Shapes of Clay

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by Ambrose Bierce


  You've ravished, and despoiled the Hebrides,

  To brew me remedies which, in probation,

  Were sovereign only in their application.

  In vain, and eke in pain, have I applied

  Your flattering unctions to my soul and hide:

  Physic and hope have been my daily food—

  I've swallowed treacle by the holy rood!

  "Your wisdom, which sufficed to guide the year

  And tame the seasons in their mad career,

  When set to higher purposes has failed me

  And added anguish to the ills that ailed me.

  Nor that alone, but each ambitious leech

  His rivals' skill has labored to impeach

  By hints equivocal in secret speech.

  For years, to conquer our respective broils,

  We've plied each other with pacific oils.

  In vain: your turbulence is unallayed,

  My flame unquenched; your rioting unstayed;

  My life so wretched from your strife to save it

  That death were welcome did I dare to brave it.

  With zeal inspired by your intemperate pranks,

  My subjects muster in contending ranks.

  Those fling their banners to the startled breeze

  To champion some royal ointment; these

  The standard of some royal purge display

  And 'neath that ensign wage a wasteful fray!

  Brave tongues are thundering from sea to sea,

  Torrents of sweat roll reeking o'er the lea!

  My people perish in their martial fear,

  And rival bagpipes cleave the royal ear!

  "Now, caitiffs, tremble, for this very hour

  Your injured sovereign shall assert his power!

  Behold this lotion, carefully compound

  Of all the poisons you for me have found—

  Of biting washes such as tan the skin,

  And drastic drinks to vex the parts within.

  What aggravates an ailment will produce—

  I mean to rub you with this dreadful juice!

  Divided counsels you no more shall hatch—

  At last you shall unanimously scratch.

  Kneel, villains, kneel, and doff your shirts—God bless us!

  They'll seem, when you resume them, robes of Nessus!"

  The sovereign ceased, and, sealing what he spoke,

  From Arthur's Seat[1] confirming thunders broke.

  The conscious culprits, to their fate resigned,

  Sank to their knees, all piously inclined.

  This act, from high Ben Lomond where she floats,

  The thrifty goddess, Caledonia, notes.

  Glibly as nimble sixpence, down she tilts

  Headlong, and ravishes away their kilts,

  Tears off each plaid and all their shirts discloses,

  Removes each shirt and their broad backs exposes.

  The king advanced—then cursing fled amain

  Dashing the phial to the stony plain

  (Where't straight became a fountain brimming o'er,

  Whence Father Tweed derives his liquid store)

  For lo! already on each back sans stitch

  The red sign manual of the Rosy Witch!

  ONEIROMANCY.

  I fell asleep and dreamed that I

  Was flung, like Vulcan, from the sky;

  Like him was lamed—another part:

  His leg was crippled and my heart.

  I woke in time to see my love

  Conceal a letter in her glove.

  PEACE.

  When lion and lamb have together lain down

  Spectators cry out, all in chorus;

  "The lamb doesn't shrink nor the lion frown—

  A miracle's working before us!"

  But 't is patent why Hot-head his wrath holds in,

  And Faint-heart her terror and loathing;

  For the one's but an ass in a lion's skin,

  The other a wolf in sheep's clothing.

  THANKSGIVING.

  The Superintendent of an Almshouse. A Pauper.

  SUPERINTENDENT:

  So you're unthankful—you'll not eat the bird?

  You sit about the place all day and gird.

  I understand you'll not attend the ball

  That's to be given to-night in Pauper Hall.

  PAUPER:

  Why, that is true, precisely as you've heard:

  I have no teeth and I will eat no bird.

  SUPERINTENDENT:

  Ah! see how good is Providence. Because

  Of teeth He has denuded both your jaws

  The fowl's made tender; you can overcome it

  By suction; or at least—well, you can gum it,

  Attesting thus the dictum of the preachers

  That Providence is good to all His creatures—

  Turkeys excepted. Come, ungrateful friend,

  If our Thanksgiving dinner you'll attend

  You shall say grace—ask God to bless at least

  The soft and liquid portions of the feast.

  PAUPER.

  Without those teeth my speech is rather thick—

  He'll hardly understand Gum Arabic.

  No, I'll not dine to-day. As to the ball,

  'Tis known to you that I've no legs at all.

  I had the gout—hereditary; so,

  As it could not be cornered in my toe

  They cut my legs off in the fond belief

  That shortening me would make my anguish brief.

  Lacking my legs I could not prosecute

  With any good advantage a pursuit;

  And so, because my father chose to court

  Heaven's favor with his ortolans and Port

  (Thanksgiving every day!) the Lord supplied

  Saws for my legs, an almshouse for my pride

  And, once a year, a bird for my inside.

  No, I'll not dance—my light fantastic toe

  Took to its heels some twenty years ago.

  Some small repairs would be required for putting

  My feelings on a saltatory footing.

  (Sings)

  O the legless man's an unhappy chap—

  Tum-hi, tum-hi, tum-he o'haddy.

  The favors o' fortune fall not in his lap—

  Tum-hi, tum-heedle-do hum.

  The plums of office avoid his plate

  No matter how much he may stump the State—

  Tum-hi, ho-heeee.

  The grass grows never beneath his feet,

  But he cannot hope to make both ends meet—

  Tum-hi.

  With a gleeless eye and a somber heart,

  He plays the role of his mortal part:

  Wholly himself he can never be.

  O, a soleless corporation is he!

  Tum.

  SUPERINTENDENT:

  The chapel bell is calling, thankless friend,

  Balls you may not, but church you shall, attend.

  Some recognition cannot be denied

  To the great mercy that has turned aside

  The sword of death from us and let it fall

  Upon the people's necks in Montreal;

  That spared our city, steeple, roof and dome,

  And drowned the Texans out of house and home;

  Blessed all our continent with peace, to flood

  The Balkan with a cataclysm of blood.

  Compared with blessings of so high degree,

  Your private woes look mighty small—to me.

  L'AUDACE.

  Daughter of God! Audacity divine—

  Of clowns the terror and of brains the sign—

  Not thou the inspirer of the rushing fool,

  Not thine of idiots the vocal drool:

  Thy bastard sister of the brow of brass,

  Presumption, actuates the charging ass.

  Sky-born Audacity! of thee who sings

  Should strike with freer hand than mine the strings;

  The notes
should mount on pinions true and strong,

  For thou, the subject shouldst sustain the song,

  Till angels lean from Heaven, a breathless throng!

  Alas! with reeling heads and wavering tails,

  They (notes, not angels) drop and the hymn fails;

  The minstrel's tender fingers and his thumbs

  Are torn to rags upon the lyre he strums.

  Have done! the lofty thesis makes demand

  For stronger voices and a harder hand:

  Night-howling apes to make the notes aspire,

  And Poet Riley's fist to slug the rebel wire!

  THE GOD'S VIEW-POINT.

  Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen,

  The wisest and the best of men,

  Betook him to the place where sat

  With folded feet upon a mat

  Of precious stones beneath a palm,

  In sweet and everlasting calm,

  That ancient and immortal gent,

  The God of Rational Content.

  As tranquil and unmoved as Fate,

  The deity reposed in state,

  With palm to palm and sole to sole,

  And beaded breast and beetling jowl,

  And belly spread upon his thighs,

  And costly diamonds for eyes.

  As Chunder Sen approached and knelt

  To show the reverence he felt;

  Then beat his head upon the sod

  To prove his fealty to the god;

  And then by gestures signified

  The other sentiments inside;

  The god's right eye (as Chunder Sen,

  The wisest and the best of men,

  Half-fancied) grew by just a thought

  More narrow than it truly ought.

  Yet still that prince of devotees,

  Persistent upon bended knees

  And elbows bored into the earth,

  Declared the god's exceeding worth,

  And begged his favor. Then at last,

  Within that cavernous and vast

  Thoracic space was heard a sound

  Like that of water underground—

  A gurgling note that found a vent

  At mouth of that Immortal Gent

  In such a chuckle as no ear

  Had e'er been privileged to hear!

  Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen,

  The wisest, greatest, best of men,

  Heard with a natural surprise

  That mighty midriff improvise.

  And greater yet the marvel was

  When from between those massive jaws

  Fell words to make the views more plain

  The god was pleased to entertain:

  "Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen,"

  So ran the rede in speech of men—

  "Foremost of mortals in assent

  To creed of Rational Content,

  Why come you here to impetrate

  A blessing on your scurvy pate?

  Can you not rationally be

  Content without disturbing me?

  Can you not take a hint—a wink—

  Of what of all this rot I think?

  Is laughter lost upon you quite,

  To check you in your pious rite?

  What! know you not we gods protest

  That all religion is a jest?

  You take me seriously?—you

  About me make a great ado

  (When I but wish to be alone)

  With attitudes supine and prone,

  With genuflexions and with prayers,

  And putting on of solemn airs,

  To draw my mind from the survey

  Of Rational Content away!

  Learn once for all, if learn you can,

  This truth, significant to man:

  A pious person is by odds

  The one most hateful to the gods."

  Then stretching forth his great right hand,

  Which shadowed all that sunny land,

  That deity bestowed a touch

  Which Chunder Sen not overmuch

  Enjoyed—a touch divine that made

  The sufferer hear stars! They played

  And sang as on Creation's morn

  When spheric harmony was born.

  Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen,

  The most astonished man of men,

  Fell straight asleep, and when he woke

  The deity nor moved nor spoke,

  But sat beneath that ancient palm

  In sweet and everlasting calm.

  THE AESTHETES.

  The lily cranks, the lily cranks,

  The loppy, loony lasses!

  They multiply in rising ranks

  To execute their solemn pranks,

  They moon along in masses.

  Blow, sweet lily, in the shade! O,

  Sunflower decorate the dado!

  The maiden ass, the maiden ass,

  The tall and tailless jenny!

  In limp attire as green as grass,

  She stands, a monumental brass,

  The one of one too many.

  Blow, sweet lily, in the shade! O,

  Sunflower decorate the dado!

  JULY FOURTH.

  God said: "Let there be noise." The dawning fire

  Of Independence gilded every spire.

  WITH MINE OWN PETARD.

  Time was the local poets sang their songs

  Beneath their breath in terror of the thongs

  I snapped about their shins. Though mild the stroke

  Bards, like the conies, are "a feeble folk,"

  Fearing all noises but the one they make

  Themselves—at which all other mortals quake.

  Now from their cracked and disobedient throats,

  Like rats from sewers scampering, their notes

  Pour forth to move, where'er the season serves,

  If not our legs to dance, at least our nerves;

  As once a ram's-horn solo maddened all

  The sober-minded stones in Jerich's wall.

  A year's exemption from the critic's curse

  Mends the bard's courage but impairs his verse.

  Thus poolside frogs, when croaking in the night,

  Are frayed to silence by a meteor's flight,

  Or by the sudden plashing of a stone

  From some adjacent cottage garden thrown,

  But straight renew the song with double din

  Whene'er the light goes out or man goes in.

  Shall I with arms unbraced (my casque unlatched,

  My falchion pawned, my buckler, too, attached)

  Resume the cuishes and the broad cuirass,

  Accomplishing my body all in brass,

  And arm in battle royal to oppose

  A village poet singing through the nose,

  Or strolling troubadour his lyre who strums

  With clumsy hand whose fingers all are thumbs?

  No, let them rhyme; I fought them once before

  And stilled their songs—but, Satan! how they swore!—

  Cuffed them upon the mouth whene'er their throats

  They cleared for action with their sweetest notes;

  Twisted their ears (they'd oft tormented mine)

  And damned them roundly all along the line;

  Clubbed the whole crew from the Parnassian slopes,

  A wreck of broken heads and broken hopes!

  What gained I so? I feathered every curse

  Launched at the village bards with lilting verse.

  The town approved and christened me (to show its

  High admiration) Chief of Local Poets!

  CONSTANCY.

  Dull were the days and sober,

  The mountains were brown and bare,

  For the season was sad October

  And a dirge was in the air.

  The mated starlings flew over

  To the isles of the southern sea.

  She wept for her warrior lover—

  Wept and exclaimed: "Ah, me!

  "Long years have
I mourned my darling

  In his battle-bed at rest;

  And it's O, to be a starling,

  With a mate to share my nest!"

  The angels pitied her sorrow,

  Restoring her warrior's life;

  And he came to her arms on the morrow

  To claim her and take her to wife.

  An aged lover—a portly,

  Bald lover, a trifle too stiff,

  With manners that would have been courtly,

  And would have been graceful, if—

  If the angels had only restored him

  Without the additional years

  That had passed since the enemy bored him

  To death with their long, sharp spears.

  As it was, he bored her, and she rambled

  Away with her father's young groom,

  And the old lover smiled as he ambled

  Contentedly back to the tomb.

  SIRES AND SONS.

  Wild wanton Luxury lays waste the land

  With difficulty tilled by Thrift's hard hand!

  Then dies the State!—and, in its carcass found,

  The millionaires, all maggot-like, abound.

  Alas! was it for this that Warren died,

  And Arnold sold himself to t' other side,

  Stark piled at Bennington his British dead,

  And Gates at Camden, Lee at Monmouth, fled?—

  For this that Perry did the foeman fleece,

  And Hull surrender to preserve the peace?

  Degenerate countrymen, renounce, I pray,

  The slothful ease, the luxury, the gay

  And gallant trappings of this idle life,

  And be more fit for one another's wife.

  A CHALLENGE.

  A bull imprisoned in a stall

  Broke boldly the confining wall,

  And found himself, when out of bounds,

  Within a washerwoman's grounds.

  Where, hanging on a line to dry,

  A crimson skirt inflamed his eye.

  With bellowings that woke the dead,

  He bent his formidable head,

  With pointed horns and gnarly forehead;

  Then, planting firm his shoulders horrid,

  Began, with rage made half insane,

  To paw the arid earth amain,

  Flinging the dust upon his flanks

  In desolating clouds and banks,

  The while his eyes' uneasy white

  Betrayed his doubt what foe the bright

 

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