophetical)
  His graces, to exhibit 'em.
  He straddled in each attitude,
  Four parallels of latitude—
    The slab-footed, crab-footed, galloping gregarian, of presence unfsthetical!
  An ancient cow, perceiving that
    His powers of agility
    Transcended her ability
  (A circumstance for grieving at)
  Upon her horns engrafted him
  And to the welkin wafted him—
    The high-rolling, sky-rolling, hurtling hallelujah-lad of peerless volatility!

  A CALLER

  "Why, Goldenson, you're looking very well."
   Said Death as, strolling through the County Jail,
  He entered that serene assassin's cell
    And hung his hat and coat upon a nail.
  "I think that life in this secluded spot
  Agrees with men of your trade, does it not?"

  "Well, yes," said Goldenson, "I can't complain:
    Life anywhere—provided it is mine—
  Agrees with me; but I observe with pain
    That still the people murmur and repine.
  It hurts their sense of harmony, no doubt,
  To see a persecuted man grow stout."

  "O no, 'tis not your growing stout," said Death,
    "Which makes these malcontents complain and scold—
  They like you to be, somehow, scant of breath.
    What they object to is your growing old.
  And—though indifferent to lean or fat—
  I don't myself entirely favor that."

  With brows that met above the orbs beneath,
    And nose that like a soaring hawk appeared,
  And lifted lip, uncovering his teeth,
    The Mamikellikiller coldly sneered:
  "O, so you don't! Well, how will you assuage
  Your spongy passion for the blood of age?"

  Death with a clattering convulsion, drew
    His coat on, hatted his unmeated pow,
  Unbarred the door and, stepping partly through,
    Turned and made answer: "I will show you how.
  I'm going to the Bench you call Supreme
  And tap the old women who sit there and dream."

THE SHAFTER SHAFTED

  Well, James McMillan Shafter, you're a Judge—
    At least you were when last I knew of you;
  And if the people since have made you budge
    I did not notice it. I've much to do
    Without endeavoring to follow, through
  The miserable squabbles, dust and smudge,
  The fate of even the veteran contenders
  Who fight with flying colors and suspenders.
  Being a Judge, 'tis natural and wrong
    That you should villify the public press—
  Save while you are a candidate. That song
    Is easy quite to sing, and I confess
    It wins applause from hearers who have less
  Of spiritual graces than belong
  To audiences of another kidney—
  Men, for example, like Sir Philip Sidney.

  Newspapers, so you say, don't always treat
    The Judges with respect. That may be so
  And still no harm done, for I swear I'll eat
    My legs and in the long hereafter go,
    Snake-like, upon my belly if you'll show
  All Judges are respectable and sweet.
  For some of them are rogues and the world's laughter's
  Directed at some others, for they're Shafters.

THE MUMMERY

THE TWO CAVEES

  DRAMATIS PERSONF.

  FITCH                              a Pelter of Railrogues  PICKERING                    his Partner, an Enemy to Sin  OLD NICK                            a General Blackwasher  DEAD CAT                                        a Missile  ANTIQUE EGG                                       Another  RAILROGUES, DUMP-CARTERS. NAVVIES and Unassorted SHOVELRY in the Lower Distance

  Scene—The Brink of a Railway Cut, a Mile Deep.

  Time—1875.

  FITCH:

  Gods! what a steep declivity! Below
  I see the lazy dump-carts come and go,
  Creeping like beetles and about as big.
  The delving Paddies—

  PICKERING:

                Case of infra dig.
  FITCH:

  Loring, light-minded and unmeaning quips
  Come with but scant propriety from lips
  Fringed with the blue-black evidence of age.
  'Twere well to cultivate a style more sage,
  For men will fancy, hearing how you pun,
  Our foulest missiles are but thrown in fun.

                          (Enter Dead Cat.)

  Here's one that thoughtfully has come to hand;
  Slant your fine eye below and see it land.
    (Seizes Dead Cat by the tail and swings it in act to throw.)

  DEAD CAT (singing):

  Merrily, merrily, round I go—
    Over and under and at.
  Swing wide and free, swing high and low
    The anti-monopoly cat!

  O, who wouldn't be in the place of me,
    The anti-monopoly cat?
      Designed to admonish,
      Persuade and astonish
  The capitalist and—

  FITCH (letting go):
                    Scat!
                           (Exit Dead Cat.)

  PICKERING:

  Huzza! good Deacon, well and truly flung!
  Pat Stanford it has grassed, and Mike de Young.
  Mike drives a dump-cart for the villains, though
  'Twere fitter that he pull it. Well, we owe
  The traitor one for leaving us!—some day
  We'll get, if not his place, his cart away.
  Meantime fling missiles—any kind will do.
                                  (Enter Antique Egg.)  Ha! we can give them an ovation, too!

  ANTIQUE EGG:

      In the valley of the Nile,
      Where the Holy Crocodile
      Of immeasurable smile
      Blossoms like the early rose,
      And the Sacred Onion grows—
      When the Pyramids were new
      And the Sphinx possessed a nose,
      By a storkess I was laid
      In the cool papyrus shade,
      Where the rushes later grew,
      That concealed the little Jew,
            Baby Mose.

      Straining very hard to hatch,
      I disrupted there my yolk;
      And I felt my yellow streaming
            Through my white;
      And the dream that I was dreaming
      Of posterity was broke
            In a night.
      Then from the papyrus-patch
      By the rising waters rolled,
      Passing many a temple old,
      I proceeded to the sea.
      Memnon sang, one morn, to me,
      And I heard Cambyses sass
      The tomb of Ozymandias!

  FITCH:

  O, venerablest orb of all the earth,
  God rest the lady fowl that gave thee birth!
  Fit missile for the vilest hand to throw—
  I freely tender thee mine own. Although
  As a bad egg I am myself no slouch,
  Thy riper years thy ranker worth avouch.
  Now, Pickering, please expose your eye and say
  If—whoop!—
                                          (Exit egg.)               I've got the range.

  PICKERING:
                                   Hooray! hooray!
  A grand good shot, and Teddy Colton's down:
  It burst in thunderbolts upon his crown!
  Larry O'Crocker drops his pick and flies,
  And deafening odors scream along the skies!
  Pelt 'em some more.

  FITCH:

                   There's nothing left but tar—
  wish I were a Yahoo.

  PICKERING:

                     Well, you are.
  But keep the tar. How well I recollect,
  When Mike was in with us—proud, strong, erect—
  Mens conscia recti—flinging mud, he stood,
  Austerely brave, incomparably good,
  Ere yet for filthy lucre he began
  To drive a cart as Stanford's hired man,
  That pitch-pot bearing in his hand, Old Nick
  Appeared and tarred us all with the same stick.
                             (Enter Old Nick).
  I hope he won't return and use his arts
  To make us part with our immortal parts.

  OLD NICK:

  Make yourself easy on that score my lamb;
  For both your souls I wouldn't give a damn!
  I want my tar-pot—hello! where's the stick?

  FITCH:

  Don't look at me that fashion!—look at Pick.

  PICKERING:

  Forgive me, father—pity my remorse!
  Truth is—Mike took that stick to spank his horse.
  It fills my pericardium with grief
  That I kept company with such a thief.

  (Endeavoring to get his handkerchief, he opens his coat and
  the tar-stick falls out. Nick picks it up, looks at the culprit
  reproachfully and withdraws in tears.)

  FITCH (excitedly):

  O Pickering, come hither to the brink—
  There's something going on down there, I think!
  With many an upward smile and meaning wink
  The navvies all are running from the cut
  Like lunatics, to right and left—

  PICKERING:
                                     Tut, tut—
  'Tis only some poor sport or boisterous joke.
  Let us sit down and have a quiet smoke.
                           (They sit and light cigars.)

        FITCH (singing):

      When first I met Miss Toughie
        I smoked a fine cigyar,
      An' I was on de dummy
        And she was in de cyar.

        BOTH (singing):

      An' I was on de dummy
        And she was in de cyar.

        FITCH (singing):

      I couldn't go to her,
        An' she wouldn't come to me;
      An' I was as oneasy
        As a gander on a tree.

        BOTH (singing):

      An' I was as oneasy
        As a gander on a tree.

        FITCH (singing):

      But purty soon I weakened
        An' lef' de dummy's bench,
      An' frew away a ten-cent weed
        To win a five-cent wench!

        BOTH (singing)

      An' frew away a ten-cent weed
        To win a five-cent wench!

  FITCH:

  Is there not now a certain substance sold
  Under the name of fulminate of gold,
  A high explosive, popular for blasting,
  Producing an effect immense and lasting?

  PICKERING:

  Nay, that's mere superstition. Rocks are rent
  And excavations made by argument.
  Explosives all have had their day and season;
  The modern engineer relies on reason.
  He'll talk a tunnel through a mountain's flank
  And by fair speech cave down the tallest bank.

  (The earth trembles, a deep subterranean explosion is heard
  and a section of the bank as big as El Capitan starts away and
  plunges thunderously into the cut. A part of it strikes De
  Young's dumpcart abaft the axletree and flings him, hurtling,
  skyward, a thing of legs and arms, to descend on the distant
  mountains, where it is cold. Fitch and Pickering pull themselves
  out of the dibris and stand ungraveling their eyes and
  noses.)

  FITCH:

  Well, since I'm down here I will help to grade,
  And do dirt-throwing henceforth with a spade.

  PICKERING:

  God bless my soul! it gave me quit a start.
  Well, fate is fate—I guess I'll drive this cart.
                 (Curtain.)

METEMPSYCHOSIS

  DRAMATIS PERSONF.

  ST. JOHN                        a Presidential Candidate  MCDONALD                             a Defeated Aspirant  MRS. HAYES                               an Ex-President  PITTS-STEVENS                              a Water Nymph
  Scene—A Small Lake in the Alleghany Mountains.

  ST. JOHN:

  Hours I've immersed my muzzle in this tarn
  And, quaffing copious potations, tried
  To suck it dry; but ever as I pumped
  Its waters into my distended skin
  The labor of my zeal extruded them
  In perspiration from my pores; and so,
  Rilling the marginal declivity,
  They fell again into their source. Ah, me!
  Could I but find within these ancient hills
  Some long extinct volcano, by the rains
  Of countless ages in its crater brimmed
  Like a full goblet, I would lay me down
  Prone on the outer slope, and o'er its edge
  Arching my neck, I'd siphon out its store
  And flood the valleys with my sweat for aye.
  So should I be accounted as a god,
  Even as Father Nilus is. What's that?
  Methought I heard some sawyer draw his file
  With jarring, stridulous cacophany
  Across his notchy blade, to set its teeth
  And mine on edge. Ha! there it goes again!

  Song, within.

    Cold water's the milk of the mountains,
      And Nature's our wet-nurse. O then,
    Glue thou thy blue lips to her fountains
      Forever and ever, amen!

  ST. JOHN:

  Why surely there's congenial company
  Aloof—the spirit, I suppose, that guards
  This sacred spot; perchance some water-nymph
  Who laving in the crystal flood her limbs
  Has taken cold, and so, with raucous voice
  Afflicts the sensitive membrane of mine ear
  The while she sings my sentiments.
                       (Enter Pitts-Stevens.)                                      Hello!
  What fiend is this?

  PITTS-STEVENS:

  'Tis I, be not afraid.

  ST. JOHN:

  And who, thou antiquated crone, art thou?
  I ne'er forget a face, but names I can't
  So well remember. I have seen thee oft.
  When in the middle season of the night,
  Curved with a cucumber, or knotted hard
  With an eclectic pie, I've striven to keep
  My head and heels asunder, thou has come,
  With sociable familiarity,
  Into my dream, but not, alas, to bless.

  PITTS-STEVENS:

  My name's Pitts-Stevens, age just seventeen years;
  Talking teetotaler, professional
  Beauty.

  ST. JOHN:

  What dost thou here?

  PITTS-STEVENS:

  I'm come, fair sir,
  With paint and brush to blazon on these rocks
  The merits of my master's nostrum—so:
                                  (Paints rapidly.)  "McDonald's Vinegar Bitters!"

  ST. JOHN:

  What are they?

  PITTS-STEVENS:

  A woman suffering from widowhood
  Took a full bottle and was cured. A man
  There was—a murderer; the doctors all
  Had given him up—he'd but an hour to live.
  He swallowed half a glassful. He is dead,
  But not of Vinegar Bitters. A wee babe
  Lay sick and cried for it. The mother gave
  That innocent a spoonful and it smoothed
  Its pathway to the tomb. 'Tis warranted
  To cause a boy to strike his father, make
  A pig squeal, start the hair upon a stone,
  Or play the fiddle for a country dance.
  (Enter McDonald, reading a Sunday-school book.)  Good morrow, sir; I trust you're well.

  MCDONALD:

  H'lo, Pitts!
  Observe, good friends, I have a volume here
  Myself am author of—a noble book
  To train the infant mind (delightful task!)
  It tells how one Samantha Brown, age, six,
  A gutter-bunking slave to rum, was saved
  By Vinegar Bitters, went to church and now
  Has an account at the Pacific Bank.
  I'll read the whole work to you.

  ST JOHN:
                                  Heaven forbid!
  I've elsewhere an engagement.

  PITTS-STEVENS:
                               I am deaf.

  MCDONALD (reading regardless):
  "Once on a time there lived"——

  (Enter Mrs. Hayes.)                                  Behold our queen!

  ALL:

  Her eyes upon the ground
    Before her feet she low'rs,
  Walking, in thought profound,
    As 'twere, upon all fours.
  Her visage is austere,
    Her gait a high parade;
  At every step you hear
    The sloshing lemonade!

  MRS. HAYES (to herself):
  Once, sitting in the White House, hard at work
  Signing State papers (Rutherford was there,
  Knitting some hose) a sudden glory fell
  Upon my paper. I looked up and saw
  An angel, holding in his hand a rod
  Wherewith he struck me. Smarting with the blow
  I rose and (cuffing Rutherford) inquired:
  "Wherefore this chastisement?" The angel said:
  "Four years you have been President, and still
  There's rum!"—then flew to Heaven. Contrite, I swore
  Such oath as lady Methodist might take,
  My second term should medicine my first.
  The people would not have it that way; so
  I seek some candidate who'll take my soul—
  My spirit of reform, fresh from my breast,
  And give me his instead; and thus equipped
  With my imperious and fiery essence,
  Drive the Drink-Demon from the land and fill
  The people up with water till their teeth
  Are all afloat.

                      (St. John discovers himself.)
            What, you?

  ST. JOHN:

                      Aye, Madam, I'll
  Swap souls with you and lead the cold sea-green
  Amphibians of Prohibition on,
  Pallid of nose and webbed of foot, swim-bladdered,
  Gifted with gills, invincible!

  MRS. HAYES:

                      Enough,
  Stand forth and consummate the interchange.

  (While McDonald and Pitts-Stevens modestly turn their
  backs, the latter blushing a delicate shrimp-pink, St. John and
  Mrs. Hayes effect an exchange of immortal parts. When the
  transfer is complete McDonald turns and advances, uncorking
  a bottle of Vinegar Bitters.)

  MCDONALD (chanting):

      Nectar compounded of simples
        Cocted in Stygian shades—
      Acids of wrinkles and pimples
        From faces of ancient maids—
      Acrid precipitates sunken
        From tempers of scolding wives
      Whose husbands, uncommonly drunken,
        Are commonly found in dives,—
      With this I baptize and appoint thee
                                          (to St. John.)
        To marshal the vinophobe ranks.
      In the name of Dambosh I anoint thee
                     (pours the liquid down St. John's back.)
        As King of aquatical cranks!

  (The liquid blisters the royal back, and His Majesty starts
  on a dead run, energetically exclaiming. Exit St. John.)

  MRS. HAYES:

  My soul! My soul! I'll never get it back
  Unless I follow nimbly on his track.
                                    (Exit Mrs. Hayes.)

  PITTS-STEVENS:

  O my! he's such a beautiful young man!
  I'll follow, too, and catch him if I can.
                                       (Exit Pitts-Stevens.)

  MCDONALD:

  He scarce is visible, his dust so great!
  Methinks for so obscure a candidate
  He runs quite well. But as for Prohibition—
  I mean myself to hold the first position.

  (Produces a pocket flask, topes a cruel quantity of double-distilled
  thunder-and-lightning out of it, smiles so grimly as to
  darken all the stage and sings):

      Though fortunes vary let all be merry,
        And then if e'er a disaster befall,
      At Styx's ferry is Charon's wherry
              In easy call.

      Upon a ripple of golden tipple
        That tipsy ship'll convey you best.
      To king and cripple, the bottle's the nipple
              Of Nature's breast!

                  (Curtain.)

SLICKENS

  DRAMATIS PERSONF.

  HAYSEED                                          a Granger  NOZZLE                                             a Miner  RINGDIVVY                                      a Statesman  FEEGOBBLE                                         a Lawyer  JUNKET                                         a Committee
  Scene—Yuba Dam.

  Feegobble, Ringdivvy, Nozzle.

  NOZZLE:

  My friends, since '51 I have pursued
  The evil tenor of my watery way,
  Removing hills as by an act of faith—

  RINGDIVVY:

  Just so; the steadfast faith of those who hold,
  In foreign lands beyond the Eastern sea,
  The shares in your concern—a simple, blind,
  Unreasoning belief in dividends,
  Still stimulated by assessments which,
  When the skies fall, ensnaring all the larks,
  Will bring, no doubt, a very great return.

  ALL (singing):

          O the beautiful assessment,
          The exquisite assessment,
          The regular assessment,
            That makes the water flow.

  RINGDIVVY:

          The rascally-assessment!

  FEEGOBBLE:

          The murderous assessment!

  NOZZLE:

          The glorious assessment
            That makes my mare to go!

  FEEGOBBLE:

  But, Nozzle, you, I think, were on the point
  Of making a remark about some rights—
  Some certain vested rights you have acquired
  By long immunity; for still the law
  Holds that if one do evil undisturbed
  His right to do so ripens with the years;
  And one may be a villain long enough
  To make himself an honest gentleman.

  ALL (singing):

          Hail, holy law,
          The soul with awe
            Bows to thy dispensation.

  NOZZLE:

          It breaks my jaw!

  RINGDIVVY:

          It qualms my maw!

  FEEGOBBLE:

          It feeds my jaw,
          It crams my maw,
            It is my soul's salvation!

  NOZZLE:

  Why, yes, I've floated mountains to the sea
  For lo! these many years; though some, they say,
  Do strand themselves along the bottom lands
  And cover up a village here and there,
  And here and there a ranch. 'Tis said, indeed,
  The granger with his female and his young
  Do not infrequently go to the dickens
  By premature burial in slickens.

  ALL (singing):

          Could slickens forever
          Choke up the river,
          And slime's endeavor
            Be tried on grain,
          How small the measure
          Of granger's treasure,
            How keen his pain!

  RINGDIVVY:

  "A consummation devoutly to be wished!"
  These rascal grangers would long since have been
  Submerged in slimes, to the last man of them,
  But for the fact that all their wicked tribes
  Affect our legislation with their bribes.

  ALL (singing):

          O bribery's great—
          'Tis a pillar of State,
            And the people they are free.

  FEEGOBBLE:

          It smashes my slate!

  NOZZLE:

          It is thievery straight!

  RINGDIVVY:

          But it's been the making of me!

  NOZZLE:

  I judge by certain shrewd sensations here
  In these callosities I call my thumbs—
  thrilling sense as of ten thousand pins,
  Red-hot and penetrant, transpiercing all
  The cuticle and tickling through the nerves—
  That some malign and awful thing draws near.

                                     (Enter Hayseed.)

  Good Lord! here are the ghosts and spooks of all
  The grangers I have decently interred,
  Rolled into one!

  FEEGOBBLE:

                  Plead, phantom.

  RINGDIVVY:

                                     You've the floor.

  HAYSEED:

        From the margin of the river
        (Bitter Creek, they sometimes call it)
        Where I cherished once the pumpkin,
        And the summer squash promoted,
        Harvested the sweet potato,
        Dallied with the fatal melon
        And subdued the fierce cucumber,
        I've been driven by the slickens,
        Driven by the slimes and tailings!
        All my family—my Polly
        Ann and all my sons and daughters,
        Dog and baby both included—
        All were swamped in seas of slickens,
        Buried fifty fathoms under,
        Where they lie, prepared to play their
        Gentle prank on geologic
        Gents that shall exhume them later,
        In the dim and distant future,
        Taking them for melancholy
        Relics antedating Adam.
        I alone got up and dusted.

  NOZZLE:

  Avaunt! you horrid and infernal cuss!
  What dire distress have you prepared for us?

  RINGDIVVY:

      Were I a buzzard stooping from the sky
        My craw with filth to fill,
      Into your honorable body I
        Would introduce a bill.

  FEEGOBBLE:

  Defendant, hence, or, by the gods, I'll brain thee!—
  Unless you saved some turneps to retain me.

  HAYSEED:

  As I was saying, I got up and dusted,
  My ranch a graveyard and my business busted!
  But hearing that a fellow from the City,
  Who calls himself a Citizens' Committee,
  Was coming up to play the very dickens,
  With those who cover up our farms with slickens,
  And make himself—unless I am in error—
  To all such miscreants a holy terror,
  I thought if I would join the dialogue
  I maybe might get payment for my dog.

  ALL (Singing):

  O the dog is the head of Creation,
    Prime work of the Master's hand;
  He hasn't a known occupation,
    Yet lives on the fat of the land.
  Adipose, indolent, sleek and orbicular,
  Sun-soaken, door matted, cross and particular,
  Men, women, children, all coddle and wait on him,
  Then, accidentally shutting the gate on him,
  Miss from their calves, ever after, the rifted out
  Mouthful of tendons that doggy has lifted out!
                                (Enter Junket.)

  JUNKET:

  Well met, my hearties! I must trouble you
  Jointly and severally to provide
  A comfortable carriage, with relays
  Of hardy horses. This Committee means
  To move in state about the country here.
  I shall expect at every place I stop
  Good beds, of course, and everything that's nice,
  With bountiful repast of meat and wine.
  For this Committee comes to sea and mark
  And inwardly digest.

  HAYSEED:

                     Digest my dog!

  NOZZLE:

  First square my claim for damages: the gold
  Escaping with the slickens keeps me poor!

  RINGDIVVY:

  I merely would remark that if you'd grease
  My itching palm it would more glibly glide
  Into the public pocket.

  FEEGOBBLE:

                     Sir, the wheels
  Of justice move but slowly till they're oiled.
  I have some certain writs and warrants here,
  Prepared against your advent. You recall
  The tale of Zaccheus, who did climb a tree,
  And Jesus said: "Come down"?

  JUNKET:

                     Why, bless your souls!
  I've got no money; I but came to see
  What all this noisy babble is about,
  Make a report and file the same away.

  NOZZLE, RINGDIVVY, FEEGOBBLE, HAYSEED:

  How'll that help us? Reports are not our style
  Of provender!

  JUNKET:

                     Well, you can gnaw the file.

                      (Curtain.)

  "PEACEABLE EXPULSION"

  DRAMATIS PERSONF.

  MOUNTWAVE                a Politician  HARDHAND                 a Workingman  TOK BAK                    a Chinaman  SATAN           a Friend to Mountwave
  CHORUS OF FOREIGN VOTERS.

  MOUNTWAVE:

  My friend, I beg that you will lend your ears
  (I know 'tis asking a good deal of you)
  While I for your instruction nominate
  Some certain wrongs you suffer. Men like you
  Imperfectly are sensible of all
  The miseries they actually feel.
  Hence, Providence has prudently raised up
  Clear-sighted men like me to diagnose
  Their cases and inform them where they're hurt.
  The wounds of honest workingmen I've made
  A specialty, and probing them's my trade.

  HARDHAND:

  Well, Mister, s'pose you let yer bossest eye
  Camp on my mortal part awhile; then you
  Jes' toot my sufferin's an' tell me what's
  The fashionable caper now in writhes—
  The very swellest wiggle.

  MOUNTWAVE:

                                 Well, my lad,
  'Tis plain as is the long, conspicuous nose
  Borne, ponderous and pendulous, between
  The elephant's remarkable eye-teeth
                                     (Enter Tok Bak.)
  That Chinese competition's what ails you.

  BOTH (Singing):

              O pig-tail Celestial,
              O barbarous bestial,
                Abominable Chinee!
              Simian fellow man,
              Primitive yellow man,
                Joshian devotee!
              Shoe-and-cigar machine,
              Oleomargarine
                You are, and butter are we—
              Fat of the land are we,
                Salt of the earth;
              In God's image planned to be—
                Noble in birth!
              You, on the contrary,
              Modeled upon very
                Different lines indeed,
              Show in conspicuous,
              Base and ridiculous
                Ways your inferior breed.
              Wretched apology,
              Shame of ethnology,
                Monster unspeakably low!
              Fit to be buckshotted—
              Be you 'steboycotted.
                Vanish—vamoose—mosy—Go!

  TOK BAK:

  You listen me! You beatee the big dlum
  An' tell me go to Flowly Kingdom Come.
  You all too muchee fool. You chinnee heap.
  Such talkee like my washee—belly cheap!
                            (Enter Satan.)
  You dlive me outee clunty towns all way;
  Why you no tackle me Safflisco, hay?

  SATAN:

  Methought I heard a murmuring of tongues
  Sound through the ceiling of the hollow earth,
  As if the anti-coolie ques——ha! friends,
  Well met. You see I keep my ancient word:
  Where two or three are gathered in my name,
  There am I in their midst.

  MOUNTWAVE:

                             O monstrous thief!
  To quote the words of Shakespeare as your own.
  I know his work.

  HARDHAND:

                   Who's Shakespeare?—what's his trade?
  I've heard about the work o' that galoot
  Till I'm jest sick!

  TOK BAK:

                      Go Sunny school—you'll know
  Mo' Bible. Bime by pleach—hell-talkee. Tell
  'Bout Abel—mebby so he live too cheap.
  He mebby all time dig on lanch—no dlink,
  No splee—no go plocession fo' make vote—
  No sendee money out of clunty fo'
  To helpee Ilishmen. Cain killum. Josh
  He catchee at it, an' he belly mad—
  Say: "Allee Melicans boycottee Cain."
  Not muchee—you no pleachee that:
  You all same lie.

  MOUNTWAVE:

                     This cuss must be expelled.
                                     (Draws pistol.)

  MOUNTWAVE, HARDHAND, SATAN (singing):

      For Chinese expulsion, hurrah!
        To mobbing and murder, all hail!
      Away with your justice and law—
        We'll make every pagan turn tail.

  CHORUS OF FOREIGN VOTERS:

      Bedad! oof dot tief o'ze vorld—
      Zat Ivan Tchanay vos got hurled
      In Hella, da debil he say:
     "Wor be yer return pairmit, hey?"
      Und gry as 'e shaka da boot:
     "Zis haythen haf nevaire been oot!"

  HARDHAND:

  Too many cooks are working at this broth—
  I think, by thunder, t'will be mostly froth!
  I'm cussed ef I can sarvy, up to date,
  What good this dern fandango does the State.

  MOUNTWAVE:

  The State's advantage, sir, you may not see,
  But think how good it is for me.

  SATAN:

                                  And me.

                   (Curtain.)

ASPIRANTS THREE

  DRAMATIS PERSONF.

  QUICK:
       DE YOUNG      a Brother to Mushrooms
  DEAD:
       SWIFT                    an Heirloom       ESTEE                        a Relic
  IMMORTALS:
       THE SPIRIT OF BROKEN HOPES. THE AUTHOR.

  MISCELLANEOUS:
       A TROUPE OF COFFINS. THE MOON. VARIOUS COLORED FIRES.

  Scene—The Political Graveyard at Bone Mountain.

  DE YOUNG:

  This is the spot agreed upon. Here rest
  The sainted statesman who upon the field
  Of honor have at various times laid down
  Their own, and ended, ignominious,
  Their lives political. About me, lo!
  Their silent headstones, gilded by the moon,
  Half-full and near her setting—midnight. Hark!
  Through the white mists of this portentous night
  (Which throng in moving shapes about my way,
  As they were ghosts of candidates I've slain,
  To fray their murderer) my open ear,
  Spacious to maw the noises of the world,
  Engulfs a footstep.
               (Enter Estee from his tomb.)
                      Ah, 'tis he, my foe,
  True to appointment; and so here we fight—
  Though truly 'twas my firm belief that he
  Would send regrets, or I had not been here.

  ESTEE:

  O moon that hast so oft surprised the deeds
  Whereby I rose to greatness!—tricksy orb,
  The type and symbol of my politics,
  Now draw my ebbing fortunes to their flood,
  As, by the magic of a poultice, boils
  That burn ambitions with defeated fires
  Are lifted into eminence.
                           (Sees De Young.)
                           What? you!
  Faith, if I had suspected you would come
  From the fair world of politics wherein
  So lately you were whelped, and which, alas,
  I vainly to revisit strive, though still
  Rapped on the rotting head and bidden sleep
  Till Resurrection's morn,—if I had thought
  You would accept the challenge that I flung
  I would have seen you damned ere I came forth
  In the night air, shroud-clad and shivering,
  To fight so mean a thing! But since you're here,
  Draw and defend yourself. By gad, we'll see  Who'll be Postmaster-General!

  DE YOUNG:

                                We will—
  I'll fight (for I am lame) with any blue
  And redolent remain that dares aspire
  To wreck the Grand Old Grandson's cabinet.
  Here's at you, nosegay!

  (They draw tongues and are about to fight, when from an
  adjacent whited sepulcher, enter Swift.)

  SWIFT:

                  Hold! put up your tongues!
  Within the confines of this sacred spot
  Broods such a holy calm as none may break
  By clash of weapons, without sacrilege.
            (Beats down their tongues with a bone.)
  Madmen! what profits it? For though you fought
  With such heroic skill that both survived,
  Yet neither should achieve the prize, for I
  Would wrest it from him. Let us not contend,
  But friendliwise by stipulation fix
  A slate for mutual advantage. Why,
  Having the pick and choice of seats, should we
  Forego them all but one? Nay, we'll take three,
  And part them so among us that to each
  Shall fall the fittest to his powers. In brief,
  Let us establish a Portfolio Trust.

  ESTEE:

                                      Agreed.

  DE YOUNG:

                  Aye, truly, 'tis a greed—and one
  The offices imperfectly will sate,
  But I'll stand in.

  SWIFT:

                     Well, so 'tis understood,
  As you're the junior member of the Trust,
  Politically younger and undead,
  Speak, Michael: what portfolio do you choose?

  DE YOUNG:

  I've thought the Postal service best would serve
  My interest; but since I have my pick,
  I'll take the War Department. It is known
  Throughout the world, from Market street to Pine,
  (For a Chicago journal told the tale)
  How in this hand I lately took my life
  And marched against great Buckley, thundering
  My mandate that he count the ballots fair!
  Earth heard and shrank to half her size! Yon moon,
  Which rivaled then a liver's whiteness, paused
  That night at Butchertown and daubed her face
  With sheep's blood! Then my serried rank I drew
  Back to my stronghold without loss. To mark
  My care in saving human life and limb,
  The Peace Society bestowed on me
  Its leather medal and the title, too,
  Of Colonel. Yes, my genius is for war. Good land!
  I naturally dote on a brass band!

                       (Sings.)

  O, give me a life on the tented field,
    Where the cannon roar and ring,
  Where the flag floats free and the foemen yield
    And bleed as the bullets sing.
  But be it not mine to wage the fray
  Where matters are ordered the other way,
    For that is a different thing.

  O, give me a life in the fierce campaign—
    Let it be the life of my foe:
  I'd rather fall upon him than the plain;
    That service I'd fain forego.
  O, a warrior's life is fine and free,
  But a warrior's death—ah me! ah me!
    That's a different thing, you know.

  ESTEE:

  Some claim I might myself advance to that
  Portfolio. When Rebellion raised its head,
  And you, my friends, stayed meekly in your shirts,
  I marched with banners to the party stump,
  Spat on my hands, made faces fierce as death,
  Shook my two fists at once and introduced
  Brave resolutions terrible to read!
  Nay, only recently, as you do know,
  I conquered Treason by the word of mouth,
  And slew, with Samson's weapon, the whole South!

  SWIFT:

  You once fought Stanford, too.

  ESTEE:

                                Enough of that—
  Give me the Interior and I'll devote
  My mind to agriculture and improve
  The breed of cabbages, especially
  The Brassica Celeritatis, named
  For you because in days of long ago
  You sold it at your market stall,—and, faith,
  'Tis said you were an honest huckster then.
  I'll be Attorney-General if you
  Prefer; for know I am a lawyer too!

  SWIFT:

  I never have heard that!—did you, De Young?

  DE YOUNG:

  Never, so help me! And I swear I've heard
  A score of Judges say that he is not.

  SWIFT (to Estee):

  You take the Interior. I might aspire
  To military station too, for once
  I led my party into Pixley's camp,
  And he paroled me. I defended, too,
  The State of Oregon against the sharp
  And bloody tooth of the Australian sheep.
  But I've an aptitude exceeding neat
  For bloodless battles of diplomacy.
  My cobweb treaty of Exclusion once,
  Through which a hundred thousand coolies sailed,
  Was much admired, but most by Colonel Bee.
  Though born a tinker I'm a diplomat
  From old Missouri, and I—ha! what's that?

  (Exit Moon. Enter Blue Lights on all the tombs, and a
  circle of Red Fire on the grass; in the center the Spirit of
  Broken Hopes, and round about, a Troupe of Coffins, dancing
  and singing.)

  CHORUS OF COFFINS:

          Two bodies dead and one alive—
            Yo, ho, merrily all!
          Now for boodle strain and strive—
            Buzzards all a-warble, O!
          Prophets three, agape for bread;
          Raven with a stone instead—
            Providential raven!
          Judges two and Colonel one—
          Run, run, rustics, run!
          But it's O, the pig is shaven,
            And oily, oily all!

  (Exeunt Coffins, dancing. The Spirit of Broken Hopes
  advances, solemnly pointing at each of the Three Worthies in
  turn.)

  SPIRIT OF BROKEN HOPES:

        Governor, Governor, editor man,
  Rusty, musty, spick-and-span,
  Harlequin, harridan, dicky-dout,
  Demagogue, charlatan—o, u, t, OUT!
                      (De Young falls and sleeps.)

      Antimonopoler, diplomat,
      Railroad lackey, political rat,
      One, two, three—SCAT!
                      (Swift falls and sleeps.)

  Boycotting chin-worker, working to woo
  Fortune, the fickle, to smile upon you,
  Jo-coated acrobat, shuttle-cock—SHOO!
                      (Estee falls and sleeps.)

      Now they lie in slumber sweet,
      Now the charm is all complete,
      Hasten I with flying feet
      Where beyond the further sea
      A babe upon its mother's knee
      Is gazing into skies afar
      And crying for a golden star.
      I'll drag a cloud across the blue
      And break that infant's heart in two!

  (Exeunt the Spirit of Broken Hopes and the Red and Blue
  Fires. Re-enter Moon.)

  ESTEE (waking):

  Why, this is strange! I dreamed I know not what,
  It seemed that certain apparitions were,
  Which sang uncanny words, significant
  And yet ambiguous—half-understood—
  Portending evil; and an awful spook,
  Even as I stood with my accomplices,
  Counted me out, as children do in play.
  Is that you, Mike?

  DE YOUNG (waking):
  It was.

  SWIFT (waking):
                     Am I all that?
  Then I'll reform my ways.
  (Reforms his ways.)  Ah! had I known
  How sweet it is to be an honest man
  I never would have stooped to turn my coat
  For public favor, as chameleons take
  The hue (as near as they can judge) of that
  Supporting them. Henceforth I'll buy
  With money all the offices I need,
  And know the pleasure of an honest life,
  Or stay forever in this dismal place.
  Now that I'm good, it will no longer do
  To make a third with such, a wicked two.
  (Returns to his tomb.)
  DE YOUNG:

  Prophetic dream! by some good angel sent
  To make me with a quiet life content.
  The question shall no more my bosom irk,
  To go to Washington or go to work.
  From Fame's debasing struggle I'll withdraw,
  And taking up the pen lay down the law.
  I'll leave this rogue, lest my example make
  An honest man of him—his heart would break.
  (Exit De Young.)
  ESTEE:

  Out of my company these converts flee,
  But that advantage is denied to me:
  My curst identity's confining skin
  Nor lets me out nor tolerates me in.
  Well, since my hopes eternally have fled,
  And, dead before, I'm more than ever dead,
  To find a grander tomb be now my task,
  And pack my pork into a stolen cask.
  (Exit, searching. Loud calls for the Author, who appears,
  bowing and smiling.)

  AUTHOR (singing):
  Jack Satan's the greatest of gods,
    And Hell is the best of abodes.
  'Tis reached, through the Valley of Clods,
    By seventy different roads.
    Hurrah for the Seventy Roads!
  Hurrah for the clods that resound
  With a hollow, thundering sound!
    Hurrah for the Best of Abodes!

  We'll serve him as long as we've breath—
    Jack Satan the greatest of gods.
  To all of his enemies, death!—
    A home in the Valley of Clods.
    Hurrah for the thunder of clods
  That smother the soul of his foe!
  Hurrah for the spirits that go
    To dwell with the Greatest of Gods;

  (Curtain falls to faint odor of mortality. Exit the Gas.)

THE BIRTH OF THE RAIL

  DRAMATIS PERSONF

  LELAND, THE KID              a Road Agent  COWBOY CHARLEY       Same Line of Business  HAPPY HUNTY          Ditto in All Respects  SOOTYMUG                           a Devil
  Scene—the Dutch Flat Stage Road, at 12 P.M., on a Night
  of 1864.

  COWBOY CHARLEY:

  My boss, I fear she is delayed to-night.
  Already it is past the hour, and yet
  My ears have reached no sound of wheels; no note
  Melodious, of long, luxurious oaths
  Betokens the traditional dispute
  (Unsettled from the dawn of time) between
  The driver and off wheeler; no clear chant
  Nor carol of Wells Fargo's messenger
  Unbosoming his soul upon the air—
  his prowess to the tender-foot,
  And how at divers times in sundry ways
  He strewed the roadside with our carcasses.
  Clearly, the stage will not come by to-night.

  LELAND, THE KID:

  I now remember that but yesterday
  I saw three ugly looking fellows start
  From Colfax with a gun apiece, and they
  Did seem on business of importance bent.
  Furtively casting all their eyes about
  And covering their tracks with all the care
  That business men do use. I think perhaps
  They were Directors of that rival line,
  The great Pacific Mail. If so, they have
  Indubitably taken in that coach,
  And we are overreached. Three times before
  This thing has happened, and if once again
  These outside operators dare to cut
  Our rates of profit I shall quit the road
  And take my money out of this concern.
  When robbery no longer pays expense
  It loses then its chiefest charm for me,
  And I prefer to cheat—you hear me shout!

  HAPPY HUNTY:

  My chief, you do but echo back my thoughts:
  This competition is the death of trade.
  'Tis plain (unless we wish to go to work)
  Some other business we must early find.
  What shall it be? The field of usefulness
  Is yearly narrowing with the advance
  Of wealth and population on this coast.
  There's little left that any man can do
  Without some other fellow stepping in
  And doing it as well. If one essay
  To pick a pocket he is sure to feel
  (With what disgust I need not say to you)
  Another hand inserted in the same.
  You crack a crib at dead of night, and lo!
  As you explore the dining-room for plate
  You find, in session there, a graceless band
  Stuffing their coats with spoons, their skins with wine.
  And so it goes. Why even undertake
  To salt a mine and you will find it rich
  With noble specimens placed there before!

  LELAND, THE KID:

  And yet this line of immigration has
  Advantages superior to aught
  That elsewhere offers: all these passengers,
  If punched with care—

  COWBOY CHARLEY:

                     Significant remark!
  It opens up a prospect wide and fair,
  Suggesting to the thoughtful mind—my mind—
  A scheme that is the boss lay-out. Instead
  Of stopping passengers, let's carry them.
  Instead of crying out: "Throw up your hands!"
  Let's say: "Walk up and buy a ticket!" Why
  Should we unwieldy goods and bullion take,
  Watches and all such trifles, when we might
  Far better charge their value three times o'er
  For carrying them to market?

  LELAND, THE KID:

                                Put it there,
  Old son!

  HAPPY HUNTY:

            You take the cake, my dear. We'll build
  A mighty railroad through this pass, and then
  The stage folk will come up to us and squeal,
  And say: "It is bad medicine for both:
  What will you give or take?" And then we'll sell.

  COWBOY CHARLEY:

  Enlarge your notions, little one; this is
  No petty, slouching, opposition scheme,
  To be bought off like honest men and fools;
  Mine eye prophetic pierces through the mists
  That cloud the future, and I seem to see
  A well-devised and executed scheme
  Of wholesale robbery within the law
  (Made by ourselves)—great, permanent, sublime,
  And strong to grapple with the public throat—
  Shaking the stuffing from the public purse,
  The tears from bankrupt merchants' eyes, the blood
  From widows' famished carcasses, the bread
  From orphans' mouths!

  HAPPY HUNTY:

                        Hooray!

  LELAND, THE; KID:

                                Hooray!

  ALL:

                                        Hooray!

  (They tear the masks from their faces, and discharging their
  shotguns, throw them into the chapparal. Then they join hands,
  dance and sing the following song:)
  Ah! blesshd to measure
  The glittering treasure!
    Ah! blesshd to heap up the gold
               Untold
  That flows in a wide
  And deepening tide—
    Rolled, rolled, rolled
  From multifold sources,
  Converging its courses
    Upon our—

  LELAND, THE KID:

  Just wait a bit, my pards, I thought I heard
  A sneaking grizzly cracking the dry twigs.
  Such an intrusion might deprive the State
  Of all the good that we intend it. Ha!

  (Enter Sootymug. He saunters carelessly in and gracefully
  leans his back against a redwood.)
  SOOTYMUG:

  My boys, I thought I heard
    Some careless revelry,
  As if your minds were stirred
    By some new devilry.
  I too am in that line. Indeed, the mission
  On which I come—

  HAPPY HUNTY:

              Here's more damned competition!
                (Curtain.)

A BAD NIGHT

  DRAMATIS PERSONF.

  VILLIAM                    a Sen  NEEDLESON             a Sidniduc  SMILER               a Scheister  KI-YI                   a Trader  GRIMGHAST               a Spader  SARALTHIA      a Love-lorn Nymph  NELLIBRAC              a Sweetun
  A BODY; A GHOST; AN UNMENTIONABLE THING; SKULLS;
  HOODOOS; ETC.

  Scene—a Cemetery in San Francisco.

  Saralthia, Nellibrac, Grimghast.

  SARALTHIA:

  The red half-moon is dipping to the west,
  And the cold fog invades the sleeping land.
  Lo! how the grinning skulls in the level light
  Litter the place! Methinks that every skull
  Is a most lifelike portrait of my Sen,
  Drawn by the hand of Death; each fleshless pate,
  Cursed with a ghastly grin to eyes unrubbed
  With love's magnetic ointment, seems to mine
  To smile an amiable smile like his
  Whose amiable smile I—I alone
  Am able to distinguish from his leer!
  See how the gathering coyotes flit
  Through the lit spaces, or with burning eyes
  Star the black shadows with a steadfast gaze!
  About my feet the poddy toads at play,
  Bulbously comfortable, try to hop,
  And tumble clumsily with all their warts;
  While pranking lizards, sliding up and down
  My limbs, as they were public roads, impart
  A singularly interesting chill.
  The circumstance and passion of the time,
  The cast and manner of the place—the spirit
  Of this confederate environment,
  Command the rights we come to celebrate
  Obedient to the Inspired Hag—
  The seventh daughter of the seventh daughter,
  Who rules all destinies from Minna street,
  A dollar a destiny. Here at this grave,
  Which for my purposes thou, Jack of Spades—
                 (To Grimghast)
  Corrupter than the thing that reeks below—
  Hast opened secretly, we'll work the charm.
  Now what's the hour?
                   (Distant clock strikes thirteen.)
                   Enough—hale forth the stiff!

  (Grimghast by means of a boat-hook stands the coffin on end
  in the excavation; the lid crumbles, exposing the remains of a
  man.)
  Ha! Master Mouldybones, how fare you, sir?

  THE BODY:

  Poorly, I thank your ladyship; I miss
  Some certain fingers and an ear or two.
  There's something, too, gone wrong with my inside,
  And my periphery's not what it was.
  How can we serve each other, you and I?

  NELLIBRAC:

  O what a personable man!

  (Blushes bashfully, drops her eyes and twists the corner of
  her apron.)

  SARALTHIA:

                              Yes, dear,
  A very proper and alluring male,
  And quite superior to Lubin Rroyd,
  Who has, however, this distinct advantage—
  He is alive.

  GRIMGHAST:

                    Missus, these yer remains
  Was the boss singer back in '72,
  And used to allers git invites to go
  Down to Swellmont and sing at every feed.
  In t'other Villiam's time, that was, afore
  The gent that you've hooked onto bought the place.

  THE BODY (singing):
  Down among the sainted dead
    Many years I lay;
  Beetles occupied my head,
    Moles explored my clay.

  There we feasted day and night—
    I and bug and beast;
  They provided appetite
    And I supplied the feast.

  The raven is a dicky-bird,

  SARALTHIA (singing):
  The jackal is a daisy,

  NELLIBRAC (singing):
          The wall-mouse is a worthy third,

  A SPOOK (singing):
          But mortals all are crazy.

  CHORUS OF SKULLS:

          O mortals all are crazy,
          Their intellects are hazy;
  In the growing moon they shake their shoon
          And trip it in the mazy.

          But when the moon is waning,
          Their senses they're regaining:
        They fall to prayer and from their hair
          Remove the straws remaining.

  SARALTHIA:

  That's right, Rogues Gallery, pray keep it up:
  Your song recalls my Villiam's "Auld Lang Syne,"
  What time he came and (like an amorous bird
  That struts before the female of its kind,
  Warbling to cave her down the bank) piped high
  His cracked falsetto out of reach. Enough—
  Now let's to business. Nellibrac, sweet child,
  St. Cloacina's future devotee,
  The time is ripe and rotten—gut the grip!

  (Nellibrac brings forward a valise and takes from it five
  articles of clothing, which, one by one, she lays upon the points
  of a magic pentagram that has thoughtfully inscribed itself in
  lines of light on the wet grass. The Body holds its late lamented
  nose.)
  NELLIBRAC (singing):
          Fragrant socks, by Villiam's toes
          Consecrated to the nose;

          Shirt that shows the well worn track
          Of the knuckles of his back,

          Handkerchief with mottled stains,
          Into which he blew his brains;

          Collar crying out for soap—
          Prophet of the future rope;

          An unmentionable thing
          It would sicken me to sing.

  UNMENTIONABLE THING (aside):
  What! I unmentionable? Just you wait!
  In all the family journals of the State
  You'll sometime see that I'm described at length,
  With supereditorial grace and strength.

  SARALTHIA (singing):
          Throw them in the open tomb
          They will cause his love to bloom
          With an amatory boom!

  CHORUS OF INVISIBLE HOODOOS:

          Hoodoo, hoodoo, voudou-vet
          Villiam struggles in the net!
          By the power and intent
          Of the charm his strength is spent!
          By the virtue in each rag
          Blessed by the Inspired Hag
          He will be a willing victim
          Limp as if a donkey kicked him!
          By this awful incantation
          We decree his animation—

          By the magic of our art
          Warm the cockles of his heart,
          Villiam, if alive or dead,
          Thou Saralthia shalt wed!

  (They cast the garments into the grave and push over the
  coffin. Grimghast fills up the hole. Hoodoos gradually become
  apparent in a phosphorescent light about the grave, holding one
  another's back-hair and dancing in a circle.)
  HOODOO SONG AND DANCE:

    O we're the larrikin hoodoos!
    The chirruping, lirruping hoodoos!
    We mix things up that the Fates ordain,
    Bring back the past and the present detain,
    Postpone the future and sometimes tether
    The three and drive them abreast together—
    We rollicking, frolicking hoodoos!

    To us all things are the same as none
    And nothing is that is under the sun.
    Seven's a dozen and never is then,
    Whether is what and what is when,
    A man is a tree and a cuckoo a cow
    For gold galore and silver enow
    To magical, mystical hoodoos!

  SARALTHIA:

  What monstrous shadow darkens all the place,

                           (Enter Smyler.)
  Flung like a doom athwart—ha!—thou?
  Portentous presence, art thou not the same
  That stalks with aspect horrible among
  Small youths and maidens, baring snaggy teeth,
  Champing their tender limbs till crimson spume,
  Flung from, thy lips in cursing God and man,
  Incarnadines the land?

  SMYLER:

                         Thou dammid slut!

                                (Exit Smyler.)
  NELLIBRAC:

  O what a pretty man!

  SARALTHIA

                       Now who is next?
  Of tramps and casuals this graveyard seems
  Prolific to a fault!

  (Enter Needleson, exhaling, prophetically, an odor of decayed
  eggs and, actually, one of unlaundried linen. He darts an
  intense regard at an adjacent marble angel and places his open
  hand behind his ear.)
  NEEDLESON:

                       Hay?
                                 (Exit Needleson.)
  NELLIBRAC:

                            Sweet, sweet male!
  I yearn to play at Copenhagen with him!

                      (Blushes diligently and energetically.)
  CHORUS OF SKULLS:

        Hoodoos, hoodoos, disappear—
        Some dread deity draws near!

                                 (Exeunt Hoodos.)
        Smitten with a sense of doom,
        The dead are cowering in the tomb,
        Seas are calling, stars are falling
        And appalling is the gloom!
        Fragmentary flames are flung
        Through the air the trees among!
        Lo! each hill inclines its head—
        Earth is bending 'neath his thread!

  (On the contrary, enter Villiam on a chip, navigating an
  odor of mignonette. Saralthia springs forward to put him in
  her pocket, but he is instantly retracted by an invisible string.
  She falls headlong, breaking her heart. Reknter Villiam,
  Needleson, Smyler. All gather about Saralthia, who loudly
  laments her accident. The Spirit of Tar-and Feathers, rising
  like a black smoke in their midst, executes a monstrous wink of
  graphic and vivid significance, then contemplates them with an
  obviously baptismal intention. The cross on Lone Mountain
  takes fire, splendoring the Peninsula. Tableau. Curtain.)

ON STONE

  As in a dream, strange epitaphs I see,
    Inscribed on yet unquarried stone,
    Where wither flowers yet unstrown—
  The Campo Santo of the time to be.

A WREATH OF IMMORTELLES

  LORING PICKERING

  (After Pope)

  Here rests a writer, great but not immense,
  Born destitute of feeling and of sense.
  No power he but o'er his brain desired—
  How not to suffer it to be inspired.
  Ideas unto him were all unknown,
  Proud of the words which, only, were his own.
  So unreflecting, so confused his mind,
  Torpid in error, indolently blind,
  A fever Heaven, to quicken him, applied,
  But, rather than revive, the sluggard died.

  A WATER-PIRATE

  Pause, stranger—whence you lightly tread
  Bill Carr's immoral part has fled.
  For him no heart of woman burned,
  But all the rivers' heads he turned.
  Alas! he now lifts up his eyes
  In torment and for water cries,
  Entreating that he may procure
  One drop to cool his parched McClure!

  C.P. BERRY

  Here's crowbait!—ravens, too, and daws
  Flock hither to advance their caws,
  And, with a sudden courage armed,
  Devour the foe who once alarmed—
  In life and death a fair deceit:
  Nor strong to harm nor good to eat.
  King bogey of the scarecrow host,
  When known the least affrighting most,
  Though light his hand (his mind was dark)
  He left on earth a straw Berry mark.

  THE REV. JOSEPH

  He preached that sickness he could floor
    By prayer and by commanding;
  When sick himself he sent for four
    Physicians in good standing.
  He was struck dead despite their care,
    For, fearing their dissension,
  He secretly put up a prayer,
    Thus drawing God's attention.

  Cynic perforce from studying mankind
  In the false volume of his single mind,
  He damned his fellows for his own unworth,
  And, bad himself, thought nothing good on earth.
  Yet, still so judging and so erring still,
  Observing well, but understanding ill,
  His learning all was got by dint of sight,
  And what he learned by day he lost by night.
  When hired to flatter he would never cease
  Till those who'd paid for praises paid for peace.
  Not wholly miser and but half a knave,
  He yearned to squander but he lived to save,
  And did not, for he could not, cheat the grave.
  Hic jacet Pixley, scribe and muleteer:
  Step lightly, stranger, anywhere but here.

  McAllister, of talents rich and rare,
    Lies at this spot at finish of his race.
  Alike to him if it is here or there:
    The one spot that he cared for was the ace.

  Here lies Joseph Redding, who gave us the catfish.
  He dined upon every fish except that fish.
  'Twas touching to hear him expounding his fad
  With a heart full of zeal and a mouth full of shad.
  The catfish miaowed with unspeakable woe
  When Death, the lone fisherman, landed their Jo.

  Judge Sawyer, whom in vain the people tried
  To push from power, here is laid aside.
  Death only from the bench could ever start
  The sluggish load of his immortal part.

  John Irish went, one luckless day,
  To loaf and fish at San Jose.
  He got no loaf, he got no fish:
  They brained him with an empty dish!
  They laid him in this place asleep—
  O come, ye crocodiles, and weep.

  In Sacramento City here
  This wooden monument we rear
  In memory of Dr. May,
  Whose smile even Death could not allay.
  He's buried, Heaven alone knows where,
  And only the hyenas care;
  This May-pole merely marks the spot
  Where, ere the wretch began to rot,
  Fame's trumpet, with its brazen bray,
  Bawled; "Who (and why) was Dr. May?"

  Dennis Spencer's mortal coil
  Here is laid away to spoil—
  Great riparian, who said
  Not a stream should leave its bed.
  Now his soul would like a river
  Turned upon its parching liver.

  For those this mausoleum is erected
  Who Stanford to the Upper House elected.
  Their luck is less or their promotion slower,
  For, dead, they were elected to the Lower.

  Beneath this stone lies Reuben Lloyd,
  Of breath deprived, of sense devoid.
  The Templars' Captain-General, he
  So formidable seemed to be,
  That had he not been on his back
  Death ne'er had ventured to attack.

  Here lies Barnes in all his glory—
  Master he of oratOry.
  When he died the people weeping,
  (For they thought him only sleeping)
  Cried: "Although he now is quiet
  And his tongue is not a riot,
  Soon, the spell that binds him breaking,
  He a motion will be making.
  Then, alas, he'll rise and speak
  In support of it a week."

  Rash mortal! stay thy feet and look around—
  This vacant tomb as yet is holy ground;
  But soon, alas! Jim Fair will occupy
  These premises—then, holiness, good-bye!

  Here Salomon's body reposes;
  Bring roses, ye rebels, bring roses.
  Set all of your drumsticks a-rolling,
  Discretion and Valor extrolling:
  Discretion—he always retreated—
  And Valor—the dead he defeated.
  Brings roses, ye loyal, bring roses:
  As patriot here he re-poses.

  When Waterman ended his bright career
  He left his wet name to history here.
  To carry it with him he did not care:
  'Twould tantalize spirits of statesmen There.

  Here lie the remains of Fred Emerson Brooks,
  A poet, as every one knew by his looks
  Who hadn't unluckily met with his books.

  On civic occasions he sprang to the fore
  With poems consisting of stanzas three score.
  The men whom they deafened enjoyed them the more.

  Of reason his fantasy knew not the check:
  All forms of inharmony came at his beck.
  The weight of his ignorance fractured his neck.

  In this peaceful spot, so the grave-diggers say,
  With pen, ink and paper they laid him away—
  The Poet-elect of the Judgment Day.

    George Perry here lies stiff and stark,
  With stone at foot and stone at head.
    His heart was dark, his mind was dark—
  "Ignorant ass!" the people said.

    Not ignorant but skilled, alas,
  In all the secrets of his trade:
    He knew more ways to be an ass
  Than any ass that ever brayed.

  Here lies the last of Deacon Fitch,
  Whose business was to melt the pitch.
  Convenient to this sacred spot
  Lies Sammy, who applied it, hot.
  'Tis hard—so much alike they smell—

  One's grave from t'other's grave to tell,
  But when his tomb the Deacon's burst
  (Of two he'll always be the first)
  He'll see by studying the stones
  That he's obtained his proper bones,
  Then, seeking Sammy's vault, unlock it,
  And put that person in his pocket.

  Beneath this stone O'Donnell's tongue's at rest—
  Our noses by his spirit still addressed.
  Living or dead, he's equally Satanic—
  His noise a terror and his smell a panic.

  When Gabriel blows a dreadful blast
  And swears that Time's forever past,
  Days, weeks, months, years all one at last,
  Then Asa Fiske, laid here, distressed,
  Will beat (and skin his hand) his breast:
  There'll be no rate of interest!

  Step lightly, stranger: here Jerome B. Cox
  Is for the second time in a bad box.
  He killed a man—the labor party rose
  And showed him by its love how killing goes.

    When Vrooman here lay down to sleep,
    The other dead awoke to weep.
  "Since he no longer lives," they said
  "Small honor comes of being dead."

  Here Porter Ashe is laid to rest
  Green grows the grass upon his breast.
  This patron of the turf, I vow,
  Ne'er served it half so well as now.

  Like a cold fish escaping from its tank,
  Hence fled the soul of Joe Russel, crank.
  He cried: "Cold water!" roaring like a beast.
  'Twas thrown upon him and the music ceased.

  Here Estee rests. He shook a basket,
  When, like a jewel from its casket,
  Fell Felton out. Said Estee, shouting
  With mirth; "I've given you an outing."
  Then told him to go back. He wouldn't.
  Then tried to put him back. He couldn't.
  So Estee died (his blood congealing
  In Felton's growing shadow) squealing.

  Mourn here for one Bruner, called Elwood.
  He doesn't—he never did—smell good
    To noses of critics and scholars.
  If now he'd an office to sell could
  He sell it? O, no—where (in Hell) could
    He find a cool four hundred dollars?

  Here Stanford lies, who thought it odd
  That he should go to meet his God.
  He looked, until his eyes grew dim,
  For God to hasten to meet him.

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