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,
Show
ing 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 Beërsheba 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<
br />
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,"
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